ActiveCampaign

Our Thoughts on ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign is a hidden gem in the marketing automation world.

They’re one of the most affordable providers for small businesses and their software is exceptionally well-designed. Despite this, very few people have even heard of them.

We recently moved this website’s automation to ActiveCampaign and have since built a large number of workflows, pushing the software to its limits – here’s what we found.

There aren’t many bad things to say about ActiveCampaign. While the dashboard could be more customizable, and viewing a contact’s details could be made more intuitive, these are minor details. Unlike other marketing automation tools I’ve used that have been designed for small businesses, I’ve yet to have an idea that the software won’t allow me to build.

Their pricing is also extremely generous for the quality of product offered.

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Pros and cons
ActiveCampaign’s pricing
ActiveCampaign user reviews
Alternatives to ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign User Reviews

7.5 Users (1 vote)

Overall

Ease of Use

Customer Support

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Go to ActiveCampaign.com

ActiveCampaign's Pros and Cons

Overall, ActiveCampaign is a very good piece of software with only a small number of flaws. It has one of the best user interfaces for building automation campaigns, making it easy and enjoyable to use.

Pros

Ease of use – ActiveCampaign were the first platform to pioneer the visual marketing automation builder. The first thing that you notice when you start using ActiveCampaign is how well-designed and intuitive the user interface is. It’s one of the only marketing automation tools we’ve used that requires no training to understand.

Affordable – For the majority of small business who don’t want to commit to paying thousands of dollars per year for marketing automation, ActiveCampaign is a great option. Their pricing starts at just $9/month with no upfront setup fees.

Lots of Integrations – ActiveCampaign integrates with 900+ tools. Unlike many automation tools that rely solely on a Zapier integration, ActiveCampaign has a wide range of native integrations with CRMs and eCommerce platforms allowing for a deeper integration.

Automation split testing – This feature enables you to A/B test entire sequences against each other, rather than just test individual emails (which is offered by most marketing automation tools).

Machine learning – In recent years, ActiveCampaign has built a number of innovative ML-based features, including predictive sending, predictive content, and predictive win-probability scoring of leads to help you automate even more of your marketing & sales process.

Cons

CRM – ActiveCampaign’s marketing automation is particularly powerful because ActiveCampaign has an in-built CRM system. This CRM, however, is not as good as standalone platforms like PipeDrive or Salesforce – though we feel this is a reasonable trade-off for ActiveCampaign’s automation features.

Reporting – Despite being fairly comprehensive and providing insights on sales/goal conversions, ActiveCampaign’s reporting is quite crowded and can be difficult to navigate at times.

ActiveCampaign Integrations

While ActiveCampaign do have many native integrations, the majority of their 900+ apps and integrations come through their Zapier integration.

While we found most of these integrations very comprehensive, some do require a PRO Zapier account. Below are some of the popular tools you can integrate with ActiveCampaign.

CRM
Email
eCommerce
Accounting
Analytics

Salesforce
Pipedrive
SugarCRM (via Zapier)
ZohoCRM
Highrise

Mailchimp
Gmail
GetResponse
Aweber
Sendgrid
Mandrill
ConstantContact
Campaign Monitor

WooCommerce
Shopify
Magento
BigCommerce
3Dcart
Volusion

Xero
Quickbooks
Freshbooks
Quoteroller
FreeAgent

Geckoboard
Cyfe
Google Analytics

User Interface Screenshots

Go to ActiveCampaign.com

ActiveCampaign's Pricing

Lite

from

$9 /mo

Email Marketing
Marketing Automation
Unlimited Email Sending
Segmentation
Reporting
Site and Event Tracking
Subscription Forms
Chat & Email Support
500+ Automation Recipes
1 User

Start a Trial

Plus

from

$49 /mo

Everything from Lite
CRM w/ Sales Automation
Facebook Lead Ads
Facebook Custom Audiences
Contact & Lead Scoring
Landing Pages
Conditional Content
Advanced Reporting
SMS Marketing
Up to 3 users

Start a Trial

Professional

from

$149 /mo

Everything from Plus
Predictive Content
Predictive Sending
Marketing Attribution
Win Probability
Split Automations
Site Messages
Conversion Reporting
Salesforce Integrations
Up to 5 Users

Start a Trial

ActiveCampaign User Reviews

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Overall
Ease of Use
Customer Support

Anna

The biggest downside is the email editor - it's often buggy, but the logic for automation is great

I use several different platforms for email marketing and have also been a user of Ontraport, and InfusionSoft. I started looking up reviews on ActiveCampaign's CRM functions since it's been a year or so that I've been active in this platform. (I've automated my campaigns so much so that I haven't had to do much editing these days.) In any case, I wanted to see if any improvements have been done to the email editor, and it appears that it has not.

This is a huge disappointment since everything else is really well developed. What I like most about is the ease and creation of automations within campaigns. It's intuitive and follows the flow of the everyday logic. I am comparing this to MailChimp, which requires a lot of workarounds when creating automations. The upside to MailChimp is that its email editor is pristine.

I wish they would do something about ActiveCampaign's email editor, otherwise, it would get higher ratings from me.

I believe their Customer Support was okay. It had the appearance that they were available, but they weren't 100% as available as MailChimp's support chat. But overall, I believe my questions were always answered by ActiveCampaign support.

I am wondering though how much the CRM function is used by people who use this platform. I'd really love to know.

26th July 2016, 5:36 pm

Overall7

Ease of Use8.5

Customer Support7

Alternatives to ActiveCampaign

Klaviyo is a popular alternative to ActiveCampaign for eCommerce businesses. While more expensive than ActiveCampaign, it has a lot more features built specifically for eCommerce.

ActiveCampaign vs. Klaviyo

Mailchimp is a popular alternative to ActiveCampaign. It’s primarily aimed at smaller businesses with basic requirements. While not as advanced as ActiveCampaign it is more affordable.

ActiveCampaign vs. Mailchimp

Hubspot are the most popular marketing automation tool for small businesses. While their product is excellent, you do need to be aware of price creep, as Hubspot’s pricing gets expensive as you require additional contacts.

ActiveCampaign vs. Hubspot