Active Campaign Automation Times

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

Let’s say you have the given name of only some of your contacts, which holds true with my list. I generally do not need a given name to sign up to my list, but in some cases I get a given name, such as when someone purchases an item. Would not it be great to greet your contacts by name, in the cases when you have it? You can do this, but it’s cumbersome.

I’m also filtering for generic terms added by other systems, such as a dash, or “Visitor.” If they have a given name, I state “Hey,” and then their given name. If they do not, I simply state “Hey there,” (Active Campaign Automation Times). By developing a Message Variable in ActiveCampaign, I can quickly change my welcoming according to whether I have the contact’s given name.

Active Campaign Automation Times

I developed a variable that’s simply %greeting-hey%. If I have the contact’s name, it appears in the email. If I do not have the contact’s name, it defaults to “Hey,”. Where Message Variables actually conserve me a great deal of time is by allowing me utilize the same automation over and over again for my webinars, and I can quickly alter out all of the information.

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

And here it remains in an email. This message variable enables me to easily alter out a countdown timer. I did point out earlier that a person of the cons of ActiveCampaign is their email editing experience. I switched from MailChimp, and MailChimp occurs to have the very best e-mail editing experience. I truly like to send out simple e-mails.

Active Campaign Automation Times

I’ve found that very difficult to do with ActiveCampaign. For awhile, I was editing e-mails in ActiveCampaign’s hybrid editor, which is rather cumbersome. For a long time, I used ActiveCampaign’s hybrid HTML and WYSIWYG editor, which was set off by a standard design template I produced. The user interface for the HTML editor looks like it was pulled from some free open-source task. Active Campaign Automation Times.

Nevertheless, including images is a little bit of a task. You have to choose them from a file internet browser. There’s no drag and drop choice. ActiveCampaign’s HTML email editor needs that you compose totally in HTML. The alternative to this, if you desire to have control over the HTML, is to modify pure HTML, with a preview on the side.

Including images to ActiveCampaign’s rich text editor is a cumbersome experience. You need different text boxes for above and below the image. Recently I have actually started utilizing ActiveCampaign’s rich full-screen editor. They have some nice templates, but I still wish to send the plainest e-mail possible. They do have some plain-looking e-mails, but they have some degree of minimal format, which you can’t get rid of – Active Campaign Automation Times.

Active Campaign Automation Times

But, with some adjustments, I can make my email pretty fundamental. I can make it immediately take up the whole window, and I can tweak the typography to be a little larger, and have a little bit more prominent. The most frustrating part of ActiveCampaign’s rich full-screen editor is including images. Picture you’ve just typed out an excellent email. Active Campaign Automation Times.

You can’t simply include an image to a block of text. Rather, you need to develop 2 blocks of text: one for prior to the image, and one for after the image. If you’ve made any format changes, you’ll have to watch on those to stay consistent. That’s something to handle when you wish to include one image, but when you want to include a number of, it becomes a huge chore.

They even have a basic mage editor where you can crop the image – Active Campaign Automation Times. MailChimp’s editor is the finest I have actually seen in all of the e-mail marketing platforms I have actually tried. You have access to the underlying code, so you can produce a really plain email, supplied you make a standard design template first.

Active Campaign Automation Times

MailChimp’s built-in image editor is very effective. You can resize, crop, and add custom text to your images. I miss out on MailChimp’s email-editing experience (Active Campaign Automation Times). It would save me a little time to have that same experience on ActiveCampaign. But the highly-customizable automations I can develop on ActiveCampaign more than offset that possible time cost savings.

ConvertKit’s email editing experience is very plain, but easy to navigate. Their templates are limited, which is great with me, however their email editing experience is a little easier in that you can produce inline images, and you can develop an absolutely plain e-mail, and even edit the underlying HTML. If you desire to make some fast edits to some e-mails in an automation, with ActiveCampaign, it’s troublesome.

I’ll click an email, and it takes me to the editor for that email. Note that I can’t even Command + Click to open it in another tab. Whether they suggested to or not, ActiveCampaign has handicapped Command + Click from the automation editor. If I wished to switch backward and forward between various emails, I would intuitively be inclined open the same automation in different tabs, then open the respective emails from each of those tabs.

Active Campaign Automation Times

In the Automations area, there’s a “Manage Messages” area. From here, you can see all of the messages in each of your automations. You can modify each one, or you can Command + Click to open each in a new tab to more quickly edit your whole series. Active Campaign Automation Times. Contrast that with ConvertKit’s Series.

Again, it would save me a lot of time to have ConvertKit’s automation email editing experience on ActiveCampaign – Active Campaign Automation Times. But picking an e-mail marketing platform is like choosing a spouse. ActiveCampaign makes up for it with their Message Variables, more robust automations, and advanced division. Speaking of segmentation, another reason I changed from MailChimp to ActiveCampaign was that MailChimp has actually limited division options.

You can combine qualities with an AND/OR operator, and you can mix and match those groups of qualities with another AND/OR operator. With MailChimp, you can only sector by AND/OR, nevertheless MailChimp’s Pro strategy enables more advanced segmenting, for an extra $199 a month. In my search for the perfect e-mail marketing platform, I saw lots of others, a few of which I’ve already mentioned.

Active Campaign Automation Times

ConvertKit. If I weren’t on ActiveCampaign, I would probably be utilizing ConvertKit. Their automations are much simpler to develop, though they aren’t as flexible as ActiveCampaign’s, and their segmentations choices aren’t as advanced either. They likewise do not have objective tracking, or Message Variables. MailChimp. You already understand that I switched from MailChimp to ActiveCampaign.

Active Campaign Automation Times

To begin developing an automation in ActiveCampaign, begin with a “trigger.” There are a variety of ways you can activate an automation, consisting of: When a tag is added When a contact signs up for a list When a contact submits a kind E-commerce and on-site options (available in the “Pro” strategy) When the contact reaches a specific point in another automation.

From there, you can start constructing the actions in your automation. Some actions that are offered in ActiveCampaign’s automations are: Send out an email Alert a staff member Wait conditions If/then conditionals Split traffic for screening Avoid to other parts of the automation Track objectives (The contact can skip to the objective’s location in the automation.) Start or end another automation, or end the present automation Post a webhook Subscribe or unsubscribe the contact to/from lists Update contact information Include and eliminate tags Add a note Lead scoring, SMS and site messages, and Facebook Custom-made Audience management are all “Pro” features – Active Campaign Automation Times.

Contrast with ConvertKit‘s Automations, which are more restricted. On ConvertKit, you can trigger an automation when: The contact sends a kind The contact makes a purchase A tag is contributed to the contact A customized field is updated with a certain value From there, you can produce Conditions, to check whether the contact has a particular tag or custom field value.

Active Campaign Automation Times

You can also create Events, which are a bit like ActiveCampaign’s Objectives, however without the reporting. You can track an Event when: A tag is included or gotten rid of The contact buys A date occurs A custom field is updated with a certain value You don’t produce e-mails in ConvertKit’s Automations.

For more on how ActiveCampaign compares to ConvertKit, read my ConvertKit vs ActiveCampaign comparison. The primary way I construct my list is through an email course. ActiveCampaign makes it easy for me to develop my e-mail course precisely how I wish to develop it. Many online marketers build extremely easy email series for their “e-mail courses.” A contact signs up, and then that contact right away starts getting lessons.

It was easy to build with ActiveCampaign, however impossible when I was with MailChimp. I don’t do that method. My e-mail course is manually synced with this countdown timer on my website. You need to register by Friday night, and a new course starts each Monday early morning. When I initially tried this approach, I was on MailChimp.

Active Campaign Automation Times

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

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

When I run a webinar, I don’t wish to send the same email to every individual on my list. I want to send them the appropriate email for their level of engagement – Active Campaign Automation Times. Active Campaign Automation Times. Here’s the automation I use to promote an evergreen webinar: First it verifies that they haven’t already bought the item I pitch in the webinar.

Active Campaign Automation Times

Then it sends a series of e-mails to get them thinking about the webinar, and to motivate them to sign up. If they register, they immediately struck the “Objective” towards the end of the webinar, and the automation ends. If they don’t sign up, they get contributed to an automation promoting a rebroadcast of the webinar. Active Campaign Automation Times.

This allows me to tailor my messaging, in other automations, based upon the contact’s engagement with the webinar. Here’s the WebinarJam combination panel: I can add tags based upon whether the contact signed up, attended, missed out on, or based upon the length of time they remained in the webinar. These tags can then set off automations within ActiveCampaign.

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

Active Campaign Automation Times

Here’s an automation I received 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 adds brand-new tags for 7 days, one month, 60 days, etc Each time they open an e-mail, a separate automation removes them from this automation, removes all of those tags, and begins this automation over again.

This automation can be frustrating at initially, and this is among those cases where I want ActiveCampaign had a more out-of-the-box option. However, due to the fact that you can do anything with ActiveCampaign, in some cases you have to build things from scratch. ActiveCampaign has an option to erase inactive subscribers, which I don’t suggest.

Some customers do not have actually tracking turned on, so their opens aren’t taped. Others still wish to be subscribed however have actually been busy. Here’s my reactivation sequence: I send out one e-mail asking if they still wish to be subscribed, and briefly describing why I keep my email list clean. In one week, I send them another e-mail (if they currently clicked the verification link in the previous e-mail, they have actually currently been removed from the automation using a separate automation) – Active Campaign Automation Times.

Active Campaign Automation Times

The automation then unsubscribes them. My emails likewise have a link to a kind where they can enter their e-mail address to let me know that they do not have tracking allowed. This kind includes a tag that I utilize to filter those contacts out. Active Campaign Automation Times. I utilized to add this tag when they clicked a link, but when individuals don’t have tracking on, it makes those links not work so dependably! I just send out a basic “do you still desire my emails?” verification.