ActiveCampaign has many features like autoresponders, segmentation, and workflow automation. Read our ActiveCampaign review to see if it’s worth investing in.
ActiveCampaign is a category-defining marketing automation platform that helps businesses automate marketing and improve their sales process.
With 150,000 customers and an impressive 38 million hours saved since July 2020 alone – this Chicago-based automation tool is worth looking into. ActiveCampaign offers a host of features and integrations making it a powerful email marketing tool.
In this article, we will take a look at what ActiveCampaign is, the features it offers, who it is ideal for, and the value proposition. We’ll put ActiveCampaign under the lens in this review so you can decide for yourself if their bold claims hold true!
ActiveCampaign Review Summary
With ActiveCampaign, you can have a newsletter that is tailored to your customers. It offers almost everything you need to send effective email campaigns. Plus its advanced automation is hard to beat! An entry-level plan starts at $9 monthly (for up 500 subscribers) or if pro features such as CRM and lead scoring interest you, then just sending out emails then go with Plus Plan which costs less than seventy dollars per month.
Two features that really stand out are its marketing automation and the CRM (they call it “deals”). You can use the CRM software if you want to track deals and manage sales pipelines – both of which will be helpful if you have a sales team or you are in B2B sales.
When it comes to email marketing software, ActiveCampaign scores pretty high on most aspects (we’ll take a closer look in a second). The easy-to-use interface and powerful features make this platform perfect for any business looking to grow its list of clients or reach out with new products/services!
In addition, Active Campaign has a feature called Conversations. Using Conversations, you can set up a live chat with automated replies. You can send targeted messages to your website visitors and start a conversation in the context of the page they are browsing.
With ActiveCampaign, your various marketing efforts are combined in one place. This means that it’s easy to see what is working and where you can improve! You’ll also save time by not having to use multiple providers.
ActiveCampaign Review on Pricing
Active Campaign pricing is organized according to the use – B2C, B2B, and E-commerce. It mainly depends on the number of subscribers you have in your list (including both active and inactive subscribers). Their lite plan with 500 subscribers is an excellent value for money for someone just starting out. It has pretty much everything you need for a small monthly fee. But as you grow in your use and sophistication, you can opt for a Plus, Professional plan, or Enterprise plan.
Active Campaign Pros & Cons
There are many reasons you might want to consider using ActiveCampaign for your email marketing.
Here are some of the top pros of this powerful platform:
Pros of Active Campaign
Powerful Marketing Automation – When it comes to marketing automation, Active Campaign is packed with a lot of power under the hood. There is so much you can do with Active Campaign in terms of automating your marketing tasks. Active Campaign comes with pre-built automation recipes that are like automation templates that you can directly plug-in with your apps.
In-depth Reporting – Active Campaign provides a good overview of email campaigns that are not just limited to click rates and open rates. You can view the open and click-through trends to find out which days or times your subscribers are engaged the most. You can also drill down to generate reports based on products, offers, or customer segments.
Great Deliverability – When it comes to email deliverability, Active Campaign is one of the top 3 email service providers in the world. For high-volume senders, Active Campaign also offers dedicated IP addresses and custom domain tracking. So your deliverability is not compromised which can happen due to shared IP addresses.
Powerful Campaign Builder – ActiveCampaign has an extremely capable campaign builder. There is a built-in spam score checker that tells you instantly if anything in your email can be detected by Google’s spam filters. You can also re-use content blocks saving you a lot of time using commonly used content elements. In their Premium plan, you also get dynamic widgets that display certain content pieces based on business rules.
Cons of Active Campaign
Steeper learning curve – If you are looking for a simpler email marketing solution, this might be a con. With more sophistication comes a bit of a learning curve. Active Campaign does have a bit of learning involved and if you want something simple, look elsewhere.
No free tier – Unlike many marketing platforms that offer a free-for-life plan, there are no free lunches with Active Campaign. They offer a 14-day free trial which in most cases isn’t enough to fully evaluate the platform.
Client previews can be an additional cost – If cross-platform previewing is a big part of what you do, then Active Campaign can put some additional pressure on your wallet. They charge $1 per client preview.
Conversions tracking is an optional extra – Conversion tracking can be a very useful tool if you want to track revenue generated with your emails. This feature is available at an extra cost. Having this feature as a standard default could make Active Campaign absolutely unbeatable.
Is ActiveCampaign Email Service the Right Choice for you?
In order to find the right answer, ask yourself these questions:
Do you need an integrated CRM and marketing platform for your business? Would you like to be able to centralize a good chunk of your marketing and give your customers a better all-around experience? If so, ActiveCampaign is the right newsletter service for you.
Active Campaign is Recommended if:
1. You’re serious about marketing automation
ActiveCampaign offers a suite of features that make it one of the most powerful tools on the market. With a variety of automation recipes, dynamic content, automated segmentation, web personalization, and hundreds of integrations, Active Campaign is an ideal choice for marketers who need a greater level of sophistication in their marketing.
2. You need an integrated CRM
Inbuilt into ActiveCampaign is a CRM that seamlessly links up all your email data with other aspects of your customer data. You can automatically send one-to-one sales emails via your Gmail inbox. Inbuilt CRM links up with all your email marketing data to help streamline processes within a business. Features like lead scoring and social data can also be used to improve the efficiencies of your sales team and close deals faster.
3. You need a tool that performs multi-channel marketing
ActiveCampaign offers many features that make it easy to manage multi-channel marketing: from sending emails to setting up landing pages, managing how Facebook ads are displayed, or even sending SMS messages. This makes it a great multi-channel marketing tool.
Not Recommended If:
There are Active Campaigns may not be the right fit for you in the following situations:
1. You need a low-maintenance, beginner-friendly tool
2. You only want to set up basic email sequences (for example, a welcome series)
If your email marketing needs are extremely limited in the foreseeable future, then Active Campaign might be a little too advanced. In that case, we recommend MailerLite or ConvertKit which are far easier to use and don’t require much maintenance.
And if you’re unsure about whether Active Campaign is the right tool for you, they offer a 14-day trial so you can test it out.
Try Active Campaign
ActiveCampaign Review Based on Rating
Let us see how Active Campaign stack up on important features and their ratings:
| Feature | Rating | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of Use |  | ActiveCampaign’s user-friendly design makes it easy to get started. The dashboard is intuitive, with helpful instructions and demo data to guide you. Plus, the Content Manager keeps all your assets organized and easily accessible. With so many features, it may be a little daunting for beginners at first. But don’t worry – ActiveCampaign has tons of tutorials and support available to help you get up and running in no time. |
| Campaign Builder |  | Active Campaign has taken the guesswork out of email marketing. Drag and drop columns, tons of content blocks to reuse, auto-save every minute – Active Campaign is fast! |
| Editor |  | Active Campaign gives you a Google Docs-style editor with editing history so you can see changes other team members have made to their campaigns. Forget what you were doing last? No worries, there is an undo button to roll back changes. The only drawback of the editor is the lack of an instant previewer. So you do need to go into email settings in order to preview your email. |
| Campaign Types |  | ActiveCampaign has a ton of different campaign types. Classic newsletters, SMS, autoresponders, A/B testing, and RSS triggered – they have it all. Not to mention advanced automation which is the best way to grow your email list quickly. |
| Personalization |  | ActiveCampaign’s ‘dynamic content’ blocks make it easy to show different customers different content based on their interests and past behavior. This easy-to-use If/Then/Else logic is available via ‘conditional content,’ so you can target your messages more effectively. |
| Email Templates |  | ActiveCampaign offers a wide variety of responsive, modern email templates to choose from. You can easily preview them on mobile and desktop devices. Additionally, their templates offer more features and content blocks than other email marketing tools. If you’re looking for a customized email design, ActiveCampaign offers it for free to users on the Plus plan and higher. |
| Email Marketing Automation |  | Active Campaign is powerful, user-friendly marketing automation that will help you automate your follow-up campaigns, edit multiple conditions, and much more with an easy flowchart-style builder. It also comes with pre-made ‘recipes’ for those who are feeling less creative or would prefer to use something off the shelf instead of building from scratch. Active Campaign can be accessed on any device through its mobile app! |
| List Management |  | Compared to some other email marketing tools, Active Campaign makes it easy to manage contacts and lists. Their automation functions allow you to quickly organize people into lists based on their interests or actions. Although, what we didn’t like is how you can manage customer segments. The customer segmentation feature is extremely powerful but for a newbie, it can be hard to discover. That’s the reason why Active Campaign scores less on this front. |
| Forms |  | Forms that work the way you want, letting you create custom fields and embed them automatically on Shopify sites. With responsive standard forms, floating forms, and models, Active Campaign makes it easy to gather information from your customers. Plus, you can include a discount code field to encourage users to make a purchase. However, what we do not like about Forms is the lack of A/B testing and the limited ability to customize the form UI. |
| Deliverability |  | With deliverability rates that are among the highest in the industry, ActiveCampaign is a great choice for email marketers looking to reach their subscribers’ Inboxes. In all our tests, the Inbox placement of Active Campaign emails in Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and Outlook was 100%. |
| Reporting |  | ActiveCampaign offers robust reporting features to help you track your email marketing performance. You can view reports on opens, clicks, page visits, geo-tracking, and more. E-commerce reports are also available for Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and other platforms. The “Recommendations for you” section offers helpful suggestions on actions you can take to improve your campaigns. Other reports include contact trends, deal reports, chat conversion, automation reports, and more. Custom reports are only available on the Enterprise plan. |
| Globalization |  | Looking to target a global audience? With ActiveCampaign you can easily target users who have their language settings set to one of more than 20 different languages. This means that no matter where your customers are from, you can easily communicate with them in their native language. |
| Additional Features | ||
| Spam & Design Test |  | Active Campaign also offers a “spam test”. This is simply a pass/fail judgment on whether the message you want to send will pass the spam filters of Inbox providers. For $1 per test, Active Campaign can even preview your email in various desktop/mobile/operating systems before it goes out. |
| Bounce Management |  | Active Campaign has a robust bounce management system. The system will automatically reduce soft bounces to hard by counting after three and build an exclusion list of contacts that you can import or export. |
| Storage |  | Storage is available for data and images up to 1 Mb in size and it is unlimited. |
| Pro Features | ||
| Authentication |  | Standard email authentications such as SPF and DKIM are supported |
| Tracking Domain |  | You can use your own tracking domain which can improve brand experience and deliverability. |
| User Management |  | Active Campaign can help you create various roles and assign users to the role. There is plenty of flexibility to assign add users and modify roles. |
| Integrations |  | This is where Active Campaign steals the show. ActiveCampaign offers plenty of options for integrating with other tools you’re likely already using. Whether you need PayPal, Shopify, Google Analytics, or WordPress support, we’ve got you covered. And if you’re looking for form and survey tools, we integrate with Typeform and SurveyMonkey. Plus, our integration options are always growing thanks to Zapier. Check out all the integrations available now. |
| Landing Pages |  | Active Campaign makes it easy to create personalized web experiences. You can hide or remove certain elements, add special buttons (including calling a phone number, downloading a file, or sending an email), and more based on the geographical location of the user or based on other business rules you define for that element. With Active Campaign, you can easily create landing pages on a custom domain or subdomain. With the Professional plan and up, you can create even more personalized web experiences. |
| E-commerce |  | Active Campaign offers e-commerce integrations for Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce. You can also create custom shopping cart integrations using the active campaign API. All you need to do is map active campaign fields on your form letters with active campaign variables. Once this mapping is done, the active campaign will capture all the information and store it for you. |
| CRM |  | Active Campaign is a powerful CRM platform. It’s ideal for small and midsize businesses as well as large enterprises. With an active campaign, you can track all your communication with clients in one place – whether it’s email, chat, or phone calls. ActiveCampaign has a strong focus on marketing automation and leads nurturing capabilities |
| Support |  | Active Campaign, it’s easier than ever to stay in touch with your customers and capture new leads. With their fast support team across all mediums and languages, video tutorials, and webinars (live or archived) they are making their customer’s life easier. One-on-one training is available on the ‘Plus’ plan. |
| Overall Rating |  | There’s no stopping ActiveCampaign. This email marketing superstar offers sales automation, subscriber management through automated workflows, and of course the new features they’re still adding to the mix. If you’re looking for one of the most powerful email marketing services on the market (we know we are), then look no further than Active Campaign. |
Conclusion
Do We Recommend Active Campaign?
Active Campaign is a powerful and flexible marketing platform that’s difficult to go wrong with.
It is a great tool for digital marketers looking to automate their sales and marketing processes. With features like email marketing, built-in lead scoring, and sales automation, Active Campaign can help you streamline your workflow and improve your results. It does have a steeper learning curve than some other options, but the rewards are worth it. And even if you’re just looking for a way to blast out newsletters, Active Campaign has you covered.
Their reporting is well thought out and offers insights into almost any facet of your account from page visits to geo-tracking. One area they could improve is their email builder where some features could do better (such as the revision history). The pricing for their services is pretty fair considering all that they offer, so it may be worth looking into ActiveCampaign if you want robust email marketing tools.
They offer email and chat support, as well as a helpful knowledge base. With their ‘Plus’ plan, you also get access to one-on-one training and webinars. Its marketing and sales automation is top-notch, making other tools’ automated workflows pale in comparison. However, be prepared for a slightly steeper learning curve and to spend a bit more money.
If you’re just looking to blast out newsletters, then GetResponse or MailerLite might be a bit easier to get your head around. But if you want to take your business to the next level, Active Campaign is the way to go.
That being said – ActiveCampaign offers a range of really useful tools, regardless of whether you’re a customer or not. You can find everything from content and social media calendar templates to a subject line generator. Check out the free tools here to help with your digital marketing campaigns.
Active Campaign is a powerful email marketing tool that boasts many features and integrations, as well as quick and friendly support. It can help automate your entire marketing process so you can focus on closing deals instead of just sending out newsletters.
For marketers looking for an all-in-one solution, Active Campaign provides excellent value for money.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is ActiveCampaign?
ActiveCampaign is an email marketing and sales automation platform for small businesses.
How much is ActiveCampaign?
ActiveCampaign’s lite plan starts from $15 per month and the pricing will scale based on the size of your email list and the type of features you need.
Is ActiveCampaign a CRM?
Yes! ActiveCampaign can be used as a full-scale CRM but not in the traditional sense. It can be best described as a CRM backed by powerful email marketing features and automation.
What is ActiveCampaign used for?
ActiveCampaign can be used for sending email campaigns, automating your marketing and sales, as well as streamlining various aspects of your online marketing with integrated tools such as SMS, Live Chat, Conversion Tracking, Facebook Custom Audiences, and emails.
What can ActiveCampaign do?
With ActiveCampaign, you can create beautiful email newsletters, set up autoresponder sequences, create landing pages, and organize your sales and marketing efforts more efficiently.
Does ActiveCampaign have landing pages?
Yes! ActiveCampaign has a powerful drag ‘n’ drop landing page builder. Apart from the landing page feature, Active Campaign has dozens of pre-built landing pages you can easily customize and use in your marketing.
Does ActiveCampaign have a mobile app?
Yes, ActiveCampaign has a user-friendly mobile app you can use to review campaigns, manage automation, track email performances, and so much more. The mobile app is available for iOS and Android.
Active Campaign Alternatives
If you are looking for a better alternative to Active Campaign, we have identified the best ones for you.
ConvertKit: ConvertKit offers a host of features similar to ActiveCampaign and boasts great deliverability too. If you are looking for an email marketing service without a CRM, ConvertKit comes with plenty of bells and whistles.
MailerLite: MailerLite is a cost-effective email marketing software that is excellent for small businesses. Their free plan is generous, and their templates are quite impressive. It’s one of the simplest tools we’ve ever used.
SendInBlue: Sendinblue is a budget-friendly all-in-one email marketing solution that’s available in six languages. It has sophisticated automation features and a built-in CRM making it a fairly strong contender.
