Activecampaign Documentation

To start developing 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 included When a contact subscribes to a list When a contact submits a form E-commerce and on-site options (readily available in the “Pro” plan) 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 offered in ActiveCampaign’s automations are: Send out an email Notify a team member 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 current 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 site messages, and Facebook Custom-made Audience management are all “Pro” features – Activecampaign Documentation.

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

Activecampaign Documentation

You can also develop 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 makes a purchase A date happens A custom-made field is upgraded with a particular worth You don’t produce emails in ConvertKit’s Automations.

For more on how ActiveCampaign compares to ConvertKit, read my ConvertKit vs ActiveCampaign comparison. The main method I construct my list is through an email course. ActiveCampaign makes it simple for me to construct my email course precisely how I want to construct it. Many online marketers develop really simple e-mail series for their “email courses.” A contact register, and then that contact right away starts getting lessons.

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

Activecampaign Documentation

Here’s the automation I utilize to invite new trainees to my Style Pitfalls course. There’s a few things going on here: The automation sends out all contacts a “welcome email (Activecampaign Documentation).” 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 out a “pump up” email to get the students prepared for next week’s course, and encourage 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 out on registration for next week’s class. They’ll get the pump up e-mail the following Friday 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 wish to send out the exact same email to everyone on my list. I desire to send them the appropriate e-mail for their level of engagement – Activecampaign Documentation. Activecampaign Documentation. Here’s the automation I utilize to promote an evergreen webinar: First it validates that they have not already acquired the product I pitch in the webinar.

Activecampaign Documentation

Then it sends a series of emails to get them interested in the webinar, and to encourage them to register. If they sign up, 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. Activecampaign Documentation.

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 signed up, participated in, missed, or based upon for how long they remained in the webinar. These tags can then set off automations within ActiveCampaign.

It costs me cash, and it makes it more most likely that my emails go to spam or Gmail’s promotions tab. Individuals who don’t open my emails make it harder for other emails to get to individuals who truly want them! The “Pro” strategy of ActiveCampaign has lead scoring built in.

Activecampaign Documentation

Here’s an automation I received 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, 30 days, 60 days, etc Each time they open an email, a different automation removes 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 one of those cases where I wish ActiveCampaign had a more out-of-the-box solution. However, since you can do anything with ActiveCampaign, sometimes you have to construct things from scratch. ActiveCampaign has an option to delete inactive customers, which I don’t advise.

Some customers don’t have actually tracking turned on, so their opens aren’t tape-recorded. Others still want to be subscribed but have been hectic. 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 currently clicked on the confirmation link in the previous e-mail, they have actually already been eliminated from the automation utilizing a different automation) – Activecampaign Documentation.

Activecampaign Documentation

The automation then unsubscribes them. My emails also have a link to a form where they can enter their email address to let me understand that they do not have tracking made it possible for. This form adds a tag that I use to filter those contacts out. Activecampaign Documentation. 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 reliably! I only send out an easy “do you still desire my e-mails?” confirmation.

Activecampaign Documentation

You can also see whether the conclusion rate has increased or reduced, the length of time it takes for contacts to reach that goal, 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 saves me a lots of effort and time, and neither MailChimp nor ConvertKit (upgrade: 9/2020 ConvertKit now has ” bits”) has an equivalent function.

Let’s state you have the given name of only some of your contacts, which is the case with my list. I generally don’t need a first name to sign up to my list, however sometimes I get a given name, such as when somebody purchases an item. Would not 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 added by other systems, such as a dash, or “Visitor.” If they have a first name, I say “Hey,” and then their first name. If they don’t, I simply say “Hey there,” (Activecampaign Documentation). By developing a Message Variable in ActiveCampaign, I can quickly alter my greeting according to whether I have the contact’s given name.

Activecampaign Documentation

I produced a variable that’s merely %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 enabling me utilize the exact same automation over and over again for my webinars, and I can quickly 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 rate of the item, 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 changes.

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

Activecampaign Documentation

I’ve discovered that very difficult to do with ActiveCampaign. For some time, I was editing emails 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 standard design template I developed. The user interface for the HTML editor looks like it was pulled from some totally free open-source job. Activecampaign Documentation.

However, adding images is a bit of a task. You need to select them from a file internet browser. There’s no drag and drop choice. ActiveCampaign’s HTML e-mail editor needs that you compose entirely in HTML. The option to this, if you desire to have control over the HTML, is to edit pure HTML, with a preview on the side.

Including images to ActiveCampaign’s abundant full-screen editor is a clunky experience. You need different text boxes for above and listed below the image. Recently I have actually begun using ActiveCampaign’s abundant full-screen editor. They have some great design templates, however I still wish to send the plainest e-mail possible. They do have some plain-looking e-mails, however they have some degree of minimal formatting, which you can’t get rid of – Activecampaign Documentation.

Activecampaign Documentation

But, with some modifications, I can make my e-mail pretty fundamental. I can make it automatically take up the entire window, and I can tweak the typography to be somewhat larger, and have a bit more leading. The most discouraging part of ActiveCampaign’s abundant text editor is adding images. Envision you’ve just typed out a great e-mail. Activecampaign Documentation.

You can’t just include an image to a block of text. Rather, you need to develop two blocks of text: one for before the image, and one for after the image. If you’ve made any format modifications, you’ll need to keep an eye on those to remain constant. That’s something to deal with when you wish to include one image, but when you want to include a number of, it ends up being a huge chore.

They even have a fundamental mage editor where you can crop the image – Activecampaign Documentation. MailChimp’s editor is the very best I’ve seen in all of the email marketing platforms I’ve attempted. You have access to the underlying code, so you can develop a really plain email, provided you make a basic design template first.

Activecampaign Documentation

MailChimp’s integrated image editor is extremely powerful. You can resize, crop, and add custom text to your images. I miss out on MailChimp’s email-editing experience (Activecampaign Documentation). It would save me a little time to have that very same experience on ActiveCampaign. However the highly-customizable automations I can construct on ActiveCampaign more than make up for that prospective time cost savings.

ConvertKit’s e-mail editing experience is very plain, but simple to navigate. Their design templates are restricted, which is great with me, however their email editing experience is slightly easier in that you can produce inline images, and you can create a completely plain email, and even edit 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 meant to or not, ActiveCampaign has handicapped Command + Click from the automation editor. If I desired to switch backward and forward between different emails, I would intuitively be inclined open the exact same automation in various tabs, then open the particular emails from each of those tabs.

Activecampaign Documentation

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 modify every one, or you can Command + Click to open each in a brand-new tab to more easily edit your whole sequence. Activecampaign Documentation. Contrast that with ConvertKit’s Sequences.

Once again, it would save me a lot of time to have ConvertKit’s automation e-mail editing experience on ActiveCampaign – Activecampaign Documentation. However choosing an e-mail marketing platform is like selecting a spouse. ActiveCampaign offsets it with their Message Variables, more robust automations, and advanced segmentation. Mentioning division, another factor I changed from MailChimp to ActiveCampaign was that MailChimp has restricted segmentation choices.

You can integrate 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 sector by AND/OR, nevertheless MailChimp’s Pro strategy permits more advanced segmenting, for an extra $199 a month. In my search for the ideal e-mail marketing platform, I saw numerous others, a few of which I have actually currently discussed.

Activecampaign Documentation

ConvertKit. If I weren’t on ActiveCampaign, I would probably be utilizing ConvertKit. Their automations are much simpler to build, though they aren’t as flexible as ActiveCampaign’s, and their divisions choices aren’t as sophisticated either. They also don’t have objective tracking, or Message Variables. MailChimp. You currently understand that I switched from MailChimp to ActiveCampaign.