Active Campaign Add Parameter

To start developing an automation in ActiveCampaign, begin with a “trigger.” There are a variety of ways you can set off an automation, including: When a tag is added When a contact signs up for a list When a contact submits a form E-commerce and on-site choices (offered in the “Pro” plan) When the contact reaches a particular point in another automation.

From there, you can begin building the actions in your automation. Some actions that are available in ActiveCampaign’s automations are: Send out an email Notify a staff member Wait conditions If/then conditionals Split traffic for testing Avoid to other parts of the automation Track objectives (The contact can avoid to the objective’s location in the automation.) Start or end another automation, or end the existing automation Post a webhook Subscribe or unsubscribe the contact to/from lists Update contact details Include and eliminate tags Include a note Lead scoring, SMS and site messages, and Facebook Customized Audience management are all “Pro” functions – Active Campaign Add Parameter.

Contrast with ConvertKit‘s Automations, which are more restricted. On ConvertKit, you can trigger an automation when: The contact submits a kind The contact purchases A tag is contributed to the contact A customized field is updated with a specific worth From there, you can develop Conditions, to check whether the contact has a specific tag or customized field worth.

Active Campaign Add Parameter

You can likewise develop Occasions, which are a bit like ActiveCampaign’s Objectives, but without the reporting. You can track an Occasion when: A tag is included or gotten rid of The contact purchases A date occurs A customized field is upgraded with a certain worth You don’t develop emails in ConvertKit’s Automations.

For more on how ActiveCampaign compares to ConvertKit, read my ConvertKit vs ActiveCampaign comparison. The main method I develop my list is through an email course. ActiveCampaign makes it easy for me to construct my email course precisely how I want to build it. Numerous marketers develop really simple e-mail series for their “email courses.” A contact register, and then that contact instantly begins getting lessons.

It was easy to construct with ActiveCampaign, however difficult when I was with MailChimp. I don’t do that approach. My email course is by hand synced with this countdown timer on my site. You have to sign up by Friday night, and a brand-new course begins each Monday early morning. When I first tried this method, I was on MailChimp.

Active Campaign Add Parameter

Here’s the automation I utilize to invite brand-new trainees to my Design Pitfalls course. There’s a few things going on here: The automation sends all contacts a “welcome e-mail (Active Campaign Add Parameter).” The automation confirms that it’s not Friday. If it’s not Friday, the automation waits till it is Friday. At 11am, it sends a “pump up” e-mail to get the trainees ready for next week’s course, and encourage them to share it with buddies.

The contact will start getting lessons the following Monday early morning. If it is Friday and after 7pm, the contact missed registration for next week’s class. They’ll get the pump up email the following Friday morning, and lessons the Monday after that. It was difficult for me to automate this with MailChimp.

When I run a webinar, I don’t wish to send out the exact same e-mail to every person on my list. I desire to send them the appropriate email for their level of engagement – Active Campaign Add Parameter. Active Campaign Add Parameter. Here’s the automation I use to promote an evergreen webinar: First it validates that they haven’t currently purchased the product I pitch in the webinar.

Active Campaign Add Parameter

Then it sends a series of e-mails to get them thinking about the webinar, and to encourage them to register. If they register, they right away hit the “Goal” toward the end of the webinar, and the automation ends. If they don’t register, they get contributed to an automation promoting a rebroadcast of the webinar. Active Campaign Add Parameter.

This allows me to customize my messaging, in other automations, based upon the contact’s engagement with the webinar. Here’s the WebinarJam combination panel: I can include tags based upon whether the contact registered, attended, missed out on, or based upon how long they remained in the webinar. These tags can then activate automations within ActiveCampaign.

It costs me money, and it makes it most likely that my emails go to spam or Gmail’s promos tab. People who do not open my e-mails make it harder for other emails to get to the individuals who truly desire them! The “Pro” plan of ActiveCampaign has lead scoring constructed in.

Active Campaign Add Parameter

Here’s an automation I got from ActiveCampaign’s library of automations, which I utilize to tell which contacts aren’t engaging with my e-mails. When a contact subscribes, this automation adds a “0 days” tag. As time passes, it includes new tags for 7 days, 30 days, 60 days, etc Each time they open an e-mail, a different automation removes them from this automation, removes all of those tags, and begins this automation over again.

This automation can be frustrating in the beginning, and this is among those cases where I want ActiveCampaign had a more out-of-the-box solution. However, because you can do anything with ActiveCampaign, sometimes you have to develop things from scratch. ActiveCampaign has an alternative to delete inactive customers, which I don’t recommend.

Some customers don’t have actually tracking turned on, so their opens aren’t recorded. Others still desire to be subscribed but have actually been busy. Here’s my reactivation series: I send one e-mail asking if they still wish to be subscribed, and briefly describing why I keep my e-mail list clean. In one week, I send them another e-mail (if they currently clicked the confirmation link in the previous email, they’ve already been eliminated from the automation utilizing a different automation) – Active Campaign Add Parameter.

Active Campaign Add Parameter

The automation then unsubscribes them. My emails also have a link to a type where they can enter their email address to let me know that they do not have tracking made it possible for. This type includes a tag that I utilize to filter those contacts out. Active Campaign Add Parameter. I used to add this tag when they clicked a link, however when people don’t have tracking on, it makes those links not work so reliably! I just send out a basic “do you still desire my e-mails?” verification.

Active Campaign Add Parameter

You can also see whether the completion rate has actually increased or decreased, the length of time it takes for contacts to reach that goal, and you can search all contacts to see who did and didn’t reach the goal. ActiveCampaign’s Message Variables is my favorite feature. It saves me a load of time and effort, and neither MailChimp nor ConvertKit (update: 9/2020 ConvertKit now has ” bits”) has a similar function.

Let’s say you have the very first name of only some of your contacts, which is the case with my list. I usually don’t need a first name to sign up to my list, however in some cases I get a first name, such as when someone buys a product. Would not it be nice to greet your contacts by name, in the cases when you have it? You can do this, but it’s troublesome.

I’m also filtering for generic terms added by other systems, such as a dash, or “Visitor.” If they have a first name, I state “Hey,” and then their first name. If they don’t, I simply state “Hey there,” (Active Campaign Add Parameter). By constructing a Message Variable in ActiveCampaign, I can easily alter my welcoming according to whether I have the contact’s given name.

Active Campaign Add Parameter

I developed a variable that’s just %greeting-hey%. If I have the contact’s name, it reveals up in the e-mail. If I do not have the contact’s name, it defaults to “Hey,”. Where Message Variables actually save me a great deal of time is by enabling me utilize the exact same automation over and over once again for my webinars, and I can quickly change out all of the information.

Here vary for a webinar I run called “Bust Through Creative Blocks.” You can see I have a bunch of different variables here, such as the date and time of the webinar, the price of the product, deal terms, discount coupon code, and more. Each time I run a brand-new webinar, I can change each of these variables to match any schedule changes or offer changes.

And here it is in an e-mail. This message variable enables me to easily change out a countdown timer. I did point out earlier that one of the cons of ActiveCampaign is their email editing experience. I switched from MailChimp, and MailChimp happens to have the very best e-mail modifying experience. I really like to send basic emails.

Active Campaign Add Parameter

I have actually found that extremely tough to do with ActiveCampaign. For awhile, I was modifying emails in ActiveCampaign’s hybrid editor, which is rather clunky. For a long period of time, I used ActiveCampaign’s hybrid HTML and WYSIWYG editor, which was activated by a basic template I produced. The user interface for the HTML editor looks like it was pulled from some complimentary open-source task. Active Campaign Add Parameter.

Nevertheless, including images is a little bit of a chore. You have to choose them from a file web browser. There’s no drag and drop alternative. ActiveCampaign’s HTML email editor requires that you make up totally in HTML. The alternative to this, if you wish to have control over the HTML, is to modify pure HTML, with a preview on the side.

Adding images to ActiveCampaign’s abundant full-screen editor is a clunky experience. You require different text boxes for above and listed below the image. Recently I have begun utilizing ActiveCampaign’s rich text editor. They have some nice templates, however I still desire to send the plainest email possible. They do have some plain-looking e-mails, however they have some degree of very little format, which you can’t remove – Active Campaign Add Parameter.

Active Campaign Add Parameter

However, with some changes, I can make my email pretty basic. I can make it instantly take up the whole window, and I can tweak the typography to be slightly bigger, and have a little more leading. The most frustrating part of ActiveCampaign’s rich full-screen editor is including images. Imagine you have actually just typed out an excellent email. Active Campaign Add Parameter.

You can’t just include an image to a block of text. Rather, you have to develop 2 blocks of text: one for before the image, and one for after the image. If you have actually made any formatting changes, you’ll have to watch on those to stay consistent. That’s something to deal with when you wish to add one image, however when you desire to add several, it becomes a huge task.

They even have a standard mage editor where you can crop the image – Active Campaign Add Parameter. MailChimp’s editor is the best I’ve seen in all of the email marketing platforms I’ve tried. You have access to the underlying code, so you can develop a genuinely plain email, offered you make a fundamental template initially.

Active Campaign Add Parameter

MailChimp’s integrated image editor is exceptionally powerful. You can resize, crop, and include custom-made text to your images. I miss MailChimp’s email-editing experience (Active Campaign Add Parameter). It would conserve me a little time to have that same experience on ActiveCampaign. But the highly-customizable automations I can build on ActiveCampaign more than offset that prospective time savings.

ConvertKit’s email modifying experience is very plain, but easy to browse. Their design templates are restricted, which is fine with me, but their e-mail editing experience is a little easier in that you can produce inline images, and you can create a totally plain e-mail, and even edit the underlying HTML. If you wish to make some quick edits to some emails in an automation, with ActiveCampaign, it’s troublesome.

I’ll click on an email, and it takes me to the editor for that e-mail. Keep in mind that I can’t even Command + Click to open it in another tab. Whether they suggested to or not, ActiveCampaign has disabled Command + Click from the automation editor. If I wished to switch back and forth in between different emails, I would intuitively be inclined open the very same automation in numerous tabs, then open the particular emails from each of those tabs.

Active Campaign Add Parameter

In the Automations section, there’s a “Handle Messages” location. From here, you can see all of the messages in each of your automations. You can edit every one, or you can Command + Click to open each in a new tab to more quickly edit your whole sequence. Active Campaign Add Parameter. Contrast that with ConvertKit’s Sequences.

Again, it would conserve me a great deal of time to have ConvertKit’s automation e-mail modifying experience on ActiveCampaign – Active Campaign Add Parameter. But selecting an e-mail marketing platform resembles selecting a spouse. ActiveCampaign offsets it with their Message Variables, more robust automations, and advanced division. Mentioning division, another factor I changed from MailChimp to ActiveCampaign was that MailChimp has restricted division alternatives.

You can combine qualities with an AND/OR operator, and you can blend and match those groups of traits with another AND/OR operator. With MailChimp, you can only section by AND/OR, nevertheless MailChimp’s Pro strategy allows more sophisticated segmenting, for an additional $199 a month. In my look for the ideal e-mail marketing platform, I saw lots of others, a few of which I have actually already mentioned.

Active Campaign Add Parameter

ConvertKit. If I weren’t on ActiveCampaign, I would most likely be utilizing ConvertKit. Their automations are much easier to build, though they aren’t as flexible as ActiveCampaign’s, and their divisions choices aren’t as sophisticated either. They likewise don’t have objective tracking, or Message Variables. MailChimp. You already understand that I changed from MailChimp to ActiveCampaign.