The recovery URL is a unique, one-click link that restores a customer’s abandoned cart and takes them straight to checkout. It is the core mechanism that connects your Mautic recovery emails to the actual cart in your WooCommerce store.
How the Recovery URL Is Created
When a cart is first captured at checkout, the plugin generates a unique 32-character recovery token and stores it in the database alongside the cart data. This token is used to build the recovery URL in the following format:
https://yourstore.com/?mautic_woo_recover=RECOVERY_TOKENThe full recovery URL is constructed during the abandoned cart sync and pushed to the Mautic contact’s mautic_woo_recovery_url custom field. From there, you can insert it into your Mautic email templates.
What Happens When a Customer Clicks the Link
When a customer clicks the recovery URL from a Mautic email, the following steps happen in sequence:
- Token lookup – The plugin looks up the recovery token in the database. If the token is invalid or the cart no longer exists, the customer is redirected to the shop page.
- Cart restoration – The customer’s current WooCommerce cart is cleared, and the saved cart items are added back. Each product is restored with its original quantity, variation, and options.
- Cart total recalculation – WooCommerce recalculates the cart totals to reflect current product prices and tax rules.
- Coupon auto-apply – If recovery coupons are enabled and the auto-apply setting is turned on, the coupon code associated with this cart is automatically applied to the cart. The customer sees the discount on the checkout page without entering a code.
- Redirect to checkout – The customer is redirected to the WooCommerce checkout page with their restored cart and any applied coupon.
Important Details
- Existing cart items are replaced. If the customer already has items in their cart when they click the recovery link, those items are removed and replaced with the abandoned cart contents.
- Product availability. If a product in the abandoned cart has been deleted, is out of stock, or is no longer published, WooCommerce will skip that item during restoration. The customer will see only the available products.
- Prices may change. The cart is restored with the products, but prices are recalculated at the time of recovery. If a product’s price changed since the cart was abandoned, the customer will see the current price.
- One-time use. Recovery tokens work for carts with a status of abandoned or synced. Once the customer completes a purchase and the cart is marked as recovered, the token will no longer work.
Using the Recovery URL in Mautic Emails
The recovery URL is stored on the Mautic contact in a custom field called mautic_woo_recovery_url. To insert it into a Mautic email template, use the contact field token:
{contactfield=mautic_woo_recovery_url}In your email, create a button or link with this token as the URL. For example:
<a href="{contactfield=mautic_woo_recovery_url}">Complete Your Order</a>After Recovery
When the customer completes their order, the plugin detects the matching email address and marks the cart as recovered. At that point, the mautic_woo_cart_data and mautic_woo_recovery_url fields on the Mautic contact are cleared, and the recovered cart tag is applied. If a coupon was generated, it is moved to the trash in WooCommerce.