Active Campaign Calendar Integration

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

Let’s say you have the given name of only a few of your contacts, which holds true with my list. I generally don’t require a given name to sign up to my list, but often I get a given name, such as when someone purchases an item. Wouldn’t it be great to welcome your contacts by name, in the events when you have it? You can do this, however it’s troublesome.

I’m likewise filtering for generic terms added by other systems, such as a dash, or “Guest.” If they have a first name, I state “Hey,” and then their very first name. If they do not, I simply state “Hey there,” (Active Campaign Calendar Integration). By developing a Message Variable in ActiveCampaign, I can easily alter my welcoming according to whether I have the contact’s very first name.

Active Campaign Calendar Integration

I produced a variable that’s simply %greeting-hey%. If I have the contact’s name, it shows up in the e-mail. If I don’t have the contact’s name, it defaults to “Hey,”. Where Message Variables truly conserve me a lot of time is by enabling me use the very same automation over and over once again for my webinars, and I can rapidly change out all of the details.

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

And here it is in an e-mail. This message variable allows me to quickly alter out a countdown timer. I did mention earlier that a person of the cons of ActiveCampaign is their e-mail editing experience. I changed from MailChimp, and MailChimp happens to have the very best e-mail modifying experience. I truly like to send out basic e-mails.

Active Campaign Calendar Integration

I have actually discovered that extremely 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 fundamental template I developed. The user interface for the HTML editor appears like it was pulled from some totally free open-source task. Active Campaign Calendar Integration.

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 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 sneak peek on the side.

Adding images to ActiveCampaign’s rich text editor is a clunky experience. You require different text boxes for above and listed below the image. Recently I have started using ActiveCampaign’s rich full-screen editor. They have some nice design templates, however I still desire to send out the plainest email possible. They do have some plain-looking e-mails, but they have some degree of very little formatting, which you can’t eliminate – Active Campaign Calendar Integration.

Active Campaign Calendar Integration

But, with some changes, I can make my e-mail quite fundamental. I can make it immediately use up the whole window, and I can tweak the typography to be somewhat larger, and have a little bit more prominent. The most discouraging part of ActiveCampaign’s rich full-screen editor is including images. Picture you have actually simply typed out a great e-mail. Active Campaign Calendar Integration.

You can’t merely include an image to a block of text. Rather, you have to produce 2 blocks of text: one for before the image, and one for after the image. If you have actually made any format changes, you’ll need to keep an eye on those to stay consistent. That’s one thing to deal with when you wish to add one image, however when you wish to include several, it becomes a huge chore.

They even have a standard mage editor where you can crop the image – Active Campaign Calendar Integration. MailChimp’s editor is the best I’ve seen in all of the email marketing platforms I’ve attempted. You have access to the underlying code, so you can create a really plain e-mail, offered you make a standard design template first.

Active Campaign Calendar Integration

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

ConvertKit’s e-mail editing experience is extremely plain, however easy to navigate. Their design templates are limited, which is fine with me, but their e-mail modifying experience is somewhat simpler because you can create inline images, and you can produce a totally plain e-mail, and even modify the underlying HTML. If you want to make some quick edits to some emails in an automation, with ActiveCampaign, it’s troublesome.

I’ll click an e-mail, 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 meant to or not, ActiveCampaign has disabled Command + Click from the automation editor. If I wished to change backward and forward between numerous emails, I would intuitively be inclined open the very same automation in different tabs, then open the particular e-mails from each of those tabs.

Active Campaign Calendar Integration

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

Once again, it would conserve me a great deal of time to have ConvertKit’s automation e-mail modifying experience on ActiveCampaign – Active Campaign Calendar Integration. But selecting an email marketing platform is like choosing a spouse. ActiveCampaign offsets it with their Message Variables, more robust automations, and advanced segmentation. Speaking of division, another reason I switched from MailChimp to ActiveCampaign was that MailChimp has restricted segmentation alternatives.

You can combine qualities with an AND/OR operator, and you can blend 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 sophisticated segmenting, for an extra $199 a month. In my search for the best email marketing platform, I saw numerous others, some of which I’ve already discussed.

Active Campaign Calendar Integration

ConvertKit. If I weren’t on ActiveCampaign, I would probably be utilizing ConvertKit. Their automations are a lot easier to build, though they aren’t as versatile as ActiveCampaign’s, and their segmentations alternatives aren’t as sophisticated either. They also don’t have goal tracking, or Message Variables. MailChimp. You currently know that I switched from MailChimp to ActiveCampaign.

Active Campaign Calendar Integration

To begin constructing an automation in ActiveCampaign, begin with a “trigger.” There are a number of ways you can set off an automation, consisting of: When a tag is added When a contact registers 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 certain point in another automation.

From there, you can begin developing the actions in your automation. Some actions that are available in ActiveCampaign’s automations are: Send out an e-mail Notify a team member Wait conditions If/then conditionals Split traffic for screening 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 information Add and remove tags Include a note Lead scoring, SMS and site messages, and Facebook Customized Audience management are all “Pro” functions – Active Campaign Calendar Integration.

Contrast with ConvertKit‘s Automations, which are more restricted. On ConvertKit, you can activate an automation when: The contact sends a type The contact buys A tag is added to the contact A customized field is updated with a particular value From there, you can create Conditions, to examine whether the contact has a certain tag or customized field value.

Active Campaign Calendar Integration

You can likewise produce Occasions, which are a bit like ActiveCampaign’s Objectives, but without the reporting. You can track an Event when: A tag is included or removed The contact makes a purchase A date happens A custom-made field is upgraded with a certain value You don’t produce emails in ConvertKit’s Automations.

For more on how ActiveCampaign compares to ConvertKit, read my ConvertKit vs ActiveCampaign contrast. The primary way I develop my list is through an e-mail course. ActiveCampaign makes it easy for me to build my e-mail course precisely how I want to develop it. Numerous marketers build very easy e-mail sequences for their “email courses.” A contact register, and after that that contact immediately begins getting lessons.

It was easy to build with ActiveCampaign, but impossible when I was with MailChimp. I do not do that approach. My email course is manually synced with this countdown timer on my site. You have to register by Friday night, and a brand-new course begins each Monday early morning. When I initially attempted this methodology, I was on MailChimp.

Active Campaign Calendar Integration

Here’s the automation I use to invite new students to my Design Pitfalls course. There’s a couple of things going on here: The automation sends out all contacts a “welcome e-mail (Active Campaign Calendar Integration).” 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 all set for next week’s course, and encourage them to share it with buddies.

The contact will begin getting lessons the following Monday 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 do not wish to send the same email to every person on my list. I desire to send them the appropriate e-mail for their level of engagement – Active Campaign Calendar Integration. Active Campaign Calendar Integration. Here’s the automation I utilize to promote an evergreen webinar: First it verifies that they have not currently bought the product I pitch in the webinar.

Active Campaign Calendar Integration

Then it sends a series of e-mails to get them interested in the webinar, and to motivate them to register. If they register, they instantly hit the “Goal” toward the end of the webinar, and the automation ends. If they do not register, they get contributed to an automation promoting a rebroadcast of the webinar. Active Campaign Calendar Integration.

This enables me to personalize 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, or based upon the length of time they remained in the webinar. These tags can then set off automations within ActiveCampaign.

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

Active Campaign Calendar Integration

Here’s an automation I obtained from ActiveCampaign’s library of automations, which I use 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 new tags for 7 days, 1 month, 60 days, etc Each time they open an email, a separate automation removes them from this automation, eliminates all of those tags, and begins this automation over again.

This automation can be overwhelming initially, and this is one of those cases where I want ActiveCampaign had a more out-of-the-box solution. But, due to the fact that you can do anything with ActiveCampaign, in some cases you have to construct things from scratch. ActiveCampaign has an alternative to delete non-active customers, which I don’t recommend.

Some customers do not have tracking turned on, so their opens aren’t taped. Others still wish to be subscribed but have actually been busy. Here’s my reactivation series: I send one e-mail asking if they still desire 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 already clicked the verification link in the previous email, they have actually already been removed from the automation using a separate automation) – Active Campaign Calendar Integration.

Active Campaign Calendar Integration

The automation then unsubscribes them. My emails likewise have a link to a form where they can enter their email address to let me know that they don’t have tracking enabled. This type adds a tag that I utilize to filter those contacts out. Active Campaign Calendar Integration. I used to add this tag when they clicked a link, but when people don’t have tracking on, it makes those links not work so reliably! I only send out a simple “do you still desire my e-mails?” verification.