Active Campaign Two Step Form

You can also see whether the completion rate has actually increased or reduced, how long it considers 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 function. It conserves me a ton of time and effort, and neither MailChimp nor ConvertKit (update: 9/2020 ConvertKit now has ” bits”) has a similar feature.

Let’s state you have the given name of only a few of your contacts, which holds true with my list. I normally don’t require a first name to sign up to my list, however sometimes I get a first 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, but it’s troublesome.

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

Active Campaign Two Step Form

I produced a variable that’s just %greeting-hey%. If I have the contact’s name, it appears in the email. If I do not have the contact’s name, it defaults to “Hey,”. Where Message Variables really conserve me a lot of time is by allowing me use the exact same automation over and over again for my webinars, and I can quickly change 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 rate of the product, offer terms, voucher code, and more. Each time I run a brand-new webinar, I can change each of these variables to match any schedule changes or offer changes.

And here it is in an e-mail. This message variable enables me to quickly change out a countdown timer. I did discuss earlier that one of the cons of ActiveCampaign is their email modifying experience. I changed from MailChimp, and MailChimp occurs to have the finest e-mail modifying experience. I really like to send out basic e-mails.

Active Campaign Two Step Form

I’ve found that really tough to do with ActiveCampaign. For some time, I was editing e-mails in ActiveCampaign’s hybrid editor, which is quite clunky. For a long time, I utilized ActiveCampaign’s hybrid HTML and WYSIWYG editor, which was set off by a standard template I created. The interface for the HTML editor appears like it was pulled from some complimentary open-source project. Active Campaign Two Step Form.

However, adding images is a little a chore. You have to choose them from a file internet browser. There’s no drag and drop choice. ActiveCampaign’s HTML email editor requires that you compose entirely in HTML. The option to this, if you wish to have control over the HTML, is to edit pure HTML, with a sneak peek on the side.

Including images to ActiveCampaign’s abundant text editor is a clunky experience. You need separate text boxes for above and below the image. Recently I have begun utilizing ActiveCampaign’s abundant text editor. They have some good templates, however I still wish to send out the plainest email possible. They do have some plain-looking emails, but they have some degree of minimal format, which you can’t eliminate – Active Campaign Two Step Form.

Active Campaign Two Step Form

However, with some modifications, I can make my e-mail pretty standard. I can make it instantly take up the entire window, and I can modify the typography to be somewhat larger, and have a bit more leading. The most frustrating part of ActiveCampaign’s abundant full-screen editor is adding images. Picture you have actually just typed out a great e-mail. Active Campaign Two Step Form.

You can’t merely include an image to a block of text. Instead, you need to produce two blocks of text: one for prior to the image, and one for after the image. If you’ve made any formatting changes, you’ll have to watch on those to remain constant. That’s one thing to handle when you wish to include one image, but when you wish to add several, it ends up being a big task.

They even have a fundamental mage editor where you can crop the image – Active Campaign Two Step Form. MailChimp’s editor is the finest 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 truly plain email, supplied you make a standard design template first.

Active Campaign Two Step Form

MailChimp’s integrated image editor is extremely powerful. You can resize, crop, and add custom text to your images. I miss MailChimp’s email-editing experience (Active Campaign Two Step Form). It would conserve me a little time to have that exact same experience on ActiveCampaign. But the highly-customizable automations I can build on ActiveCampaign more than make up for that prospective time savings.

ConvertKit’s email editing experience is extremely plain, however easy to browse. Their templates are restricted, which is fine with me, however their e-mail editing experience is slightly simpler in that you can produce inline images, and you can produce an absolutely plain e-mail, and even modify the underlying HTML. If you desire to make some quick edits to some emails in an automation, with ActiveCampaign, it’s cumbersome.

I’ll click on an email, 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 indicated to or not, ActiveCampaign has disabled Command + Click from the automation editor. If I wished to change back and forth in between different emails, I would intuitively be inclined open the same automation in numerous tabs, then open the respective emails from each of those tabs.

Active Campaign Two Step Form

In the Automations area, there’s a “Handle 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 easily modify your whole sequence. Active Campaign Two Step Form. Contrast that with ConvertKit’s Sequences.

Once again, it would save me a great deal of time to have ConvertKit’s automation email modifying experience on ActiveCampaign – Active Campaign Two Step Form. However choosing an e-mail marketing platform resembles picking a partner. ActiveCampaign makes up for it with their Message Variables, more robust automations, and advanced division. Speaking of division, another factor I switched from MailChimp to ActiveCampaign was that MailChimp has restricted division options.

You can combine attributes with an AND/OR operator, and you can blend and match those groups of characteristics with another AND/OR operator. With MailChimp, you can just section by AND/OR, however MailChimp’s Pro plan enables more sophisticated segmenting, for an additional $199 a month. In my search for the best email marketing platform, I saw many others, a few of which I have actually already mentioned.

Active Campaign Two Step Form

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

Active Campaign Two Step Form

To begin constructing an automation in ActiveCampaign, start with a “trigger.” There are a number of ways you can trigger an automation, including: When a tag is included When a contact subscribes to a list When a contact submits a form E-commerce and on-site choices (readily available in the “Pro” strategy) When the contact reaches a specific point in another automation.

From there, you can start developing the actions in your automation. Some actions that are available in ActiveCampaign’s automations are: Send an e-mail Alert an employee Wait conditions If/then conditionals Split traffic for testing Skip to other parts of the automation Track objectives (The contact can skip to the objective’s place 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 remove tags Include a note Lead scoring, SMS and site messages, and Facebook Custom-made Audience management are all “Pro” functions – Active Campaign Two Step Form.

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 contributed to the contact A custom-made field is upgraded with a specific value From there, you can produce Conditions, to check whether the contact has a specific tag or custom field worth.

Active Campaign Two Step Form

You can also develop Events, which are a bit like ActiveCampaign’s Goals, however without the reporting. You can track an Event when: A tag is added or gotten rid of The contact buys A date occurs A customized field is upgraded with a certain value You don’t create e-mails in ConvertKit’s Automations.

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

It was easy to build with ActiveCampaign, but difficult when I was with MailChimp. I don’t do that method. My e-mail course is manually synced with this countdown timer on my site. You need to sign up by Friday night, and a brand-new course begins each Monday morning. When I first attempted this method, I was on MailChimp.

Active Campaign Two Step Form

Here’s the automation I utilize to welcome brand-new students to my Style Pitfalls course. There’s a few things going on here: The automation sends all contacts a “welcome e-mail (Active Campaign Two Step Form).” The automation validates 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 prepared 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 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 wish to send out the same email to everyone on my list. I wish to send them the suitable email for their level of engagement – Active Campaign Two Step Form. Active Campaign Two Step Form. Here’s the automation I use to promote an evergreen webinar: First it confirms that they have not already purchased the item I pitch in the webinar.

Active Campaign Two Step Form

Then it sends out a series of emails to get them thinking about the webinar, and to motivate them to register. If they sign up, they immediately hit the “Goal” toward completion 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 Two Step Form.

This allows 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 include tags based upon whether the contact registered, participated in, missed, or based upon the length of time they remained in the webinar. These tags can then trigger automations within ActiveCampaign.

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

Active Campaign Two Step Form

Here’s an automation I got from ActiveCampaign’s library of automations, which I use to inform which contacts aren’t engaging with my e-mails. When a contact subscribes, this automation includes a “0 days” tag. As time passes, it includes brand-new tags for 7 days, thirty days, 60 days, etc Each time they open an e-mail, a different automation eliminates them from this automation, removes 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 option. But, due to the fact that you can do anything with ActiveCampaign, often you need to develop things from scratch. ActiveCampaign has a choice to erase non-active customers, which I don’t advise.

Some subscribers don’t have tracking switched on, so their opens aren’t recorded. Others still want to be subscribed but have been busy. Here’s my reactivation sequence: I send out one e-mail asking if they still want to be subscribed, and briefly describing why I keep my e-mail list tidy. In one week, I send them another e-mail (if they currently clicked on the verification link in the previous e-mail, they’ve currently been gotten rid of from the automation using a different automation) – Active Campaign Two Step Form.

Active Campaign Two Step Form

The automation then unsubscribes them. My e-mails also have a link to a kind where they can enter their email address to let me understand that they don’t have tracking made it possible for. This type adds a tag that I utilize to filter those contacts out. Active Campaign Two Step Form. I utilized to add this tag when they clicked a link, but when people do not have tracking on, it makes those links not work so reliably! I just send an easy “do you still want my emails?” confirmation.