ActiveCampaign vs. Emma by Marigold

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
ActiveCampaign
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
ActiveCampaign helps small teams power big businesses with a platform for intelligent marketing automation. It provides email marketing, marketing automation, and CRM tools that help businesses to create incredible customer experiences.
$15
per month
Emma by Marigold
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Emma by Marigold is an email marketing solution. Its key features include mobile-ready design templates, email automation, audience segmentation, and dynamic content. The software includes integration with third-party CRM solutions, ecommerce platforms, and social networks.
$500
per year per user
Pricing
ActiveCampaignEmma by Marigold
Editions & Modules
Starter
$15
per month
Plus
$49
per month
Pro
$79
per month
Enterprise
$145
per month
Basic
$500
per year per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ActiveCampaignEmma by Marigold
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsNo matter what plan you choose, our services are designed to help you get the most out of your investment — so you can focus on running your business. ActiveCampaign services included in all plan tiers: ActiveTraining Community access Contact migration Customer enablement workshops Video tutorials Chat and ticket support Knowledge base & help guides
More Pricing Information
Features
ActiveCampaignEmma by Marigold
Email & Online Marketing
Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
8.8
674 Ratings
13% above category average
Emma by Marigold
9.1
31 Ratings
12% above category average
WYSIWYG email editor8.8591 Ratings8.024 Ratings
Dynamic content8.4527 Ratings9.025 Ratings
Ability to test dynamic content8.2477 Ratings9.024 Ratings
Landing pages7.2345 Ratings00 Ratings
A/B testing9.8387 Ratings9.024 Ratings
Mobile optimization9.1534 Ratings9.029 Ratings
Email deliverability reporting7.9640 Ratings10.031 Ratings
List management9.9659 Ratings10.031 Ratings
Triggered drip sequences9.9581 Ratings9.021 Ratings
Lead Management
Comparison of Lead Management features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
8.6
530 Ratings
9% above category average
Emma by Marigold
-
Ratings
Lead nurturing automation9.7497 Ratings00 Ratings
Lead scoring and grading9.1363 Ratings00 Ratings
Data quality management8.7405 Ratings00 Ratings
Automated sales alerts and tasks8.1359 Ratings00 Ratings
Lead segmentation and distribution7.26 Ratings00 Ratings
Campaign Management
Comparison of Campaign Management features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
9.7
379 Ratings
24% above category average
Emma by Marigold
-
Ratings
Calendaring9.8299 Ratings00 Ratings
Event/webinar marketing9.7287 Ratings00 Ratings
Social Media Marketing
Comparison of Social Media Marketing features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
8.7
290 Ratings
14% above category average
Emma by Marigold
-
Ratings
Social sharing and campaigns8.7257 Ratings00 Ratings
Social profile integration8.7252 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
7.8
637 Ratings
4% above category average
Emma by Marigold
10.0
31 Ratings
27% above category average
Dashboards7.7606 Ratings10.030 Ratings
Standard reports7.7594 Ratings9.931 Ratings
Custom reports8.1382 Ratings10.019 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
ActiveCampaign
9.4
499 Ratings
21% above category average
Emma by Marigold
-
Ratings
API9.8397 Ratings00 Ratings
Role-based workflow & approvals9.8271 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizability9.2425 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with Salesforce.com9.894 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM9.961 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with SugarCRM9.957 Ratings00 Ratings
Third-party software integrations7.726 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
ActiveCampaignEmma by Marigold
Small Businesses
Vbout
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Score 9.9 out of 10
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Mad Mimi
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.3 out of 10
VerticalResponse
VerticalResponse
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.3 out of 10
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Litmus
Score 8.8 out of 10
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User Ratings
ActiveCampaignEmma by Marigold
Likelihood to Recommend
8.4
(686 ratings)
8.0
(32 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.7
(25 ratings)
9.5
(5 ratings)
Usability
9.4
(47 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.2
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
1.3
(41 ratings)
2.0
(1 ratings)
In-Person Training
9.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
7.3
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.7
(14 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Configurability
6.4
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.1
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
1.0
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
6.4
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
7.3
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
ActiveCampaignEmma by Marigold
Likelihood to Recommend
ActiveCampaign
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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Marigold
Using Emma for weekly templated email use with minimal changes is awesome. If you want you can create a master and make minor graphic edits quickly and easily from your smartphone. Any edit is possible as long as the artwork is on the online server. Only time I hit a bump in the road is when I was asked to change the style sheet and did not know that the pricing plan I was on did not include this feature. Client had to wait to send new format until Emma performed the requested changes.
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Pros
ActiveCampaign
  • 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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Marigold
  • Enterprise-level email marketing with multi-level account structure allowing for multiple users at different levels to send campaigns
  • Easy-to-use WYSIWYG email template editors to create dynamic emails with enhanced personalization through merge-fields
  • A large API index that connects to many different platforms and the ability to work with Emma support to create new connections to new platforms as needed
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Cons
ActiveCampaign
  • 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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Marigold
  • Their customer service leaves something to be desired. We ran into an issue with one of our campaigns, and we decided to reach out to support, but they didn't get back with us until 3 hours later! Time is money!!
  • We don't like that their photo editing capabilities are limited, you can only choose small, medium or large photos with no way to resize to exact dimensions. Makes emails a bit of a pain
  • The upgraded premium tools are buggy and leave something to be desired as well – it's a shame.
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Likelihood to Renew
ActiveCampaign
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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Marigold
Emma has been a great tool for our marketing. It's easy to use and I've had no issues in the almost two years we've been with them. It's really been a great way for us to stay connected with customers that takes no time to setup and send
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Usability
ActiveCampaign
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.
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Marigold
While every WYSIWYG software will experience glitches, Emma handles them well. Keep in mind they rarely happen, but they do, it can be of annoyance. Regardless, Emma allows my organization to create seamless email campaigns using fresh data. Emma makes coming up with strategic decisions very easy. The list segmentation that Emma feature allows us to easily manage a large list without issues. Overall, Emma is extremely usable with nearly no learning curve!
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Reliability and Availability
ActiveCampaign
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.
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Marigold
No answers on this topic
Performance
ActiveCampaign
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.
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Marigold
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
ActiveCampaign
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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Marigold
I hate that to get support I have to submit a question to a public forum and wait for a response. I just want the ability for a quick live chat to answer my simple help questions quickly or at the very least submit a ticket via email and get a status update.
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Implementation Rating
ActiveCampaign
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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Marigold
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
ActiveCampaign
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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Marigold
At the time we made the decision to move to Emma, my organization was using both MailChimp and Constant Contact. Emma's drag-and-drop template editor surpassed both, and even editing the pre-made template HTML in Emma was easier. List management was much smoother than the clunky Constant Contact and MailChimp lists we had. From a design perspective, we chose Emma for its ease of use in creating templates and modifying existing ones, as well as the ability to push out branded templates and brand assets through its master admin/subaccount capabilities. Emma's analytics and reporting were much less frustrating to navigate and understand, such that, rather than spending all of our time trying to make sense of the metrics from a campaign (which we were definitely doing), we were attracted to being able to report easily and then move on to determining how to make real improvements
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Scalability
ActiveCampaign
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!
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Marigold
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
ActiveCampaign
  • 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
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Marigold
  • Stores using the platform have seen good deliverability stats. Open rates and click-through rates are high with the templates that Emma creates. We still face the challenge of getting more users on the platform.
  • User satisfaction is high for our users who are regularly using the platform.
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ScreenShots

ActiveCampaign Screenshots

Screenshot of tagging, that when combined with conditional content helps to put the right message in front of each customer.Screenshot of marketing automationScreenshot of audience segmentation based on engagement, purchase activity, lead score, or any other dimensionScreenshot of live chat, site messaging, email, and a unified inbox that can be used to build relationships with customers.Screenshot of the CRM, which helps sales reps to get more done in less time

Emma by Marigold Screenshots

Screenshot of dynamic content used to send unique, personalized content to each subscriber based on the data stored about them from a single email.Screenshot of the editor's drag & drop layouts and inline text editing, that help to keep the creative process fast and flexible.Screenshot of a display of account activity, email performance and recent mailings in one place right after login.Screenshot of insights on the go using Metric, the included iPhone and Android app.Screenshot of response results that give insights into what's working and provide next steps.Screenshot of customizable, mobile-optimized templates to show off a brand and content in the template gallery.