The ten Greatest ActiveCampaign Options (With Function Breakdown)

Virtually 4 in 5 entrepreneurs say their total buyer journey is not less than partially automated, in keeping with analysis from Ascend2.

And the #1 use of advertising and marketing automation software program?

E mail advertising and marketing.

Not solely is it the preferred type of advertising and marketing automation; it’s additionally one of many fastest-growing, with uptake growing from 40 % in 2021 to 55 % in 2022.

Which brings us neatly to ActiveCampaign, an e mail advertising and marketing, automation, and CRM platform utilized by over 180,000 companies in 170+ international locations.

It’s a unbelievable instrument. However with so many ActiveCampaign options obtainable, how are you going to be sure you’re making the suitable selection?

The one method to make sure is to totally evaluate ActiveCampaign to the myriad different platforms in the marketplace.

That takes a heap of time. However we’ve completed the leg be just right for you by evaluating the ten finest ActiveCampaign options throughout a number of standards:

• Worth
• Product options
• Buyer help
• Execs and cons
• Audience

Let’s get into it…

What Are the Greatest ActiveCampaign Options?

Drip is an ecommerce advertising and marketing automation instrument for DTC manufacturers who have to ship personalised buyer journeys at scale. We offer you e mail advertising and marketing, onsite instruments, and integrations with third-party platforms so that you could get essentially the most out of your ecommerce actions.

What Makes Drip the Greatest ActiveCampaign Different?

• Constructed for ecommerce. Should you’re in DTC ecommerce, Drip is the plain selection. ActiveCampaign’s performance is designed for gross sales groups. However the challenges of ecommerce are basically totally different to these of enterprise SaaS or B2B manufacturers.

• Ecommerce-focused product growth. Drip is constructed explicitly for DTC ecommerce manufacturers, incorporating out-of-the-box income attribution, pre-built workflow templates, 50+ e mail templates, ecommerce integrations, and way more. We’ll proceed creating our product to higher meet the wants of DTC ecommerce manufacturers, as a result of they’re our sole focus. ActiveCampaign—with its wider vary of goal industries and use instances—possible gained’t do the identical.

• Superior onsite advertising and marketing. Our addition of feature-rich type and popup-building platform Sleeknote (now built-in in Drip as Onsite) offers us a wealth of onsite performance that ActiveCampaign merely can’t match, together with gamification and personalization.

• Help tailor-made to your model. ActiveCampaign solely gives custom-made advertising and marketing methods with quarterly updates for patrons on their Enterprise plan, which is considerably costlier than Drip. In the meantime, at Drip, we pleasure ourselves on custom-made help. We’ll pull up a chair subsequent to you and assist with all the things from onboarding to customized technique suggestions to quarterly enterprise critiques—no matter it takes that can assist you take advantage of our platform. We even supply content material providers.

• Centered on income. We all know income progress is the be-all and end-all for DTC ecommerce companies. To that finish, we offer income metrics for each e mail and automation, and even present you Drip-attributed income—so you recognize precisely how a lot you’re getting out of our instrument. We additionally supply month-to-month stories centered on ecommerce methods, serving to you perceive what’s going properly and what wants bettering. On the flip aspect, ActiveCampaign is extra centered on buyer engagement.

• Easy, stunning UI. Our person interface makes it simple to leverage all of the instruments, information, and automations DTC ecommerce manufacturers have to hit their progress objectives. Inevitably, ActiveCampaign is much more cluttered, as a result of it serves a far broader viewers.

How Does Drip Examine to ActiveCampaign?

Is Drip for you? Try how a lot Drip would value along with your e mail record measurement:

• Ecommerce-focused CRM. Klaviyo successfully gives a built-in CRM platform catered to ecommerce companies, serving to customers acquire a deeper understanding of buyer behaviors and preferences. ActiveCampaign’s CRM is great, but it surely’s designed for gross sales groups moderately than ecommerce entrepreneurs.

• Detailed ecommerce dashboard. ActiveCampaign’s dashboard lacks the onerous, revenue-oriented information ecommerce companies require to information decision-making. Klaviyo is way superior right here, displaying retailer income, income per automation, and income per marketing campaign.

• Dynamic product feeds. Each platforms supply glorious marketing campaign builders, however Klaviyo means that you can arrange a dynamic feed primarily based on particular standards, like product class or best-sellers. That method, you don’t have to replace your emails each time you launch a brand new product.

How Does Klaviyo Examine to ActiveCampaign?

Mailchimp is the world’s hottest platform in the case of e mail advertising and marketing, with a powerful 67 % market share. Hundreds of companies depend on its automated providers to ship emails and increase their attain. Presently, there are over 12 million customers benefiting from Mailchimp’s instruments.

What Makes Mailchimp the Greatest ActiveCampaign Different?

• Simple to grasp. Maybe Mailchimp’s strongest swimsuit is its ease of use. Even non-marketers can use the platform to interact and develop their viewers. ActiveCampaign is a extra superior instrument with a far steeper studying curve.

• Constructed for e mail. Mailchimp is at the beginning an e mail advertising and marketing platform, whereas ActiveCampaign has much more strings to its bow (and is consequently tougher to make use of). If all you’re in search of is a instrument to energy and optimize your e mail campaigns, Mailchimp is loads simpler to grasp.

• Beneficiant free product tier. Mailchimp has axed among the options from its free tier in current months, but it surely’s nonetheless fairly complete, providing as much as 500 contacts and 1,000 month-to-month e mail sends. ActiveCampaign doesn’t supply any free performance past the 14-day trial.

• Free touchdown web page builder. ActiveCampaign’s touchdown web page instruments are solely obtainable at “Plus” stage and above, whereas all Mailchimp prospects—even these on the free tier—can use its touchdown web page and type builder.

How Does Mailchimp Examine to ActiveCampaign?

• Extra e mail templates. AWeber gives one of many largest alternatives of e mail advertising and marketing and publication templates of any instrument we’ve seen, at greater than 600. ActiveCampaign, by comparability, has a library of 250+ templates—nonetheless loads, however not in AWeber’s league.

• Extra touchdown web page templates, too. On the time of writing, AWeber’s template library consists of near 150 templates—about 3 times greater than ActiveCampaign—spanning over 100 industries.

• Free for all times. It ought to be clear by now that ActiveCampaign doesn’t have a free product tier. AWeber does—and it’s fairly beneficiant, together with as much as 500 e mail subscribers and three,000 month-to-month e mail sends.

• Telephone-based help (even at low product tiers). Solely ActiveCampaign Enterprise prospects get the choice to select up the cellphone and communicate to buyer help, whereas AWeber gives phone-based help throughout all product tiers—even to free customers (albeit paying prospects get precedence).

How Does AWeber Examine to ActiveCampaign?

• Constructed-in referral program. Referral advertising and marketing is a strong technique for creators trying to develop an viewers. ConvertKit has a built-in referral program, permitting prospects to leverage this performance out of the field. It’s attainable to run referral advertising and marketing by ActiveCampaign, however you’ll have to combine with a separate instrument (like SparkLoop). And that’ll value you more cash.

• Free product tier. We’re beginning to sound like a damaged report now, however ActiveCampaign has no free product tier, whereas ConvertKit enables you to add as much as 1,000 contacts and ship limitless emails freed from cost. Not an enormous deal in case you’ve received a considerable mailing record, however a little bit free performance is all the time good to have.

• Monetize by sponsorships. One other space through which ConvertKit’s creator-focused instruments come to the fore: the platform helps publication creators land advertiser sponsorships (supplied they’ve 10,000+ subscribers and ship newsletters not less than as soon as per week). ActiveCampaign doesn’t supply something related.

How Does ConvertKit Examine to ActiveCampaign?

• Constructed-in help for transactional emails. Transactional emails are a significant a part of working an ecommerce enterprise. Sendinblue gives transactional emails as customary on all plans, even the free tier, and ensures 97 % deliverability. Against this, you’ll want a separate integration—with a further price ticket—to ship transactional emails by ActiveCampaign.

• Free CRM. That’s proper: Sendinblue gives a very free gross sales CRM, together with limitless contacts, pipeline administration, automations, and extra. With ActiveCampaign, you’d need to bundle the CRM and advertising and marketing merchandise, which is able to set you again not less than $$93/month.

How Does Sendinblue Examine to ActiveCampaign?

• Unparalleled e mail deliverability. GetResponse sits proudly on the high of the tree in E mail Deliverability Report’s e mail advertising and marketing supplier rating. ActiveCampaign solely fares fractionally worse—but when deliverability is your important concern, GetResponse is difficult to beat.

• Extra significant inbox testing. Coupled with its excellent e mail deliverability, GetResponse supplies stable inbox testing instruments, scoring emails from 0 – 5 primarily based on how possible they’re to keep away from the spam folder. ActiveCampaign does spam testing, too, but it surely solely awards a “cross” or “fail” ranking, with no method to interpret your rating.

• Free performance. Guess what? ActiveCampaign doesn’t have a free product tier. GetResponse does, and it’s fairly beneficiant. Free customers can ship 2,500 month-to-month emails to as much as 500 contacts, and so they additionally get to entry GetResponse’s HTML editor, click on monitoring, and some different tasty options.

• Built-in webinar internet hosting. Out of the field, GetResponse Advertising Automation, Ecommerce Advertising, and MAX2 prospects can reap the benefits of the platform’s built-in webinar internet hosting performance. It’s a comparatively area of interest function, however actually good to have if webinars are a part of your advertising and marketing technique. ActiveCampaign requires a third-party integration to run webinars, which carries a further value.

• Construct touchdown pages cheaper. Each platforms supply glorious touchdown web page builders, however ActiveCampaign’s is simply obtainable at Plus stage and above (priced from $49/month). Against this, even free customers can entry the GetResponse touchdown web page builder (albeit with just a few utilization limitations).

How Does GetResponse Examine to ActiveCampaign?

• Free CRM. HubSpot is arguably finest referred to as a buyer relationship administration instrument, and it enables you to use (a few of) its CRM instruments freed from cost, serving to you create extra personalised buyer experiences. ActiveCampaign has a wonderful CRM, too, however you’ll have to pay for the privilege of utilizing it.

How Does HubSpot Examine to ActiveCampaign?

Continuously Requested Questions

What Are the Disadvantages of ActiveCampaign?

There are few clear drawbacks to ActiveCampaign—it truly is a terrific platform. Its solely actual weak spot is that it hasn’t “niched down”, as a substitute preferring to serve dozens of industries. So whereas there’s arguably no higher all-round advertising and marketing automation platform, there may be a greater industry-specific answer for your small business.

Conclusion

All-rounders like ActiveCampaign aren’t proper for everybody.

Realistically, you’re going to pay for lots of performance designed for one of many dozens of different niches it serves. And also you’ll miss out on among the extra engaging options of an industry-specific platform.

That’s why we really consider Drip is a greater match for ecommerce manufacturers (particularly DTCs).

However don’t take our phrase for it. Discover out for your self by signing up to your 14-day free trial right now.