ActiveCampaign vs. Brevo vs. Privy

I've been using ActiveCampaign since around 2018-2019 and I've always been satisfied with the software. It's simple to use, connects with the other tools I use and makes it easy for me to duplicate automations, email templates and workflows as I need to. On top of that, any time I've had an issue (which I think is around twice in the past 5/6 years), the customer service has always been super helpful and my issue has been resolved quickly.

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Brevo is very suitable for companies and individuals who want to run email marketing campaigns, create a strong corporate image, manage customer relationships, and build customer loyalty. Like any application, there are areas for improvement, such as more templates and a simpler CRM application, but I believe it has more positive features than negative ones, and for us, it has become a strategic partner. Brevo es muy adecuado para empresas y personas que desean realizar campañas de mailing marketing, crear un sólida imagen corporativa, el CRM con los clientes y fidelizarlos. Hay puntos de mejora como toda aplicación como mas plantillas, mejor sencilles en su aplicativo de CRM pero considero que tiene mas funcionalidades positivas que negativas y para nosotros se ha convertido en un aliado estrategico This review was originally written in Spanish and has been translated into English using a third-party translation tool. While we strive for accuracy, some nuances or meanings may not be perfectly captured.

Adding Privy to your ecommerce store is a no brainer. You can very quickly increase your on-site email acquisition conversion rate through the Spin To Win wheel and other templates that Privy offers. You can also use it for additional on-site messaging like announcement bars and landing pages

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• Collects and filters emails from various lead magnets exceptionally well (especially if a user wants to re-sign up to the same lead magnet and go through it again, they can)
• Super easy to use email creation that is aesthetically pleasing and user friendly
• Easy email sequences and user classification from a large range of opt in trigger options

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• Sendinblue allows you to send emails that do not arrive in spam
• Sendinblue, through its security measures and filters, helps keep contact databases well organized and up to date
• Sendinblue offers an easy-to-use newsletter creation tool and, in case of lack of inspiration, many templates

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• Segments website visitors to your site: It can recognize who has been to your website once or many times. It allows you to present an offer to different user groups, present an offer, and then capture their email address.
• Provides flexible opt-in form options: Embedded opt-in forms, pop-ups. bars at the top of your site. You can redirect to a landing page or a thank you window, create a form that takes up the entire screen, provide an offer at the end, or simply thank users for their information.
• Easy user experience: Different options for designs, easy drag + drop builder. Easy installation, trackable results.
• Support their users: Holy cricket. Their support is so helpful. Privy was one of the first software companies that I've encountered that has really gone above and beyond for my team.
• Measurability: Privy understands that digital marketers want to track - They want to be able to split-test their options, track their results - not only views but conversions and $ conversions. Privy gives its users this ability.

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• It took me a while to get to understand where to find things, and I used a free online course from a consultant who specialises in AC to help me get the foundations set up more easily. That said, there were lots of onboarding workshops, which were good. It just felt like it required a lot of different angles of learning to just get started.
• The customer support took longer than other software to get back to me via email, though once I found the chat option for my most recent query, that was fast.
• I've ended up switching to another programme where more software is more naturally integrated, and the AC equivalent is included in the price, along with many other types of software. However, design-wise, ActiveCampaign is much better.
• I also had a problem with a form used on my WordPress website, which has a BuddyBoss platform - the colours on the form would be overridden by colour choices for the website, so they were hard to read (pink text on purple background instead of the gold text it was meant to be)
• I couldn't always find the templates I was looking for or how to access them for automation-based emails. I think when I used it, there was a new type of template for newsletters that weren't available for automations, so I had to recreate it, which added time.

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• Onboarding can be a bit tricky. As with most WordPress additions, different plugins will have different configurations. Don't expect to install and just click activate.
• Online support is highly technical. Email is its own beast and even good digital may not know more than the basics.
• The reporting is strangely not intuitive or even very end-user friendly even with the robust data being tracked.
• Composing in their editor can sometimes sync differently. Just like a video game, it's helpful to save often despite the autosave.

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• It gets some getting used to setting up emails with pictures.
• Service isn't cheap but you get what you pay for.

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I am committed at the moment. Rebuilding the automations I have would be a huge time drain. Plus the cost of learning a new system and the risk to deliverability of porting a 6,000 person list to a new platform. Also, AC offers everything I need ast a reasonable (but a little high) price. So, why not a 10? Because, early 2023, AC dropped a massive 2x price hike on long-term customers. They knew few would shift, so this feels like a cynical cash grab and left a bad taste, If they do something like this again, this camel will have a broken back.

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SendinBlue is providing an excellent value to my business by simplifying and speeding up the way that we interact with our customers

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• Flexible options: The software allows so many different kinds of opt-in form solutions: Full-page, pop-up, bar at the top of the page, embedded, etc.
• Easy UX: This software is easy to use for just about anyone on my team. It's easy to implement and work with. Design, form field determination, and integration is all relatively very easy to perform.
• Great support: We've had in-person calls with their support team, and they've been answer specific questions and offer relevant strategies. They've been willing to get on the phone with me and my clients to help us solve problems.
• Multiple integrations - No matter what CRM you're using, there's likely a way to integrate Privy forms into it.
• Easy installation on sites: Just a strip of code.
• Visible, measurable results: Tracking and data with visits, conversion events, and conversion $ tracked to the forms.

Incentivized

ActiveCampaign has been the easiest marketing automation software we have ever used. They provide tips throughout the entire process of anything you are building. Their support team through LIVE CHAT has been extremely fast and helpful. The monthly meetings provided with the enablement team has helped us through several large and urgent needs.

It's okay, it's easy to use, has good features, and good automation options, but it lacks better delivery support. Many messages end up in spam, even though I have a dedicated IP address that I pay for separately, and I think it needs more design options to make emails stand out, especially in terms of typography. That's why I'm not giving it a 10. It also lacks integration with other tools. EStá bien, es fácil de usar, tiene buenas funcionalidades, tiene buenas opciones de automatización, le falta mayor apoyo en cuanto a entrega, muchos de los mensajes se vana spam, aun cuando tengo una IP dedicada que pago por aparte y creo que faltan opciones de diseño para que los correos puedan ser diferentes, sobre todo en tipografía. Por eso no le doy 10. Falta integración con otras herramientas.

Privy is very easy to use and is intuitive to new users. The templates they provide give you a head start on campaign builds and their customer success team is approachable and knowledgable about the product. You do not have to be a tech wizard to get rolling with Privy, but the results will make you feel that way.

Incentivized

I haven't experienced application errors or unplanned outages at all. Active Campaign is ultra reliable and I would not be using them if that were the case. Also, the helpful emails they send are welcomed and informative, and present very practical tips and guidance for using the platform. They're always demonstrating new features and I'm thankful for that.

Incentivized

I have never had any planned outages in the time I have been using the software and have had no issues with accessing it.

Oh my gosh, Active Campaign's performance gets an A+++ in my book. The pages load quickly and so do the reports. I haven't noticed any slowdowns when it's integrating with other programs and it performs excellently on all levels.

Incentivized

Everything loads very quickly, it saves as you go along so you're unlikely to loose work if your computer fails. Reports are there immediately too so you're able to act quickly on customer engagement.

This might be the best part. The chat support lady offered to make a video to help me solve my problem. I worked in customer service for years and I've never done that, lol. So, if they're offering things like that, I can only imagine that they'd be able to handle most any issue you throw at them.

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These people helped me identify errors when setting up DKIM and were more than helpful in trying to diagnose low open rates with a few campaigns identifying where improvement can be made and how to more effectively manage contact lists. The support is excellent.

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The customer support team from Privy is incredible (shout out to Simone). Every person I have worked with has been knowledgable, helpful, polite, and responsive. They have a live chat feature and all CSRs do a great job.

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Very satisfied with our implementation in our professional medical practice, allowing us to be on top of client service, and not miss out on crucial information and insights. Marketing is often neglected in professional practices and ActiveCampaign solved this problem with aplomb.

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If you follow all the steps of the setup process they give you, any one can set this up in about 1 - 2 hours.

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I moved to ActiveCampaign from Mailchimp. Admittedly, I was using the free version of Mailchimp, but I had numerous episodes of subscriber data NOT being added to Mailchimp, despite using API to integrate with my mailing list. Obviously, I couldn't pay for clicks and not capture subscriber data, so I had to find something else. ActiveCampaign has been 100% reliable in testing.

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Sendinblue not stacking up so great unfortunately. We are considering going back to Constant Contact because of ongoing issues we are having with Sendinblue. We have however just upgraded to Premium with Sendinblue, mainly so we can get Telephone Support. But now it seems Sendinblue do not call you, you have to call them. With Constant Contact they would phone us and talk us through any issues we were having.

We selected Sendinblue initially because of price.

Also, our average Open rate over the last few months we were with Constant Contact was about 20%. Our Open rate - to exactly the same database, has dropped to under 10% with Sendinblue. We can't understand this. Doesn't make sense.

The Click Rate has stayed about the same - averaging about 2-3% on both platforms.

Incentivized

After having used quite a few email marketing platforms, I can say out of all of them we like Privy the best. Privy's integration with the BigCommerce platform makes it much easier to use than the others we tried in the past and we are happy with the results we have gotten and their excellent customer support which is superior especially to Mailchimp which can only be reached by email.

Incentivized

My web designer told me about Active Campaign and although I don't recall which platform I had before, I LOVE Active Campaign and its user friendliness. The transition was seamless and I've never had a problem with functionality or server failure.

Active Campaign provides so many features, and makes it easy for non-techies to maneuver around the site with ease. They capture information and put it in an easy-to-read format.

At this point, I don't think I'd ever use any other platform!

Incentivized

They have multiple options for upgrading bigger senders or if you need more emails sent in a month.

• I haven't monetized my list yet so no clear ROI but great from a list-building perspective
• The software is not cheap so at times I feel like I may not be getting the most out of the product because I'm not using all of the features

Incentivized

• Saved us over 80% of what we used to pay aWeber for the exact same services
• Maintained similar effectiveness in email blast/newsletter open rates (slightly less than aWeber but within margins)
• Saves us an incredible amount of time in content creation using Brevo content editor

• Positive impact for our clients - Our clients can see exactly how many views each opt-in has seen, how it has converted, and how much revenue has been generated from that opt-in and email sequence that it is linked to. (We have used this tool + paid traffic + email to generate more than $15k for some of our clients. And that's just one part of their marketing systems...That's about 150x ROI).
• Positive impact for us - We only want to recommend and use tools that have proven use cases and conversions. This is true here - and it means that we can reliably recommend and use it as a tool to grow revenue for our clients in combination with paid traffic and email marketing. They also support their partners - that means we're more efficient. Time is money - so that's a win here, too.

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