Convertflow Active Campaign

To begin constructing an automation in ActiveCampaign, begin with a “trigger.” There are a variety of ways you can activate an automation, including: When a tag is added When a contact subscribes to a list When a contact submits 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 begin building the actions in your automation. Some actions that are readily 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 current automation Post a webhook Subscribe or unsubscribe the contact to/from lists Update contact information Add and get rid of tags Include a note Lead scoring, SMS and site messages, and Facebook Customized Audience management are all “Pro” functions – Convertflow Active Campaign.

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

Convertflow Active Campaign

You can likewise create Events, which are a bit like ActiveCampaign’s Objectives, however without the reporting. You can track an Occasion when: A tag is included or removed The contact purchases A date happens A customized field is updated with a specific value You do not create emails in ConvertKit’s Automations.

For more on how ActiveCampaign compares to ConvertKit, read my ConvertKit vs ActiveCampaign contrast. The main method I construct my list is through an email course. ActiveCampaign makes it simple for me to develop my email course precisely how I want to construct it. Lots of online marketers construct really simple e-mail sequences for their “e-mail courses.” A contact indications up, and after that that contact right away begins getting lessons.

It was easy to develop with ActiveCampaign, however impossible when I was with MailChimp. I don’t do that approach. My email course is by hand synced with this countdown timer on my website. You have to register by Friday night, and a brand-new course begins each Monday morning. When I first tried this approach, I was on MailChimp.

Convertflow Active Campaign

Here’s the automation I use to invite new students to my Style Pitfalls course. There’s a few things going on here: The automation sends all contacts a “welcome email (Convertflow Active Campaign).” The automation validates 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 trainees prepared for next week’s course, and motivate them to share it with pals.

The contact will start getting lessons the following Monday early morning. If it is Friday and after 7pm, the contact missed enrollment 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 the same email to everyone on my list. I wish to send them the suitable e-mail for their level of engagement – Convertflow Active Campaign. Convertflow Active Campaign. Here’s the automation I utilize to promote an evergreen webinar: First it verifies that they haven’t already acquired the product I pitch in the webinar.

Convertflow Active Campaign

Then it sends a series of emails to get them interested in the webinar, and to encourage them to sign up. If they register, they immediately struck the “Objective” towards the end of the webinar, and the automation ends. If they do not sign up, they get contributed to an automation promoting a rebroadcast of the webinar. Convertflow Active Campaign.

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 add tags based upon whether the contact registered, participated in, missed out on, or based upon 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 promos tab. People who do not open my emails make it harder for other e-mails to get to individuals who truly desire them! The “Pro” strategy of ActiveCampaign has lead scoring developed in.

Convertflow Active Campaign

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 includes a “0 days” tag. As time passes, it adds new tags for 7 days, thirty 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 initially, and this is one of those cases where I want ActiveCampaign had a more out-of-the-box option. However, since you can do anything with ActiveCampaign, in some cases you need to develop things from scratch. ActiveCampaign has a choice to erase inactive subscribers, which I do not recommend.

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

Convertflow Active Campaign

The automation then unsubscribes them. My emails also have a link to a type where they can enter their email address to let me understand that they don’t have tracking allowed. This kind includes a tag that I utilize to filter those contacts out. Convertflow Active Campaign. 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 reliably! I only send out an easy “do you still want my e-mails?” confirmation.

Convertflow Active Campaign

You can also see whether the conclusion rate has actually increased or decreased, the length of time it considers 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 preferred function. It conserves me a load of time and effort, and neither MailChimp nor ConvertKit (update: 9/2020 ConvertKit now has ” bits”) has a comparable feature.

Let’s say you have the given name of only some of your contacts, which holds true with my list. I usually do not require a first name to register to my list, however in some cases I get a very first name, such as when somebody buys an item. Would not it be great to greet your contacts by name, in the events when you have it? You can do this, however it’s cumbersome.

I’m also filtering for generic terms added by other systems, such as a dash, or “Guest.” If they have a very first name, I state “Hey,” and then their first name. If they don’t, I simply say “Hey there,” (Convertflow Active Campaign). By building a Message Variable in ActiveCampaign, I can quickly alter my greeting according to whether or not I have the contact’s given name.

Convertflow Active Campaign

I produced a variable that’s merely %greeting-hey%. If I have the contact’s name, it appears in the email. If I don’t have the contact’s name, it defaults to “Hey,”. Where Message Variables really save me a lot of time is by enabling me use the 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 cost of the item, offer terms, discount coupon code, and more. Each time I run a brand-new webinar, I can alter each of these variables to match any schedule modifications or deal modifications.

And here it remains in an e-mail. This message variable enables me to easily change out a countdown timer. I did mention earlier that a person of the cons of ActiveCampaign is their email editing experience. I switched from MailChimp, and MailChimp happens to have the very best email modifying experience. I actually like to send simple e-mails.

Convertflow Active Campaign

I’ve discovered that really hard to do with ActiveCampaign. For some time, I was modifying emails in ActiveCampaign’s hybrid editor, which is rather clunky. For a very long time, I utilized ActiveCampaign’s hybrid HTML and WYSIWYG editor, which was triggered by a fundamental design template I created. The interface for the HTML editor appears like it was pulled from some free open-source project. Convertflow Active Campaign.

Nevertheless, including images is a little a chore. 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 completely 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.

Adding images to ActiveCampaign’s rich text editor is a clunky experience. You need separate text boxes for above and below the image. Lately I have begun utilizing 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 emails, but they have some degree of minimal format, which you can’t remove – Convertflow Active Campaign.

Convertflow Active Campaign

However, with some modifications, I can make my e-mail quite basic. I can make it immediately use up the whole window, and I can modify the typography to be somewhat bigger, and have a little more prominent. The most discouraging part of ActiveCampaign’s abundant full-screen editor is including images. Imagine you’ve just typed out a terrific e-mail. Convertflow Active Campaign.

You can’t just include an image to a block of text. Rather, you have to create 2 blocks of text: one for before the image, and one for after the image. If you’ve made any format modifications, you’ll have to keep an eye on those to remain consistent. That’s one thing to deal with when you wish to include one image, however when you desire to add a number of, it becomes a big chore.

They even have a standard mage editor where you can crop the image – Convertflow Active Campaign. 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 create a really plain e-mail, supplied you make a fundamental template first.

Convertflow Active Campaign

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

ConvertKit’s e-mail modifying experience is very plain, but easy to navigate. Their design templates are restricted, which is fine with me, but their e-mail modifying experience is slightly easier because you can develop inline images, and you can develop a completely plain email, and even edit the underlying HTML. If you want to make some fast edits to some e-mails in an automation, with ActiveCampaign, it’s cumbersome.

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 suggested to or not, ActiveCampaign has disabled Command + Click from the automation editor. If I desired to switch backward and forward between numerous emails, I would intuitively be inclined open the very same automation in various tabs, then open the particular e-mails from each of those tabs.

Convertflow Active Campaign

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 each one, or you can Command + Click to open each in a brand-new tab to more easily modify your whole series. Convertflow Active Campaign. Contrast that with ConvertKit’s Sequences.

Again, it would conserve me a lot of time to have ConvertKit’s automation e-mail editing experience on ActiveCampaign – Convertflow Active Campaign. However picking an e-mail marketing platform is like choosing a spouse. ActiveCampaign makes up for it with their Message Variables, more robust automations, and advanced division. Mentioning division, another factor I switched from MailChimp to ActiveCampaign was that MailChimp has restricted segmentation options.

You can integrate 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 segment by AND/OR, nevertheless MailChimp’s Pro strategy enables more sophisticated segmenting, for an extra $199 a month. In my look for the ideal email marketing platform, I saw many others, some of which I have actually currently pointed out.

Convertflow Active Campaign

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 flexible as ActiveCampaign’s, and their segmentations options aren’t as advanced either. They likewise don’t have objective tracking, or Message Variables. MailChimp. You already know that I switched from MailChimp to ActiveCampaign.