Blog

ActiveCampaign, which is based in Chicago, claims to be an all-in-one marketing platform.

ActiveCampaign provides nearly everything you need in an email marketing tool, and their complex automations are tough to beat.

The entry-level subscription is $15 per month (for up to 500 subscribers, paid monthly), while the Plus plan costs $70 per month and includes additional features such as an in-built CRM, lead scoring, landing pages, and messaging services, but what does that include these days?

Let’s do a complete review of the ActiveCampaign software.

ActiveCampaign Pricing Review

ActiveCampaign isn’t the cheapest email marketing tool in market. Even though ActiveCampaign doesn’t offer a free tier, unlike some other email marketing services, you do have the bonus of being able to send unlimited emails to your contacts.

And you get access to the excellent automation tools. So, this could work well if you’re a small business that sends out multiple emails a month to its members.

ActiveCampaign pricing is based on subscriber-centric approach, which means that you’re essentially paying for each subscriber once or each email address once and then you can add that subscriber or that email address to as many lists or tags as you like.

(Whereas some of the other services are list-based.  So, a subscriber, if it’s on multiple lists, you’re paying for that one person or that one email address multiple times based on how many lists it’s on.)

So, regarding pricing, you’ve got a few different plans that you can choose from starting at $9 per month for their Lite plan which will include up to 500 contacts or 500 subscribers.

But at that price point it does give you access to their marketing automation features on that lite plan as well.

If you do want to access to some of the more advanced features like Facebook Custom Audiences, then that’s where you want to move up throughout the plans.

So, if you have a 1000 subscribers base, then must shell out  at $25 per month. And obviously, the pricing scales as your email list scales as well.

Try ActiveCampaign Here

ActiveCampaign Dashboard Review

Once you’re signed in, you’re presented with a full dashboard.

Here you can see your latest campaigns, top contacts and you can manage your templates.

You can easily create a new campaign from the menu.

Newsletter

ActiveCampaign has quite a few options for newsletter creation, you can even access the automation features from the menu.

After you choose your list, you are taken to the templates. There is a handy preview available which opens in another window, also displaying the responsive version. You can also create your own or use a previously saved template.

Once you’re inside the editor, you’ll notice some green flashing points. These give you helpful information about each section. (No brainer)

The drag and drop editor display the element blocks on the right, as well as options for each element.

It’s simple enough to add elements, and to create columns or spaces between sections. You’ll find yourself using the ‘Spacer’ element quite a lot, which, unfortunately, can be a little fiddly.

Another small issue is that undoing something. At first glance, the ‘time machine’ style seems like a great idea, but in practice it saves every tiny action.

This means a lot of trial and error just to undo your own initial error.

As already mentioned in the earlier section, the email editor in active campaign is a little more clunky.

So, it does take more work to get the result that you want and to understand how it works but know that it is flexible with what you can achieve in that.

Tracking and Analytics

The next section gives you an overview page with several options regarding tracking and analytics, as well as preview and spam tests.

Once you’re happy, send away or schedule it for a more optimal time.

Workflow

When it comes to the workflows for email automation, ActiveCampaign includes both tags and lists, which does add a nice extra layer of options for your subscriber management and your automations as well.

ActiveCampaign has a great interface,  it’s got a lot more advanced options, a lot more control and a lot more complexity than the likes.

So, it’s not as easy to use for beginners and non-techy persons, they might get overwhelmed with the software. and it’s not as intuitive as some of the other email automation software’s such as ConvertKit.

ActiveCampaign is far more customizable.

There is a huge range of options and features in there offering you incredible amounts of flexibility. All that flexibility sometimes adds more complexity.

But if automations are a big thing for you or you just want to know that you’re unlikely going to be hitting any limits as you grow and scale with this stuff, then you’re going to love ActiveCampaign.

So, if you’re looking for an Email Marketing System where you’re likely not going to be bumping up against any limitations as you move forward and as you grow with this stuff, then ActiveCampaign is your choice.

ActiveCampaign Automations Review

As I said before, one of Active Campaign’s highlights is its marketing automation, allowing you to create both simple and complex automations of emails or contact list segmentation.

Once you create a new automation, you’re given a list of templates, or “recipes”, as they’re called, that you can edit to fit your purpose. Click here to configure your settings, like which products to apply the automation to.

You can also segment the contacts entering this automation. Set how long it should wait and which email to send and you’re good to go!

You get far more advanced control and advanced features to really build out pro level and advanced level automations.

So, you’ve got things I’ve been able to trigger specific actions to add people to a Facebook Custom Audience or to create Custom Webhooks.

They even can integrate with your website and tracking and all that sort of stuff too and being able to track events or link clicks back to a specific email subscriber. So super powerful.

So, there is a huge level of depth in ActiveCampaign. Now it is a platform that is harder to learn but  it will give you way more options as you grow.

Especially if you’re someone who’s looking at some of these automations and things and just having access to all these options and features whether you need them right now or not. Now ActiveCampaign doesn’t have built in landing pages, but it does integrate well with most of the big services, you can easily link it up to your website as well.

CRM

ActiveCampaign does have a built in CRM as well. Now it’s not a salesforce competitor.

It is simple, but it does let you manage your customers and track their history and interactions and everything all in the one place.

If you go into contacts, you can see a lot of information about each one, such as their location, any tags they’ve been assigned, activities and any site or event tracking.

It’s so helpful to have all this information in one place and is a great advantage for sales agents as they can get in touch with warm leads with a click of a button.

Forms

Setting up web forms with ActiveCampaign is straightforward. Add the fields you need; you’ll find there are plenty of options.

Reports

The reporting is very comprehensive, offering your insight into almost all facets, including page visits, geo-tracking, openers, ecommerce and more.

Note that Conversion Attribution Reporting – i.e. an analysis of any given customer’s journey up until conversion – is only available on the Professional plan.

ActiveCampaign Support Review

ActiveCampaign support was not that stellar in past, but ActiveCampaign has recently established  new support centers to get more global coverage across different time zones.

One of these are established in  Australia.

Now any time in the clock, if you need any help from the support team, you will get assistance with less waiting time.

ActiveCampaign Review – Conclusion

If automations are in your mind, then ActiveCampaign is a great choice. Aside from automations, you can also send a variety of email types, from simple marketing campaigns, to A/B testing.

You can send SMS too. It has a powerful built-in CRM as well. It’s difficult to fault ActiveCampaign, it really is one of the best tools present in market.

Pros

• Its powerful marketing automation. It might be a little overwhelming for complete beginners at first, but it should be easy enough to get your head around with some practice.
• You have a host of email options to choose from, including split testing, auto responders and date-based emails.
• ActiveCampaign also boasts very good deliverability rates. This can change, but so far, we’ve seen consistently good results.
• I should also mention that live chat support is very helpful, you even have one-on-one training on the ‘Pro’ plan and higher.

Cons

• The editor could be slightly more user friendly.
• Also, pricing may be an issue for small businesses with simple newsletter needs. But for bigger businesses it’s worth the investment, as its advanced automations will save you a ton of time.

FAQ | ActiveCampaign

What is ActiveCampaign?

ActiveCampaign, which is based in Chicago, claims to be an all-in-one marketing platform.

What is ActiveCampaign good for?

• Its powerful marketing automation. 
• Its list of host of email options to choose from, including split testing, auto responders and date-based emails.
• Very good deliverability rates. This can change, but so far, we’ve seen consistently good results.
• Live chat support is very helpful, you even have one-on-one training on the ‘Pro’ plan and higher.

Is ActiveCampaign a CRM?

ActiveCampaign does have a built in CRM as well. Now it’s not a salesforce competitor. It is simple, but it does let you manage your customers and track their history and interactions and everything all in the one place.

How much does active campaign cost?

ActiveCampaign pricing is based on subscriber-centric approach, which means that you’re essentially paying for each subscriber once or each email address once and then you can add that subscriber or that email address to as many lists or tags as you like.

ActiveCampaign got few different plans that you can choose from starting at $9 per month for their Lite plan which will include up to 500 contacts or 500 subscribers.

But at that price point it does give you access to their marketing automation features on that lite plan as well. If you do want to access to some of the more advanced features like Facebook Custom Audiences, then that’s where you want to move up throughout the plans.

So, if you have a 1000 subscribers base, then must shell out  at $25 per month. And obviously, the pricing scales as your email list scales as well.