Active Campaign Custom Field

To begin developing an automation in ActiveCampaign, start with a “trigger.” There are a variety of methods you can trigger an automation, consisting of: When a tag is included When a contact registers for a list When a contact sends a type 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 developing the actions in your automation. Some actions that are readily available in ActiveCampaign’s automations are: Send out an e-mail Alert a team member Wait conditions If/then conditionals Split traffic for testing 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 details Include and get rid of tags Add a note Lead scoring, SMS and website messages, and Facebook Customized Audience management are all “Pro” features – Active Campaign Custom Field.

Contrast with ConvertKit‘s Automations, which are more restricted. On ConvertKit, you can activate an automation when: The contact submits a kind The contact purchases A tag is included to the contact A custom-made field is upgraded with a particular worth From there, you can develop Conditions, to examine whether the contact has a specific tag or custom-made field worth.

Active Campaign Custom Field

You can also produce Occasions, which are a bit like ActiveCampaign’s Goals, however without the reporting. You can track an Event when: A tag is added or removed The contact purchases A date happens A custom-made field is updated with a specific value You do not develop emails in ConvertKit’s Automations.

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

It was simple to build 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 need to register by Friday night, and a new course begins each Monday morning. When I initially attempted this approach, I was on MailChimp.

Active Campaign Custom Field

Here’s the automation I utilize to welcome brand-new trainees to my Style Pitfalls course. There’s a couple of things going on here: The automation sends all contacts a “welcome email (Active Campaign Custom Field).” The automation confirms that it’s not Friday. If it’s not Friday, the automation waits until it is Friday. At 11am, it sends out a “pump up” e-mail to get the students 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 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 want to send the same e-mail to every individual on my list. I desire to send them the appropriate email for their level of engagement – Active Campaign Custom Field. Active Campaign Custom Field. Here’s the automation I use to promote an evergreen webinar: First it validates that they haven’t already bought the product I pitch in the webinar.

Active Campaign Custom Field

Then it sends out a series of emails to get them interested in the webinar, and to motivate them to sign up. If they sign up, they right away struck the “Goal” towards the end of the webinar, and the automation ends. If they do not sign up, they get contributed to an automation promoting a rebroadcast of the webinar. Active Campaign Custom Field.

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, participated in, missed, or based upon how long they stayed in the webinar. These tags can then trigger automations within ActiveCampaign.

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

Active Campaign Custom Field

Here’s an automation I received from ActiveCampaign’s library of automations, which I utilize to tell which contacts aren’t engaging with my emails. When a contact subscribes, this automation adds a “0 days” tag. As time passes, it adds brand-new tags for 7 days, thirty days, 60 days, etc Each time they open an email, a different automation eliminates them from this automation, eliminates all of those tags, and starts this automation over again.

This automation can be overwhelming in the beginning, and this is among those cases where I wish ActiveCampaign had a more out-of-the-box service. However, since you can do anything with ActiveCampaign, sometimes you need to construct things from scratch. ActiveCampaign has a choice to delete inactive customers, which I do not recommend.

Some subscribers don’t have actually tracking switched on, so their opens aren’t taped. Others still desire to be subscribed however have been hectic. 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 tidy. In one week, I send them another email (if they currently clicked the verification link in the previous email, they have actually already been eliminated from the automation utilizing a separate automation) – Active Campaign Custom Field.

Active Campaign Custom Field

The automation then unsubscribes them. My emails likewise have a link to a type where they can enter their email address to let me know that they do not have tracking enabled. This type adds a tag that I use to filter those contacts out. Active Campaign Custom Field. I used to add this tag when they clicked a link, however when people do not have tracking on, it makes those links not work so reliably! I just send out an easy “do you still desire my emails?” verification.

Active Campaign Custom Field

You can likewise see whether the completion rate has actually increased or reduced, for how long it considers contacts to reach that objective, and you can browse all contacts to see who did and didn’t reach the objective. ActiveCampaign’s Message Variables is my favorite feature. It conserves me a lots of time and effort, and neither MailChimp nor ConvertKit (upgrade: 9/2020 ConvertKit now has ” snippets”) has a similar function.

Let’s state you have the first name of just a few of your contacts, which holds true with my list. I typically do not need a first name to register to my list, but sometimes I get a very first name, such as when somebody purchases a product. Would not it be good to greet your contacts by name, in the events when you have it? You can do this, but it’s cumbersome.

I’m likewise filtering for generic terms added by other systems, such as a dash, or “Visitor.” If they have a very first name, I state “Hey,” and after that their given name. If they don’t, I simply say “Hey there,” (Active Campaign Custom Field). By constructing a Message Variable in ActiveCampaign, I can quickly alter my welcoming according to whether or not I have the contact’s given name.

Active Campaign Custom Field

I created a variable that’s just %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 save me a great deal of time is by enabling me utilize the very same automation over and over once again for my webinars, and I can quickly alter out all of the details.

Here vary for a webinar I run called “Bust Through Creative Blocks.” You can see I have a bunch of various variables here, such as the date and time of the webinar, the cost of the item, deal terms, 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 quickly change out a countdown timer. I did discuss earlier that a person of the cons of ActiveCampaign is their email modifying experience. I switched from MailChimp, and MailChimp happens to have the best e-mail editing experience. I really like to send out easy emails.

Active Campaign Custom Field

I have actually found that extremely difficult to do with ActiveCampaign. For some time, I was modifying e-mails in ActiveCampaign’s hybrid editor, which is rather clunky. For a very long time, I used ActiveCampaign’s hybrid HTML and WYSIWYG editor, which was triggered by a basic template I developed. The user interface for the HTML editor appears like it was pulled from some free open-source project. Active Campaign Custom Field.

However, including images is a little a chore. You have to pick them from a file browser. There’s no drag and drop choice. ActiveCampaign’s HTML email editor requires that you make up entirely in HTML. The alternative to this, if you want to have control over the HTML, is to edit pure HTML, with a sneak peek on the side.

Adding images to ActiveCampaign’s abundant full-screen editor is a cumbersome experience. You need different text boxes for above and listed below the image. Lately I have actually begun using ActiveCampaign’s rich full-screen editor. They have some good design templates, however I still wish to send out the simplest e-mail possible. They do have some plain-looking emails, but they have some degree of very little formatting, which you can’t remove – Active Campaign Custom Field.

Active Campaign Custom Field

However, with some modifications, I can make my email pretty basic. I can make it instantly take up the entire window, and I can fine-tune the typography to be somewhat bigger, and have a little more prominent. The most frustrating part of ActiveCampaign’s rich full-screen editor is including images. Picture you’ve simply typed out a great e-mail. Active Campaign Custom Field.

You can’t merely include an image to a block of text. Rather, you have to develop two blocks of text: one for prior to the image, and one for after the image. If you’ve made any formatting modifications, you’ll have to watch on those to remain consistent. That’s one thing to handle when you desire to include one image, but when you want to add numerous, it becomes a huge task.

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

Active Campaign Custom Field

MailChimp’s built-in image editor is incredibly powerful. You can resize, crop, and add customized text to your images. I miss MailChimp’s email-editing experience (Active Campaign Custom Field). It would conserve me a little time to have that exact same experience on ActiveCampaign. However the highly-customizable automations I can develop on ActiveCampaign more than offset that prospective time savings.

ConvertKit’s e-mail editing experience is extremely plain, but easy to browse. Their templates are limited, which is great with me, but their email modifying experience is slightly simpler because you can produce inline images, and you can develop a totally plain e-mail, and even edit the underlying HTML. If you wish to make some fast edits to some emails in an automation, with ActiveCampaign, it’s troublesome.

I’ll click on 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 handicapped Command + Click from the automation editor. If I desired to switch backward and forward between different e-mails, I would intuitively be inclined open the same automation in numerous tabs, then open the respective emails from each of those tabs.

Active Campaign Custom Field

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 modify every one, or you can Command + Click to open each in a new tab to more quickly edit your entire series. Active Campaign Custom Field. Contrast that with ConvertKit’s Sequences.

Once again, it would save me a great deal of time to have ConvertKit’s automation e-mail editing experience on ActiveCampaign – Active Campaign Custom Field. However picking an e-mail marketing platform is like picking a spouse. ActiveCampaign makes up for it with their Message Variables, more robust automations, and advanced segmentation. Mentioning segmentation, another factor I changed from MailChimp to ActiveCampaign was that MailChimp has actually restricted segmentation options.

You can integrate attributes with an AND/OR operator, and you can mix and match those groups of traits with another AND/OR operator. With MailChimp, you can just section by AND/OR, however MailChimp’s Pro plan allows more advanced segmenting, for an additional $199 a month. In my search for the perfect e-mail marketing platform, I saw many others, a few of which I’ve currently mentioned.

Active Campaign Custom Field

ConvertKit. If I weren’t on ActiveCampaign, I would most likely be using ConvertKit. Their automations are much easier to develop, though they aren’t as versatile as ActiveCampaign’s, and their divisions choices aren’t as advanced either. They likewise do not have goal tracking, or Message Variables. MailChimp. You already know that I changed from MailChimp to ActiveCampaign.