The removed-from-cart signal captures when a user removes a product, service or offering from their shopping cart. This signal is essential for understanding customer purchase intent, identifying friction points in the buying journey and enabling targeted re-engagement campaigns.

This signal tracks detailed information about products that customers have removed from their cart, including product details, pricing, quantities and promotional information. By capturing this data, you can:

Identify products with high abandonment rates
Trigger personalized win-back campaigns for abandoned items
Analyze pricing sensitivity and discount effectiveness
Optimize the checkout experience by understanding removal patterns
Create targeted segments based on cart abandonment behavior

Availability: Pro, Premium and Ultimate

Implementation considerations

Removal locations

Users can remove items from different locations on your website:

Shopping cart page - The main cart view where users review their selections
Mini-cart or cart dropdown - Quick cart access from the header or sidebar
Checkout page - Last-minute removals during the checkout process
Mobile cart drawer - Slide-out cart panels on mobile devices

Each location may have different HTML structures and require different selectors.

Triggering the signal

Decide when to send the signal based on your site's behavior:

Immediate (on click) - Fire the signal as soon as the user clicks the Remove button. Best for tracking intent, even if the action fails.
Delayed (on cart update) - Fire the signal after confirming the item was removed from the cart. Ensures accuracy but may miss failed attempts.

Removal interactions

Different removal patterns may require different handling:

Remove button - Explicit "Remove" or "Delete" buttons
Quantity to zero - Users changing quantity to 0
Drag to remove - Swipe or drag gestures on mobile
Clear cart - Removing all items at once (may need to send individual signals for each item)

Data availability

Consider how product data is available when an item is removed:

From DOM - Product information is visible in the cart UI (easiest approach)
From cart state - Your application maintains a cart data object
From data layer - Cart removal events push data to a data layer (for example, Google Tag Manager)

Configuration

Method

TLT.logSignal(signalObject)

Sends the signal to the Acoustic Connect endpoint as a JSON object. The Connect library must be initialized before calling this method.

Signal structure

Top-level fields

category: String - Valid value - Behavior.
description: String - Description of the signal
effect: String - Describes the effect of the signal on engagement. It is intended to be used for engagement index scoring. Valid values: negative, positive. Use negative for all remove from cart signals.
name: String - Name to differentiate this signal from others (example: "removedFromCart from cart page" vs "removedFromCart from mini-cart"). Max length - 256 chars.
signalType (required): String - Valid value - removedFromCart.

Signal content

currency: String - ISO 4217 currency code (for example, "USD", "EUR", "GBP"). If there is only one currency on your website, provide a static value. If there is a selection, use dynamic values. If a remove-from-cart signal comes without a value, the system will fall back on the default currency set for your Connect subscription.
discount: Number - Discount amount or difference between original and current price
imageUrls: Array of strings - The URLs of product images
itemQuantity (required): Number - Quantity of items removed from the cart. Use integers.
productCategory: String - Product category name based on catalog
productCategoryId: String - Product category identifier
productDescription: String - Description of the product
productId (required): String - Unique product identifier (may match SKU)
productName (required): String - Name of the product
productUrls: Array of strings - The URLs of product pages
promotionId: String - ID from marketing campaigns associated with this product
shoppingCartUrl: String - URL of the shopping cart
unitPrice (required): Number - Unit price of the product
virtualCategory: String - Category based on navigation path (e.g., "New arrivals", "Sale")

Notes:

If any required field is missing or invalid, the entire signal will be discarded.
Optional fields enhance the signal but won't prevent processing if omitted or invalid.
If a required field isn't applicable to your business, use a placeholder value.

Basic example

const signal = {
    // Required fields
    signalType: "removedFromCart",
    productId: "SKU-12345",
    productName: "Wireless Headphones",
    itemQuantity: 1,
    unitPrice: 299.99,

    // Optional but recommended fields
    category: "Behavior",
    name: "removedFromCart from cart page",
    currency: "USD",
    productDescription: "Premium noise-cancelling headphones",
    discount: 30.00,
    productCategory: "Electronics",
    productUrls: ["https://example.com/products/headphones"],
    imageUrls: ["https://example.com/images/headphones.jpg"],
    shoppingCartUrl: "https://example.com/cart"
};

// Send the signal
TLT.logSignal(signal);

Complete implementation example

This example handles removal events from both the main cart page and a mini-cart dropdown.

// Check that the Connect library is present
if (window.TLT && window.TLT.isInitialized()) {
    // Define the signal template
    const signal = {
        // Required fields
        signalType: "removedFromCart",
        productId: "",
        productName: "",
        itemQuantity: 0,
        unitPrice: 0,

        // Optional fields
        name: "removedFromCart generated by website",
        category: "Behavior",
        currency: "USD",
        productDescription: "",
        discount: 0,
        productCategory: "",
        productCategoryId: "",
        productUrls: [],
        imageUrls: [],
        shoppingCartUrl: "https://" + window.location.host + "/shopping-cart",
        virtualCategory: "",
        promotionId: ""
    };

    // Define selectors for different remove button types
    const removeButtons = [{
            selector: ".cart-item__remove",
            type: "Cart page"
        },
        {
            selector: ".mini-cart__remove-btn",
            type: "Mini-cart"
        }
    ];

    // Attach click listeners to all matching elements
    removeButtons.forEach((removeButton) => {
        const elements = document.querySelectorAll(removeButton.selector);
        if (!elements.length) return;

        elements.forEach((element) => {
            element.addEventListener("click", () => {
                // Find the cart item container
                const cartItem = element.closest(".cart-item") || element.closest(".mini-cart__item");

                if (cartItem) {
                    // Extract product information from the cart item
                    signal.productId = cartItem.getAttribute("data-product-id") ||
                        cartItem.querySelector(".product-id")?.innerText || "";

                    signal.productName = cartItem.getAttribute("data-product-name") ||
                        cartItem.querySelector(".product-name")?.innerText || "";

                    signal.itemQuantity = Number(cartItem.querySelector(".quantity-input")?.value) ||
                        Number(cartItem.getAttribute("data-quantity")) || 1;

                    // Extract pricing information
                    const priceElement = cartItem.querySelector(".price-current") ||
                        cartItem.querySelector(".product-price");
                    signal.unitPrice = priceElement ?
                        parseFloat(priceElement.innerText.replace(/[^0-9.]/g, "")) : 0;

                    const originalPriceElement = cartItem.querySelector(".price-original");
                    if (originalPriceElement) {
                        const originalPrice = parseFloat(originalPriceElement.innerText.replace(/[^0-9.]/g, ""));
                        signal.discount = Math.round((originalPrice - signal.unitPrice) * 100) / 100;
                    }

                    // Extract optional information
                    const productLink = cartItem.querySelector("a.product-link");
                    if (productLink) {
                        signal.productUrls = [productLink.href];
                    }

                    const productImage = cartItem.querySelector(".product-image img");
                    if (productImage) {
                        signal.imageUrls = [productImage.src.split("?")[0]];
                    }

                    const categoryElement = cartItem.querySelector(".product-category");
                    if (categoryElement) {
                        signal.productCategory = categoryElement.innerText;
                    }

                    // Set removal location
                    signal.name = `removedFromCart from ${removeButton.type}`;

                    console.log("removedFromCart signal:", JSON.stringify(signal, undefined, 2));
                    TLT.logSignal(signal);
                }
            });
        });
    });

    // Handle quantity changes to zero (alternative removal method)
    const quantityInputs = document.querySelectorAll(".quantity-input");
    quantityInputs.forEach((input) => {
        input.addEventListener("change", (event) => {
            const newQuantity = Number(event.target.value);

            if (newQuantity === 0) {
                const cartItem = input.closest(".cart-item");

                if (cartItem) {
                    signal.productId = cartItem.getAttribute("data-product-id") || "";
                    signal.productName = cartItem.getAttribute("data-product-name") || "";
                    signal.itemQuantity = Number(cartItem.getAttribute("data-quantity")) || 1;

                    const priceElement = cartItem.querySelector(".price-current");
                    signal.unitPrice = priceElement ?
                        parseFloat(priceElement.innerText.replace(/[^0-9.]/g, "")) : 0;

                    signal.name = "removedFromCart by quantity change";

                    console.log("removedFromCart signal:", JSON.stringify(signal, undefined, 2));
                    TLT.logSignal(signal);
                }
            }
        });
    });
}