Active Campaign Tags Vs Lists

To begin building an automation in ActiveCampaign, start with a “trigger.” There are a variety of methods you can set off an automation, including: When a tag is added When a contact registers for a list When a contact sends a type E-commerce and on-site alternatives (offered in the “Pro” strategy) When the contact reaches a particular point in another automation.

From there, you can start constructing the actions in your automation. Some actions that are available in ActiveCampaign’s automations are: Send an email Notify an employee 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 existing automation Post a webhook Subscribe or unsubscribe the contact to/from lists Update contact details Add and remove tags Add a note Lead scoring, SMS and website messages, and Facebook Custom-made Audience management are all “Pro” features – Active Campaign Tags Vs Lists.

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

Active Campaign Tags Vs Lists

You can likewise 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 removed The contact makes a purchase A date takes place A customized field is upgraded with a specific worth You don’t develop emails in ConvertKit’s Automations.

For more on how ActiveCampaign compares to ConvertKit, read my ConvertKit vs ActiveCampaign comparison. The main way I build 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. Numerous marketers build very simple e-mail series for their “email courses.” A contact register, and after that 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 e-mail course is by hand synced with this countdown timer on my site. You need to sign up by Friday night, and a brand-new course starts each Monday early morning. When I first tried this method, I was on MailChimp.

Active Campaign Tags Vs Lists

Here’s the automation I use to invite new students to my Style Pitfalls course. There’s a couple of things going on here: The automation sends out all contacts a “welcome email (Active Campaign Tags Vs Lists).” The automation validates that it’s not Friday. If it’s not Friday, the automation waits up 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 motivate them to share it with good friends.

The contact will begin getting lessons the following Monday early 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 early 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 desire to send out the very same e-mail to every individual on my list. I wish to send them the proper email for their level of engagement – Active Campaign Tags Vs Lists. Active Campaign Tags Vs Lists. Here’s the automation I utilize to promote an evergreen webinar: First it verifies that they haven’t currently bought the item I pitch in the webinar.

Active Campaign Tags Vs Lists

Then it sends out a series of e-mails to get them thinking about the webinar, and to encourage them to register. If they register, they immediately hit the “Goal” towards the end of the webinar, and the automation ends. If they do not sign up, they get added to an automation promoting a rebroadcast of the webinar. Active Campaign Tags Vs Lists.

This enables 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 include tags based upon whether the contact registered, attended, missed out on, or based upon for how long they stayed in the webinar. These tags can then set off automations within ActiveCampaign.

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

Active Campaign Tags Vs Lists

Here’s an automation I obtained 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 includes 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 email, a separate automation eliminates them from this automation, gets rid of all of those tags, and begins this automation over again.

This automation can be overwhelming at first, and this is one of 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 need to build things from scratch. ActiveCampaign has an option to erase non-active customers, which I do not recommend.

Some customers do not have actually tracking switched on, so their opens aren’t taped. Others still wish to be subscribed but have been busy. Here’s my reactivation series: I send one email 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 on the confirmation link in the previous e-mail, they’ve already been removed from the automation using a separate automation) – Active Campaign Tags Vs Lists.

Active Campaign Tags Vs Lists

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

Active Campaign Tags Vs Lists

You can also see whether the completion rate has actually increased or reduced, 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 objective. ActiveCampaign’s Message Variables is my favorite feature. It saves me a lots of effort and time, and neither MailChimp nor ConvertKit (update: 9/2020 ConvertKit now has ” bits”) has a comparable feature.

Let’s state you have the very first name of only a few of your contacts, which is the case with my list. I typically don’t require a first name to register to my list, however sometimes I get a given name, such as when someone purchases a product. Would not it be great to greet your contacts by name, in the cases when you have it? You can do this, however it’s cumbersome.

I’m also filtering for generic terms included by other systems, such as a dash, or “Visitor.” If they have a given name, I say “Hey,” and after that their given name. If they do not, I simply say “Hey there,” (Active Campaign Tags Vs Lists). By developing a Message Variable in ActiveCampaign, I can easily alter my greeting according to whether I have the contact’s given name.

Active Campaign Tags Vs Lists

I produced a variable that’s merely %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 lot 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 details.

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 cost of the product, deal terms, voucher code, and more. Each time I run a new webinar, I can alter each of these variables to match any schedule changes or deal changes.

And here it is in an email. 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 modifying experience. I switched from MailChimp, and MailChimp happens to have the best e-mail modifying experience. I actually like to send simple emails.

Active Campaign Tags Vs Lists

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

Nevertheless, including images is a bit of a task. You have to pick them from a file internet browser. There’s no drag and drop choice. ActiveCampaign’s HTML e-mail editor needs that you compose totally 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.

Adding images to ActiveCampaign’s rich full-screen editor is a clunky experience. You require different text boxes for above and listed below the image. Lately I have begun using ActiveCampaign’s abundant text editor. They have some nice design templates, but I still wish to send out the plainest e-mail possible. They do have some plain-looking e-mails, however they have some degree of very little format, which you can’t remove – Active Campaign Tags Vs Lists.

Active Campaign Tags Vs Lists

However, with some adjustments, 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 bigger, and have a little bit more leading. The most frustrating part of ActiveCampaign’s abundant text editor is adding images. Envision you have actually simply typed out a terrific e-mail. Active Campaign Tags Vs Lists.

You can’t just add an image to a block of text. Rather, you need 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 have to watch on those to remain constant. That’s one thing to deal with when you want to include one image, however when you desire to add several, it becomes a huge chore.

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

Active Campaign Tags Vs Lists

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

ConvertKit’s e-mail modifying experience is very plain, but simple to browse. Their design templates are limited, which is great with me, but their email modifying experience is somewhat easier because you can develop inline images, and you can develop a totally plain e-mail, and even modify 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 an email, and it takes me to the editor for that e-mail. Note that I can’t even Command + Click to open it in another tab. Whether they indicated to or not, ActiveCampaign has handicapped Command + Click from the automation editor. If I wanted to change back and forth in between different e-mails, I would intuitively be inclined open the exact same automation in different tabs, then open the particular emails from each of those tabs.

Active Campaign Tags Vs Lists

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 edit each one, or you can Command + Click to open each in a new tab to more quickly edit your whole series. Active Campaign Tags Vs Lists. Contrast that with ConvertKit’s Sequences.

Again, it would save me a great deal of time to have ConvertKit’s automation e-mail modifying experience on ActiveCampaign – Active Campaign Tags Vs Lists. But selecting an email marketing platform resembles selecting a partner. ActiveCampaign makes up for 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 actually restricted division choices.

You can combine 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 only segment by AND/OR, however MailChimp’s Pro strategy allows more sophisticated segmenting, for an additional $199 a month. In my search for the perfect email marketing platform, I saw lots of others, some of which I have actually currently discussed.

Active Campaign Tags Vs Lists

ConvertKit. If I weren’t on ActiveCampaign, I would probably be using ConvertKit. Their automations are much easier to construct, though they aren’t as versatile as ActiveCampaign’s, and their divisions options aren’t as advanced either. They likewise don’t have objective tracking, or Message Variables. MailChimp. You already know that I changed from MailChimp to ActiveCampaign.