Active Campaign Help Videos

To begin developing an automation in ActiveCampaign, start with a “trigger.” There are a number of methods you can set off an automation, including: 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 specific point in another automation.

From there, you can begin building the actions in your automation. Some actions that are readily available in ActiveCampaign’s automations are: Send an email Inform an employee Wait conditions If/then conditionals Split traffic for screening Skip to other parts of the automation Track goals (The contact can skip to the goal’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 Include and get rid of tags Include a note Lead scoring, SMS and website messages, and Facebook Custom Audience management are all “Pro” functions – Active Campaign Help Videos.

Contrast with ConvertKit‘s Automations, which are more limited. On ConvertKit, you can activate an automation when: The contact sends a kind The contact purchases A tag is contributed to the contact A customized field is upgraded with a certain value From there, you can produce Conditions, to examine whether the contact has a particular tag or custom-made field worth.

Active Campaign Help Videos

You can likewise produce Events, which are a bit like ActiveCampaign’s Goals, however without the reporting. You can track an Occasion when: A tag is added or eliminated The contact makes a purchase A date happens A customized field is upgraded with a particular worth You don’t produce e-mails in ConvertKit’s Automations.

For more on how ActiveCampaign compares to ConvertKit, read my ConvertKit vs ActiveCampaign contrast. The primary way I construct my list is through an email course. ActiveCampaign makes it simple for me to construct my e-mail course exactly how I wish to build it. Numerous marketers build very simple e-mail series for their “email courses.” A contact indications up, and then that contact instantly starts getting lessons.

It was easy to build with ActiveCampaign, however difficult when I was with MailChimp. I do not do that technique. My e-mail course is manually synced with this countdown timer on my site. You have to sign up by Friday night, and a new course starts each Monday morning. When I initially attempted this methodology, I was on MailChimp.

Active Campaign Help Videos

Here’s the automation I use to welcome new trainees to my Design Pitfalls course. There’s a couple of things going on here: The automation sends all contacts a “welcome email (Active Campaign Help Videos).” The automation confirms that it’s not Friday. If it’s not Friday, the automation waits till it is Friday. At 11am, it sends out a “pump up” email to get the students prepared for next week’s course, and motivate them to share it with pals.

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 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 desire to send out the same e-mail to every person on my list. I wish to send them the proper email for their level of engagement – Active Campaign Help Videos. Active Campaign Help Videos. Here’s the automation I utilize to promote an evergreen webinar: First it confirms that they have not already acquired the item I pitch in the webinar.

Active Campaign Help Videos

Then it sends out a series of e-mails to get them interested in the webinar, and to motivate them to register. If they register, they immediately hit the “Objective” toward the end of the webinar, and the automation ends. If they do not sign up, they get included to an automation promoting a rebroadcast of the webinar. Active Campaign Help Videos.

This enables me to personalize my messaging, in other automations, based upon the contact’s engagement with the webinar. Here’s the WebinarJam integration panel: I can add tags based upon whether the contact registered, participated in, missed, or based upon how long they remained in the webinar. These tags can then trigger automations within ActiveCampaign.

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

Active Campaign Help Videos

Here’s an automation I got from ActiveCampaign’s library of automations, which I utilize to inform 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 brand-new tags for 7 days, 30 days, 60 days, etc Each time they open an e-mail, a separate automation removes them from this automation, gets rid of all of those tags, and starts this automation over again.

This automation can be overwhelming initially, and this is one of those cases where I wish ActiveCampaign had a more out-of-the-box solution. But, since you can do anything with ActiveCampaign, often you need to build things from scratch. ActiveCampaign has an option to erase inactive subscribers, which I don’t advise.

Some subscribers don’t have tracking turned on, so their opens aren’t taped. Others still wish to be subscribed however have been busy. Here’s my reactivation series: I send one e-mail asking if they still wish to be subscribed, and briefly explaining why I keep my email list clean. In one week, I send them another e-mail (if they already clicked the confirmation link in the previous e-mail, they have actually already been gotten rid of from the automation utilizing a separate automation) – Active Campaign Help Videos.

Active Campaign Help Videos

The automation then unsubscribes them. My e-mails likewise have a link to a form where they can enter their email address to let me know that they don’t have tracking allowed. This kind adds a tag that I use to filter those contacts out. Active Campaign Help Videos. 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 only send a basic “do you still want my e-mails?” verification.

Active Campaign Help Videos

You can likewise see whether the completion rate has increased or decreased, how long it takes for contacts to reach that objective, 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 ton of time and effort, and neither MailChimp nor ConvertKit (upgrade: 9/2020 ConvertKit now has ” bits”) has a similar function.

Let’s say you have the very first name of just some of your contacts, which holds true with my list. I normally don’t need a very first 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 nice to greet 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 “Visitor.” If they have a very first name, I say “Hey,” and after that their given name. If they don’t, I just state “Hey there,” (Active Campaign Help Videos). By building a Message Variable in ActiveCampaign, I can quickly alter my welcoming according to whether I have the contact’s first name.

Active Campaign Help Videos

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

Here are variables 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 price of the product, deal terms, coupon code, and more. Each time I run a new webinar, I can change each of these variables to match any schedule changes or offer modifications.

And here it remains in an email. This message variable enables me to quickly alter out a countdown timer. I did mention earlier that a person of the cons of ActiveCampaign is their email modifying experience. I changed from MailChimp, and MailChimp takes place to have the best email modifying experience. I really like to send simple e-mails.

Active Campaign Help Videos

I’ve discovered that really difficult to do with ActiveCampaign. For awhile, I was editing e-mails in ActiveCampaign’s hybrid editor, which is rather clunky. For a long time, I used ActiveCampaign’s hybrid HTML and WYSIWYG editor, which was set off by a basic design template I created. The interface for the HTML editor looks like it was pulled from some totally free open-source job. Active Campaign Help Videos.

Nevertheless, adding images is a little a task. You need to select them from a file internet browser. There’s no drag and drop alternative. ActiveCampaign’s HTML email editor requires that you compose totally in HTML. The option to this, if you desire 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 below the image. Lately I have started using ActiveCampaign’s rich full-screen editor. They have some great templates, but I still want to send the plainest e-mail possible. They do have some plain-looking e-mails, however they have some degree of minimal format, which you can’t eliminate – Active Campaign Help Videos.

Active Campaign Help Videos

But, with some modifications, I can make my e-mail pretty fundamental. I can make it instantly use up the whole window, and I can fine-tune the typography to be a little larger, and have a bit more leading. The most aggravating part of ActiveCampaign’s abundant full-screen editor is including images. Imagine you have actually just typed out a fantastic email. Active Campaign Help Videos.

You can’t merely add an image to a block of text. Instead, you need to develop 2 blocks of text: one for prior to the image, and one for after the image. If you have actually made any formatting changes, you’ll have to keep an eye on those to stay constant. That’s one thing to handle when you desire to include one image, however when you desire to add numerous, it ends up being a huge chore.

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

Active Campaign Help Videos

MailChimp’s built-in image editor is exceptionally powerful. You can resize, crop, and add custom-made text to your images. I miss MailChimp’s email-editing experience (Active Campaign Help Videos). It would conserve me a little time to have that very same experience on ActiveCampaign. However the highly-customizable automations I can develop on ActiveCampaign more than make up for that prospective time cost savings.

ConvertKit’s e-mail modifying 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 easier because you can create inline images, and you can create an absolutely plain email, and even edit the underlying HTML. If you wish to make some quick edits to some e-mails 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 meant to or not, ActiveCampaign has disabled Command + Click from the automation editor. If I wanted to switch back and forth between numerous e-mails, I would intuitively be inclined open the very same automation in numerous tabs, then open the particular e-mails from each of those tabs.

Active Campaign Help Videos

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 every one, or you can Command + Click to open each in a new tab to more quickly edit your whole series. Active Campaign Help Videos. Contrast that with ConvertKit’s Series.

Once again, it would save me a lot of time to have ConvertKit’s automation email editing experience on ActiveCampaign – Active Campaign Help Videos. But selecting an email marketing platform is like choosing a spouse. ActiveCampaign offsets it with their Message Variables, more robust automations, and advanced division. Speaking of segmentation, another reason I switched from MailChimp to ActiveCampaign was that MailChimp has actually limited segmentation choices.

You can combine characteristics with an AND/OR operator, and you can blend and match those groups of traits with another AND/OR operator. With MailChimp, you can just sector by AND/OR, however MailChimp’s Pro plan enables more sophisticated segmenting, for an extra $199 a month. In my search for the ideal e-mail marketing platform, I saw numerous others, some of which I have actually already discussed.

Active Campaign Help Videos

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