ActiveCampaign vs. Printfection

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.

Incentivized

It is well suited for a one-stop shop that gets everything done in one place (sizing, order, warehousing, shipping, drop-shipping, ability to do one-off orders, support in the process). It is less appropriate if you need something very specific and what they have doesn't work for you or if you like to be very involved in the complete process. It is also less appropriate if price is a major factor.

Incentivized

• 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

Incentivized

• The swag catalogue has lots of items to choose from and they try to source anything else you need
• Takes care of the logistical challenges of getting swag to offices, events and to customers
• Their customer team are really hands on and helpful

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Their Giveaway feature was made some improvements but I would like to see it be more flexible
• Being able to get more samples of products and printing prior to ordering
• Swag photography/ items in stock in our closet- we had to provide photos of these items
• Better updates on swag items that are low in stock

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

We are currently extremely satisfied with printfection. The quality of swag is very good, but the customer service ranks high above any other swag company. I have been working closely with my Printfection manager (Tyler Rowland) and he has been more than helpful from the start.

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.

The product is really easy to use and manage. We love using Printfection. It's easy to order, ship and manage everything. I did remove one rating point because their set up for "giveaways" is a little cumbersome and I wish their platform notified you when products in your giveaways are running low.

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

Prinfection's availability has been great. There was one time when a product we needed wasn't available, but our Printfection rep made sure to get what we needed.

Incentivized

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

Printfection's performance has been top-notch. We have been using Printfection for only about 8 months, and have not had any issues with performance.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Every step of the way, I have been helped by someone who feels like a friend. They know their stuff and they get back to me in a timely manner. It gets frustrating when you need help but the "experts" don't offer any. Printfection isn't like this at all. They've done a great job making sure I understand everything I need to have a successful campaign for our employees.

Incentivized

Tyler led some of our staff through training and was very helpful. Tyler was also always available for any questions after training was complete.

Incentivized

We completed online training with a Printfection rep leading us through the process. This made the whole experience easy and helpful.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Their team is very helpful in getting set up and we felt like they worked with us on price and also getting our previous inventory we had at our offices set up in Printfection. The only down side of shipping in your items to Printfection is the photography of the items (which clients can see) is pretty terrible if you don't have clear product photos prior to sending the items to Printfection warehouse.

**All items purchased through Printfection the product photos look better (so this issue won't be the case with those who aren't shipping existing swag to their warehouse)

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

There were a couple of reasons we selected Printfection: price and contract/level of commitment (we are on a month-to-month plan). To be honest, there are products that integrate better with Salesforce and have more capabilities but we were looking for something that didn't require us to sign a year contract and was a reasonable price. After purchasing, we are extremely impressed with their team and consider this a huge benefit of going with Printfection.

Incentivized

Simple pricing and easy to pitch to stakeholders

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

Only a few of our departments will be using Printfection, (like HR and Customer Success), but both departments find Printfection flexible and scalable.

Incentivized

There aren't many professional services besides what is related to their product. What would have been great was to get design services included in our membership since we dont have one in house

Incentivized

• 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

• Previously we had a "welcome" kit for certain new customers with custom packaging and great messaging. It was very successful in helping kick off a new customer relationship.
• If the platform was integrated with our CRM we'd have more metrics to be able to measure ROI.

Incentivized