Active Campaign Web Hook

To begin building an automation in ActiveCampaign, start with a “trigger.” There are a number of methods you can trigger an automation, including: When a tag is included When a contact signs up for a list When a contact submits a kind E-commerce and on-site alternatives (available in the “Pro” plan) When the contact reaches a certain point in another automation.

From there, you can begin constructing the actions in your automation. Some actions that are offered in ActiveCampaign’s automations are: Send an email Alert a team member Wait conditions If/then conditionals Split traffic for testing Skip to other parts of the automation Track goals (The contact can avoid to the objective’s place 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 eliminate tags Include a note Lead scoring, SMS and site messages, and Facebook Custom Audience management are all “Pro” functions – Active Campaign Web Hook.

Contrast with ConvertKit‘s Automations, which are more restricted. On ConvertKit, you can trigger an automation when: The contact submits a type The contact makes a purchase A tag is contributed to the contact A customized field is upgraded with a particular value From there, you can develop Conditions, to inspect whether the contact has a certain tag or custom-made field worth.

Active Campaign Web Hook

You can also create Occasions, which are a bit like ActiveCampaign’s Goals, but without the reporting. You can track an Occasion when: A tag is included or eliminated The contact purchases A date occurs A custom-made field is upgraded with a specific worth You don’t develop 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 build my e-mail course exactly how I wish to construct it. Many marketers develop really simple email sequences for their “email courses.” A contact indications up, and after that that contact right away starts getting lessons.

It was simple to build with ActiveCampaign, but impossible 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 starts each Monday morning. When I first attempted this method, I was on MailChimp.

Active Campaign Web Hook

Here’s the automation I use to invite new trainees to my Design Pitfalls course. There’s a few things going on here: The automation sends out all contacts a “welcome email (Active Campaign Web Hook).” The automation verifies 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 trainees prepared for next week’s course, and motivate them to share it with good friends.

The contact will start getting lessons the following Monday early morning. If it is Friday and after 7pm, the contact missed out on 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 difficult for me to automate this with MailChimp.

When I run a webinar, I do not desire to send the exact same email to everyone on my list. I wish to send them the proper email for their level of engagement – Active Campaign Web Hook. Active Campaign Web Hook. Here’s the automation I use to promote an evergreen webinar: First it confirms that they haven’t currently acquired the product I pitch in the webinar.

Active Campaign Web Hook

Then it sends out a series of e-mails to get them thinking about the webinar, and to encourage them to sign up. If they sign up, they right away struck the “Objective” toward the end of the webinar, and the automation ends. If they don’t register, they get added to an automation promoting a rebroadcast of the webinar. Active Campaign Web Hook.

This enables me to tailor 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 out on, or based upon how long they stayed in the webinar. These tags can then activate automations within ActiveCampaign.

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

Active Campaign Web Hook

Here’s an automation I obtained from ActiveCampaign’s library of automations, which I utilize to inform which contacts aren’t engaging with my emails. When a contact subscribes, this automation includes a “0 days” tag. As time passes, it includes new tags for 7 days, 30 days, 60 days, etc Each time they open an email, a different automation eliminates them from this automation, gets rid of all of those tags, and starts this automation over once again.

This automation can be overwhelming in the beginning, and this is among those cases where I want ActiveCampaign had a more out-of-the-box solution. However, due to the fact that you can do anything with ActiveCampaign, sometimes you have to build things from scratch. ActiveCampaign has an alternative to delete inactive subscribers, which I do not suggest.

Some subscribers do not have tracking turned on, so their opens aren’t recorded. Others still wish to be subscribed but have actually been hectic. Here’s my reactivation sequence: I send one e-mail asking if they still want to be subscribed, and briefly describing why I keep my e-mail list clean. In one week, I send them another email (if they already clicked the verification link in the previous e-mail, they have actually already been removed from the automation utilizing a separate automation) – Active Campaign Web Hook.

Active Campaign Web Hook

The automation then unsubscribes them. My e-mails also have a link to a form where they can enter their e-mail address to let me know 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 Web Hook. I used to include this tag when they clicked a link, but when people don’t have tracking on, it makes those links not work so dependably! I just send a simple “do you still desire my e-mails?” confirmation.

Active Campaign Web Hook

You can also see whether the completion rate has actually increased or decreased, 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 goal. ActiveCampaign’s Message Variables is my preferred function. It saves me a load of effort and time, and neither MailChimp nor ConvertKit (update: 9/2020 ConvertKit now has ” snippets”) has a comparable function.

Let’s state you have the given name of just some of your contacts, which holds true with my list. I generally do not need a first name to sign up to my list, but sometimes I get a given name, such as when someone purchases a product. Wouldn’t it be great to greet 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 “Guest.” If they have a given name, I say “Hey,” and then their given name. If they do not, I simply state “Hey there,” (Active Campaign Web Hook). By constructing a Message Variable in ActiveCampaign, I can easily change my greeting according to whether or not I have the contact’s first name.

Active Campaign Web Hook

I developed 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 actually conserve me a lot of time is by enabling me utilize the very same automation over and over 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, offer terms, voucher code, and more. Each time I run a new webinar, I can alter each of these variables to match any schedule modifications or offer modifications.

And here it remains in an e-mail. This message variable enables me to easily alter out a countdown timer. I did point out 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 finest e-mail modifying experience. I actually like to send out simple emails.

Active Campaign Web Hook

I have actually discovered that really difficult to do with ActiveCampaign. For awhile, I was editing e-mails in ActiveCampaign’s hybrid editor, which is rather cumbersome. For a very long time, I utilized ActiveCampaign’s hybrid HTML and WYSIWYG editor, which was set off by a standard template I produced. The interface for the HTML editor looks like it was pulled from some complimentary open-source task. Active Campaign Web Hook.

However, including images is a bit of a task. You need 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 desire to have control over the HTML, is to modify pure HTML, with a preview on the side.

Adding images to ActiveCampaign’s abundant text editor is a cumbersome experience. You need different text boxes for above and below the image. Recently I have begun utilizing ActiveCampaign’s abundant text editor. They have some nice design templates, however I still wish to send out the plainest e-mail possible. They do have some plain-looking emails, however they have some degree of minimal format, which you can’t remove – Active Campaign Web Hook.

Active Campaign Web Hook

But, with some changes, I can make my email pretty fundamental. I can make it immediately use up the whole window, and I can tweak the typography to be somewhat larger, and have a little more prominent. The most discouraging part of ActiveCampaign’s abundant text editor is including images. Envision you have actually simply typed out a great e-mail. Active Campaign Web Hook.

You can’t simply include an image to a block of text. Rather, you need to create two blocks of text: one for before the image, and one for after the image. If you’ve made any formatting changes, you’ll need to watch on those to stay constant. That’s one thing to deal with when you wish to include one image, however when you desire to add several, it becomes a big task.

They even have a fundamental mage editor where you can crop the image – Active Campaign Web Hook. 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 produce a genuinely plain e-mail, provided you make a fundamental template initially.

Active Campaign Web Hook

MailChimp’s integrated image editor is incredibly powerful. You can resize, crop, and add custom-made text to your images. I miss out on MailChimp’s email-editing experience (Active Campaign Web Hook). 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 potential time cost savings.

ConvertKit’s email modifying experience is really plain, however simple to browse. Their design templates are restricted, which is fine with me, but their e-mail editing experience is slightly much easier in that you can produce inline images, and you can develop 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 troublesome.

I’ll click on an e-mail, and it takes me to the editor for that email. Keep in mind that I can’t even Command + Click to open it in another tab. Whether they implied to or not, ActiveCampaign has disabled Command + Click from the automation editor. If I wished to switch back and forth between various emails, I would intuitively be inclined open the very same automation in numerous tabs, then open the respective e-mails from each of those tabs.

Active Campaign Web Hook

In the Automations area, there’s a “Manage Messages” area. 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 brand-new tab to more easily edit your entire series. Active Campaign Web Hook. Contrast that with ConvertKit’s Series.

Again, it would save me a great deal of time to have ConvertKit’s automation e-mail editing experience on ActiveCampaign – Active Campaign Web Hook. But choosing an e-mail marketing platform resembles picking a spouse. ActiveCampaign makes up for it with their Message Variables, more robust automations, and advanced division. Speaking of segmentation, 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 qualities with another AND/OR operator. With MailChimp, you can only section by AND/OR, however MailChimp’s Pro strategy enables more advanced segmenting, for an additional $199 a month. In my look for the best email marketing platform, I saw lots of others, a few of which I’ve already mentioned.

Active Campaign Web Hook

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 sophisticated either. They likewise don’t have goal tracking, or Message Variables. MailChimp. You already know that I changed from MailChimp to ActiveCampaign.