Get off of the email provider you're using and get on this one instead!
November 29, 2019

Get off of the email provider you're using and get on this one instead!

Page Vandiver | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Small Business

Overall Satisfaction with ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign is an email marketing platform/CRM that we use for our own company and for our clients. It automates email campaigns, user journeys, and allows us to send out single email broadcasts. ActiveCampaign provides a platform to communicate with potential customers and turn them into repeat customers, loyal buyers, and to follow up with people after purchase.
  • Email automation - Automated email marketing to potential customers, follow up with existing customers, and automated messaging to outside parties.
  • Flow building - This software allows companies to build simple or complicated sequences in a visual builder so that you can see exactly where people are in the sequence of messages.
  • CRM - Customer relationship data. Maintaining data points across a user journey (tagging a UTM source, current activity. If you have someone - and want to know where they are in the journey, there's a way to find that data and label a profile with that).
  • Integrations - ActiveCampaign integrates with almost everything. Seamlessly. You can trigger behaviors in other apps through Zapier, or import data from other software you use. It's a very easy experience to integrate with others.
  • Customer support - Every team member I've encountered has been exceptionally helpful. They are probably the bar for customer support in the tech industry, to be honest.
  • Email systems for the long-haul (and for sequences and emails that are expected to bring in a lot of $$$). Email marketing should be 30-50% of revenue for most businesses. It's THE platform that we recommend for coaches and other businesses to help them earn 6 & 7 figures from email. You can track A LOT of data through this software as a platform, which makes it a great candidate for businesses who want to grow and visualize where their customers are in the overall purchase process, as well as maintaining them as multiple purchases customers.
  • User education - I really appreciate the company's effort with many help articles, study halls in cities, and reps for accounts. It does take a bit to get up to date on what functionality the platform has and in applying it.
  • Migration from Mailchimp - Mailchimp has just been disabled as a CRM with access to Shopify. So a slew of customers are looking for new solutions. Technically Mailchimp is probably a competitor to ActiveCampaign as an ESP (email service provider), but if that's the case, wouldn't you want to make it easier to get data from that platform/migrate from that ESP?
  • Clarity in communication & expectation setting - (ex: possibilities if you do/don't have a rep) - I really appreciate the support that is provided by the platform - but my team was helping clients migrate to the platform for some time before we learned about extra services we had available to us (ex: partner programs, migration services) and then IF you had a rep, what expectations looked like for the relationship, things that you didn't have access to if you did have a rep.
  • Error prevention in sequences and flows - Building flows can be really tricky - make one spelling mistake on a tag, and you can really get yourself into trouble (and it takes a while to clean up the mess). New users need to put serious thought into what they're building and the data that they're trying to track.
  • Simplification of the system - I appreciate the system for what it is, but it's a lot more complicated than other ESP's. The capabilities are great - it's broad and flexible and can handle big builds, but it's not as user intuitive as Mailchimp for new users or out of the box.
  • Positive ROI for my team: We have invested to develop very specialized knowledge on this platform. Creating strategy, emails, and flows for our clients to track their clientele at all stages of the buying journey has been profitable for us.
  • Positive ROI for my clients: We've set up large builds and sent emails that have generated multi-thousands for clients specifically on this platform for its uses (and for its support). The support helps you save time (time is money). The use of the platform has also allowed us to create a scenario (and track it) where we can see thousands of dollars in ROI tracked to our work on the platform.
We love Mailchimp for beginners in the business. ActiveCampaign exceeds Mailchimp's capabilities when it comes to visualizing automation, tracking data, dynamic content, and support. We recommend ActiveCampaign to our clients who are serious - and growing to their goals.

We love Privy for pop-ups (which lead into flows). ActiveCampaign surpasses Privy in one respect - it's easier for the system to track people who come into the CRM through an ActiveCampaign form.

ActiveCampaign is the right choice for any growing business outside of eCom. Klaviyo is better for eCom owners who do business on Shopify. (easier user navigation, direct integration, simplified user flows, existing templates.) Klaviyo could be used for other businesses, but it's not really built for it - ActiveCampaigns' capabilities exceed Klaviyos for all other businesses.
This platform is a GREAT fit for almost any growing businesses or coach:
  • That has a minimum of 200 contacts (or that are planning on generating more very soon).
  • That has marketing and lead generation in place to grow their network.
  • That needs automated email marketing (automated messages sent out to potential, existing customers).
  • That wants to visualize their data (be able to see where potential customers are coming from.
  • That wants to integrate their email marketing with all other aspects of their business.
This isn't a great fit for brand new users to email:
  • If you are brand new to email marketing, need something super visual and super easy to use... ActiveCampaign may not be the best place to learn. It's mid-tech (some understanding needed) in order to execute these. The learning curve might prevent you from sending out emails altogether. Don't be intimidated, but if you're brand new, plan on asking for a bit of help.
  • If you're planning on building for the long-haul, then I would recommend this platform - just don't do the emails yourself. Hire this out to consultants or email marketers.
If you're an eCom business processing orders on Shopify, we recommend a different platform that is designed specifically for that use case.

ActiveCampaign Feature Ratings

WYSIWYG email editor
9
Dynamic content
9
Ability to test dynamic content
9
Landing pages
6
A/B testing
9
Mobile optimization
9
Email deliverability reporting
9
List management
9
Triggered drip sequences
9
Dashboards
8
Standard reports
8
Custom reports
8

Using ActiveCampaign

2 - Email marketing specialist - This person constructs email broadcasts to meet client strategic goals, represent strong graphic design, create tags and executes work from the email marketing strategist.

Email marketing strategist - This person takes client goals and turns them into email marketing initiatives (what that means in terms of how many emails they need, what audiences to target, what tags may need to be constructed).
2 - Skills required:
  • Basic understanding of software integrations and how they interact.
  • CRM management - understanding of tags, custom fields, and user data management so that customers are tracked appropriately.
  • Graphic design - Ability to create visually appealing messages to end-users.
  • Conditional logic - ability to create situations (and visual flows) that create the scenario that directs a contact through a series of automated messages.
  • User experience (from a mobile-first perspective) - composing your emails with mobile (single column) in mind.
  • Email marketing - The ability to create a strategy (and execution) for email messaging via A/B tests in email broadcast messages & automation to meet client goals.
  • Basic understanding of HTML.
  • Customer relationship management - Tracking individual users with data (tags, custom fields, likelihood to buy, etc.) and sending messages to them.
  • Email marketing with broadcast messages - Sending individual broadcast messages to individual users (at the right time) to get a desired result. We create A/B tests of these messages to be able to track how people respond to messages so that we can implement better messaging moving forward.
  • Email marketing automation - Sending automated messages to users throughout their buying journey, and directing customers through automated messages to support their buying and informational needs.
  • GDPR compliant automation - We created our own email marketing automation that complies with regulations.
  • Flow-sharing/Efficient business - our company creates flows for clients, and we can save these as records and templates for future work with more clients
  • Deals CRM - the platform has the ability to score leads and track deals in their lifestage.
For our clients (Course creators, event hosts & managers, business leaders that have existing marketing in place and want to grow past 6 & 7 figures), we highly recommend ActiveCampaign, because:
  • Broad capabilities - ability to create individual emails to specific segments (the right people) at the right time (predictive sending for the greatest likelihood of conversion) and automated flows so that our clients are generating revenue
  • Integrations - We run ads for our clients, and ActiveCampaign automatically creates dynamic audiences for our social media platforms so that our ads are going to audiences that have just opened or clicked emails (or that follows up with people who haven't engaged). The number of programs that ActiveCampaign connects to makes the marketing a seamless experience for our clients.
  • Visualization of data - With the flow builder, you can see where people are in the process, what tags are being applied overall - makes it so much easier to create email marketing solutions for clients.
  • Reporting - The ability to see specific open, click, and conversion rates in one place.
  • Outstanding customer support - Having the ActiveCampaign team behind you makes it easy to recommend and use it for clients.

ActiveCampaign Support

There are a few different ways to get support:
  • Chatbox in the lower corner. This is tech support, and they can answer a slew of different questions on demand (during service hours).
  • 1:1 support calls - 30 minutes of 1:1 call with a team member to address your needs
  • Rep - You can have calls and emails into your rep.
Every person I've come in contact with really goes above and beyond to answer questions, and provide support for your needs. The owners of the company must have really invested in this part of their business, because it's the bar that all other companies should be evaluated by (personal opinion).

One minor caveat - Our client does have a rep, and there was a misunderstanding (we were held accountable for information we didn't know, so there could still be some growth with expectation setting & understanding their company user journey), but the reason why they didn't set our expectations was because they were trying to support our needs (providing answers to questions). My understanding is that the company is working and growing in this area, and we've had many instances where a team member worked past hours or over and above to help us.
ProsCons
Quick Resolution
Good followup
Knowledgeable team
Problems get solved
No escalation required
Immediate help available
Support understands my problem
Support cares about my success
Quick Initial Response
Not kept informed
Yes - One of our client's automated campaigns was 15 minutes in delay. We had just launched a large sequence (15 emails) that were designed to go out immediately after a user opted in. The emails were delivering about 15 minutes after a user opted in - We reported it to ActiveCampaign - and they looked into it immediately. They stayed to answer more questions after they submitted the request to their tech team.
Yes: We had a chat session with a team member where we were actively trying to resolve looping automation. The team member on chat stayed about an hour past service hours trying to help us and make sure that our needs were taken care of. They added test users, looked at tags with us, and helped cross-check automation.

Our client also had a rep that made extra time to communicate and curtail the onboarding process so that our client's needs were met. Truly went above and beyond - even scheduling meetings while on personal holiday to make sure this client was looked after and supported. If you do get a rep, ASK what expectations are for the account and for your relationship, how they schedule meetings, etc, what options for support are available to you. We have had experience with another rep - there was a conversation where we were held accountable for information that was not shared with us, and it's taking a couple of conversations to get on the same page about the process (we were on different continents, use different tools, etc.) But overall a very very good experience with support.