Active Campaign Flaws

You can likewise see whether the completion rate has actually increased or decreased, the length of time it takes for 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 heap of time and effort, and neither MailChimp nor ConvertKit (upgrade: 9/2020 ConvertKit now has ” snippets”) has a comparable function.

Let’s state you have the given name of only some of your contacts, which is the case with my list. I normally do not need a very first name to register to my list, however sometimes I get a given name, such as when somebody purchases an item. Wouldn’t it be good to welcome 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 included by other systems, such as a dash, or “Visitor.” If they have a very first name, I say “Hey,” and after that their first name. If they don’t, I just say “Hey there,” (Active Campaign Flaws). By building a Message Variable in ActiveCampaign, I can easily change my greeting according to whether or not I have the contact’s given name.

Active Campaign Flaws

I produced a variable that’s merely %greeting-hey%. If I have the contact’s name, it appears in the email. If I don’t have the contact’s name, it defaults to “Hey,”. Where Message Variables actually conserve me a great deal of time is by enabling 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 various variables here, such as the date and time of the webinar, the cost of the product, offer terms, coupon code, and more. Each time I run a brand-new webinar, I can change each of these variables to match any schedule modifications or deal modifications.

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

Active Campaign Flaws

I’ve discovered that really difficult to do with ActiveCampaign. For some time, I was editing e-mails in ActiveCampaign’s hybrid editor, which is quite cumbersome. For a very long time, I used ActiveCampaign’s hybrid HTML and WYSIWYG editor, which was set off by a fundamental design template I produced. The user interface for the HTML editor appears like it was pulled from some totally free open-source task. Active Campaign Flaws.

However, adding images is a bit of a task. You need to select them from a file web browser. There’s no drag and drop choice. ActiveCampaign’s HTML e-mail editor requires that you compose completely in HTML. The option to this, if you wish 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 require different text boxes for above and below the image. Lately I have actually started using ActiveCampaign’s rich text editor. They have some great design templates, however I still wish to send the plainest email possible. They do have some plain-looking emails, but they have some degree of very little formatting, which you can’t get rid of – Active Campaign Flaws.

Active Campaign Flaws

But, with some modifications, I can make my e-mail quite fundamental. I can make it automatically take up the whole window, and I can modify the typography to be slightly bigger, and have a bit more leading. The most aggravating part of ActiveCampaign’s abundant full-screen editor is including images. Picture you’ve simply typed out an excellent email. Active Campaign Flaws.

You can’t merely add an image to a block of text. Instead, you need to create two blocks of text: one for before the image, and one for after the image. If you’ve made any format changes, you’ll need to watch on those to stay consistent. That’s something to deal with when you desire to include one image, but when you want to add a number of, it becomes a huge chore.

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

Active Campaign Flaws

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

ConvertKit’s email modifying experience is extremely plain, but easy to browse. Their design templates are limited, which is fine with me, but their email editing experience is somewhat much easier because you can create inline images, and you can produce an absolutely plain e-mail, and even edit the underlying HTML. If you wish to make some fast edits to some e-mails in an automation, with ActiveCampaign, it’s troublesome.

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

Active Campaign Flaws

In the Automations section, there’s a “Handle Messages” area. 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 brand-new tab to more easily modify your whole series. Active Campaign Flaws. Contrast that with ConvertKit’s Sequences.

Again, it would conserve me a great deal of time to have ConvertKit’s automation email modifying experience on ActiveCampaign – Active Campaign Flaws. But selecting an email marketing platform resembles selecting a partner. ActiveCampaign makes up for 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 choices.

You can integrate characteristics with an AND/OR operator, and you can mix and match those groups of characteristics with another AND/OR operator. With MailChimp, you can only sector by AND/OR, however MailChimp’s Pro strategy permits more advanced segmenting, for an extra $199 a month. In my look for the perfect email marketing platform, I saw numerous others, a few of which I’ve currently discussed.

Active Campaign Flaws

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

Active Campaign Flaws

To start building an automation in ActiveCampaign, start with a “trigger.” There are a number of ways you can trigger 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 choices (offered in the “Pro” plan) When the contact reaches a certain point in another automation.

From there, you can start developing the actions in your automation. Some actions that are offered in ActiveCampaign’s automations are: Send an email Notify a staff member Wait conditions If/then conditionals Split traffic for screening Skip 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 present automation Post a webhook Subscribe or unsubscribe the contact to/from lists Update contact information Add and get rid of tags Include a note Lead scoring, SMS and site messages, and Facebook Custom-made Audience management are all “Pro” functions – Active Campaign Flaws.

Contrast with ConvertKit‘s Automations, which are more limited. On ConvertKit, you can activate an automation when: The contact submits a type The contact buys A tag is contributed to the contact A custom-made field is upgraded with a specific value From there, you can develop Conditions, to check whether the contact has a specific tag or custom-made field value.

Active Campaign Flaws

You can also create Occasions, which are a bit like ActiveCampaign’s Goals, but without the reporting. You can track an Event when: A tag is added or eliminated The contact purchases A date happens A custom-made field is upgraded with a particular worth You do not create e-mails 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 e-mail course. ActiveCampaign makes it simple for me to construct my e-mail course precisely how I wish to develop it. Lots of marketers construct very basic email sequences for their “e-mail courses.” A contact signs up, and after that that contact immediately starts getting lessons.

It was simple to build with ActiveCampaign, but difficult when I was with MailChimp. I do not do that technique. My e-mail course is by hand synced with this countdown timer on my site. You need to sign up by Friday night, and a new course begins each Monday morning. When I initially tried this methodology, I was on MailChimp.

Active Campaign Flaws

Here’s the automation I utilize to welcome brand-new trainees to my Design Pitfalls course. There’s a few things going on here: The automation sends all contacts a “welcome email (Active Campaign Flaws).” The automation confirms that it’s not Friday. If it’s not Friday, the automation waits up until it is Friday. At 11am, it sends a “pump up” email to get the students prepared for next week’s course, and motivate 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 impossible for me to automate this with MailChimp.

When I run a webinar, I do not want to send the exact same e-mail to everyone on my list. I desire to send them the appropriate email for their level of engagement – Active Campaign Flaws. Active Campaign Flaws. Here’s the automation I use to promote an evergreen webinar: First it confirms that they haven’t already bought the item I pitch in the webinar.

Active Campaign Flaws

Then it sends a series of e-mails to get them interested in the webinar, and to encourage them to register. If they register, they immediately hit the “Objective” towards completion 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 Flaws.

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 registered, attended, missed, or based upon the length of time they stayed in the webinar. These tags can then trigger automations within ActiveCampaign.

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

Active Campaign Flaws

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, thirty days, 60 days, etc Each time they open an e-mail, a different automation removes them from this automation, gets rid of all of those tags, and begins this automation over once 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 service. But, because you can do anything with ActiveCampaign, sometimes you need to develop things from scratch. ActiveCampaign has a choice to delete inactive subscribers, which I don’t suggest.

Some customers do not have tracking switched on, so their opens aren’t recorded. Others still wish to be subscribed however have actually been hectic. Here’s my reactivation series: I send one email asking if they still desire to be subscribed, and briefly explaining why I keep my e-mail list tidy. In one week, I send them another email (if they already clicked on the confirmation link in the previous email, they’ve currently been gotten rid of from the automation utilizing a different automation) – Active Campaign Flaws.

Active Campaign Flaws

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 understand that they don’t have tracking enabled. This form adds a tag that I use to filter those contacts out. Active Campaign Flaws. I utilized to include this tag when they clicked on a link, however when people don’t have tracking on, it makes those links not work so dependably! I only send out a simple “do you still desire my e-mails?” verification.