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ActiveCampaign Review: Is it Really Worth It? Decide Here!

Last Updated on January 5, 2023 by Natalia Bickell

If you use email marketing as one of the primary methods for promoting your products and services to potential customers, you probably know how frustrating it is to put time and effort into creating the perfect email campaign only for it to be marked as spam by your subscribers’ inbox rules or algorithm.

One of the most important factors about email marketing is making sure that your email campaigns actually reach those for which they are intended. While you may put an immense amount of time into crafting an email campaign that looks natural and hand-written, certain email service providers will be able to detect that your emails are being sent from a newsletter program, application, or platform.

Why Go with ActiveCampaign?

ActiveCampaign SCALES with best in class marketing automation features with many gradual pricing tiers. Whether you are running a store or blog, AC just WORKS! From basic automation triggers to advanced CRM-like functionality.

Try ActiveCampaign FREE
We earn a commission if you click this link and make a purchase at no additional cost to you.

Once your emails get tagged as spam, your email newsletter subscribers will likely not seem them at all or interact with them at a very low rate of frequency which can become frustrating if you’re trying to offer special products or promotions to further your business.

The best way to avoid your email campaigns being marked as spam by your subscribers’ email applications and service providers is by making sure that you use an email newsletter program that has a high deliverability rate.

Every automated email newsletter application will tell you the rate at which the particular program you’re using is able to successfully deliver your newsletters.

This is a very important factor to consider when choosing which automated email newsletter option is best for your specific needs because it will allow you to get a good glimpse into just how many people are actually receiving your emails and the rate at which they interact with your newsletters.

There are a lot of automated email newsletter programs that you can choose from on the market all of which have different features and capabilities which can provide substantial benefits to your email marketing efforts.

Depending on the size of your current newsletter subscribers list, certain programs will be able to provide more benefits to you when compared to others. One of the leading automated email newsletter platforms available is ActiveCampaign, ActiveCampaign allows you to create comprehensive email newsletters that you customize to fit the particular products or services that you offer.

One of the main benefits to using ActiveCampaign for your email campaign is the fact that has one of the highest deliverability rates out of all the different email newsletter platforms that are out there. For those serious email marketers, ActiveCampaign can provide a complete solution to all of your most common email newsletter and list problems.

If you’ve been trying to find the right automated email newsletter platform to use for your marketing efforts but have been having trouble finding the right fit, today is your lucky day. In this guide, we’re going to go over all of the important features and aspects that you need to know about if you plan on using ActiveCampaign for your email marketing purposes.

We’ll cover all of the critical elements about using ActiveCampaign that can help you further your email marketing efforts. By comparing all of the information in this article against your needs in terms of email marketing, you’ll be able to figure out if ActiveCampaign is the right automated email newsletter tool for you.

What Is ActiveCampaign?

ActiveCampaign comes with an intuitive email editor that allows you to customize various content and insert certain elements with which your subscribers can interact in order to receive special discounts and other sorts of promotions that you may be offering. ActiveCampaign has a lot of integration options also allowing you to use any current third-party applications or programs you may be utilizing for your email newsletter.

ActiveCampaign offers a very comprehensive platform for those email newsletter marketers who want serious functionality and results. ActiveCampaign has a lot of very useful features that virtually anyone can use in order to automate the entire process of email marketing and newsletter creation in general.

ActiveCampaign allows you to manage your email list with ease, set auto-responding rules, ActiveCampaign also gives you the ability to target specific contacts in your email newsletter list so that you can advertise special deals and other promotions directly towards them.

ActiveCampaign also gives you the ability to manage all of your customer relationships within the platform itself without having to use third-party apps or links. With ActiveCampaign, you can automate many of the tasks previously relegated to strictly manual input.

This will allow you to further the progress of your email newsletters campaigns at a much higher rate than you would with manual email newsletter creation.

To better illustrate the effectiveness and benefits that you would get by using ActiveCampaign for email newsletter automation needs, we’ve created a comparison chart below which will help you clearly see the benefits that ActiveCampaign has to offer to those email marketers that are serious about creating premium newsletters for their subscribers to interact with.

ActiveCampaign Email Newsletter Automation

Manual Email Newsletter Automation

  • Automated email list management
  • Built-in customer relationship management system
  • Autoresponder capabilities which allow you to automate the customer interaction process
  • Automated integrations
  • Free migration tools
  • Campaign reporting
  • Integrated email editor
  • Manual email list management
  • Manual customer relationship handling
  • Manual responding to your list subscribers
  • Manual integration
  • No migration/manual migration
  • Manual campaign analytics

As you can clearly see, using the manual method for email newsletter creation is very tedious and time-consuming which is why you’ll want to use ActiveCampaign to help you further your email advertising efforts. ActiveCampaign offers a tone of really unique and advanced capabilities that any serious email marketer can appreciate especially if you’ve tried several different platforms and programs up until this point.

ActiveCampaign gives you access to in-depth information regarding your customers and subscribers and how they interact with your various promotions and other deals that you may have going on surrounding your email campaign. This is something that you won’t find in many of the other automated email newsletter solutions that are out on the market.

Now that we’ve covered some of the main benefits that you receive by using ActiveCampaign for your automated email newsletter campaigns.

Core Mechanics: ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign offers a lot of very useful and intuitive features for email marketers who are serious about increasing the effectiveness of their marketing efforts.

ActiveCampaign is truly an intuitive email newsletter marketing tool that will allow you to automate the entire process of creating different email campaigns and creatives directed towards specific subscribers. Some of the core mechanics of ActiveCampaign allow you to optimize your email newsletter campaign efforts with seamless ease. Some of the core mechanics of ActiveCampaign are as followed below.

Campaign Reporting

Email newsletter creation and management are difficult enough to get off the ground when your campaign begins to gain traction, it’s important to have access to in-depth tools and platforms which will allow you to monitor the accurate progress of your email campaign.

With ActiveCampaign, you get access to premium in-depth analytics and campaign reporting statistic which will allow you to monitor the number of clicks that your email get, how many people actually read your email, how many people get your email, and a lot more. ActiveCampaign gives you access geo-tracking so that you can see where in the world your subscribers are interacting with your email campaigns.

With ActiveCampaign, you also get access to click-maps which will show you exactly where people clicked on your email link. You can also track different purchase metrics coming from popular online e-commerce solutions such as Shopify.

Why Go with ActiveCampaign?

ActiveCampaign SCALES with best in class marketing automation features with many gradual pricing tiers. Whether you are running a store or blog, AC just WORKS! From basic automation triggers to advanced CRM-like functionality.

Try ActiveCampaign FREE
We earn a commission if you click this link and make a purchase at no additional cost to you.

Deliverability Rates

When it comes to deliverability rates, most automated email campaign platforms have very low rates of deliverability. This is largely due to the fact that most email programs have very intelligent systems that work to eliminate the amount of spam that users receive in their inbox at any given time.

With ActiveCampaign, you can enjoy the benefits of automated email newsletter creation and management without having to worry about your email campaigns being marked as spam. ActiveCampaign has a very high success rate of delivering emails successfully to subscribers inbox without being marked as spam which is something that not many other automated email newsletter platforms can offer.

Seamless Migration

If you have an existing email list or newsletter with another automated email campaign management platform, you can easily migrate all of your existing information over to ActiveCampaign with ease. The best thing about it is that ActiveCampaign allows you to migrate your existing email campaign for free so you won’t have to pay extra for migrating your existing email campaign.

Now, let’s look at some of the different plans and pricing options that you can choose from when using ActiveCampaign as your chosen automated email newsletter.

How Much Does ActiveCampaign Cost?

ActiveCampaign has four distance pricing options and plans for you to choose from depending on the number of subscribers that you have. Each plan option will give you varying access to the multiple features and capabilities that ActiveCampaign has to offer so it’s important for you to make sure that you understand exactly what features you get when choosing specific plan options.

Regardless of what plan you choose, you’ll still get access to basic features such as newsletter sending/creation, email marketing automation, email, and chat support, in addition to a slew of other things. When looking at which ActiveCampaign plan is right for you, it’s important to consider the essential features that you’ll need to use in accordance with your campaign in order to ensure that you’re getting the most out of your money spent.

If you have a lot of email list subscribers as of right now, you need to opt for more expensive ActiveCampaign plans because they will allow you to further optimize your email campaigns with ease and simplicity without sacrificing comprehensive email editing and creation capabilities.

Below, we’re going to go over all of the different ActiveCampaign plans out there that you can choose from in order to further your email campaign efforts. Make sure you read the features and capabilities of each plan option so that you will be able to make the right decision for your specific email marketing needs.

Lite- $9/month (paid yearly)

  • 3 users max
  • Unlimited sending
  • Email marketing
  • Send Newsletters
  • Marketing automation
  • Email & Chat support

Plus- $49/month (paid yearly)

  • All of the features included in the Lite plan
  • Contact & Lead Scoring
  • CRM w/ Sales Automation
  • Unlimited Sending
  • Deep Data Integrations
  • Custom domain
  • Customer user permissions
  • Custom branding
  • One-on-one training
  • SMS marketing
  • 25 users max

Professional- $129/month (paid yearly)

  • Everything included in Plus
  • Unlimited Sending
  • Attribution
  • Win Probability
  • Predictive sending
  • 50 users max
  • Site messaging

Enterprise- $229/month (paid yearly)

  • Everything in professional
  • Unlimited sending
  • Custom reporting
  • Custom Mail server domains
  • Dedicated account representative
  • In-depth onboarding
  • Free design services
  • Phone support
  • Uptime SLA
  • Unlimited users
  • Free social data

Regardless of how many active email list subscribers you have at the moment, you can choose any of the plan options listed above with custom pricing to meet your exact needs. The various plans and pricing options offered by ActiveCampaign make it really easy for you to gain access to industry-leading email automation tools and newsletter creation capabilities that you won’t find anywhere else.

While some of the ActiveCampaign plans are quite pricy, they pale in comparison to the amount of money that you would spend by using other automated email marketing solutions.

Now, we’re going to get into the details about how you can use ActiveCampaign to further your email marketing efforts and overall results by using the simple and intuitive system for creating and sending any type of email that you desire.

How to Use ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign has many different capabilities and functionalities which are very useful for those who are interested in seriously cranking up their email marketing abilities. ActiveCampaign works by several different means, one of the first things that you’ll notice when using the ActiveCampaign platform is it’s email campaign editor and automation.

ActiveCampaign gives you the ability to use different menus on the dashboard which will give you access to all of the intuitive features that the platform has to offer. ActiveCampaign makes it very easy for you to navigate across the entire platform using seamless controls and effortless energy.

To get started, you can use the ActiveCampaign default “Getting Started” slider which will help you figure out how to use the intuitive features of the platform. ActiveCampaign also comes with a demo that will walk you through the entire process of getting started with using the platform.

The first thing you should do when using ActiveCampaign is import any contacts that you may have in your existing subscribers. Once you import your existing contacts, you can begin setting up your campaigns using the integrated automation that comes with ActiveCampaign.

ActiveCampaign allows you to set-up a variety of different automation tasks including sales follow-ups, automated segmentation, dynamic email content and a lot more.

Once you’ve imported your contacts and have created your first campaign, you can begin organizing who gets your email newsletter and the frequency at which they will receive them. By setting up unique automation tasks, you’ll be able to keep track of how each of your subscribers interacts with your email newsletter to better optimize it for conversions and interactions. Once you’ve set-up your email campaign, you can begin managing the various customer relationships you’ve established on the platform itself.

You can even set-up unique social media triggers and integrations which will allow you to further boost your overall reach and campaign effectiveness. You will also be able to set-up custom parameters and templates that you can use on other campaigns without having to completely restructure or create an entirely new campaign.

Now that you know how to use ActiveCampaign, it’s time to look at some of the features that ActiveCampaign offers to email marketers who are interested in boosting their results.

ActiveCampaign Features

ActiveCampaign comes with a lot of very useful features and capabilities that are useful for any serious email marketers. While ActiveCampaign is very easy to use, it doesn’t sacrifice any functionality or power so you’ll be able to perform very in-depth campaign management and tracking.

Below, we’re going to go over all of the features you gain access to when using ActiveCampaign to manage your email newsletter and other sorts of promotional material.

Conditional Content

The conditional content feature that comes with ActiveCampaign allows you to set-up custom if/else/then logic filter which will show your email newsletter, subscribers, different content based on their behavior like the links they click, interests, and more.

The conditional content feature makes it very easy for you to personalize your email marketing newsletter to fit the specific interest of certain subscribers based on things that you know for a fact they interact with. Making it easier for you to optimize your email campaign without putting in too much time manually filtering contacts and subscribers.

Email Types

ActiveCampaign also gives you the ability to create different email types which is very useful for robust advertising and unique content marketing. With ActiveCampaign, you can create SMS alerts, autoresponders, A/B testing, RSS feeds, classic newsletters, and more.

This is a very useful feature that most email campaign management platforms don’t offer as a standard option. Most email campaign programs and applications only allow you to create standard email content in regular text format without any dynamic elements. With ActiveCampaign, you can create unique email campaigns that vary in terms of the type of content in the email body and the various elements that your subscribers can interact with.

Email Editor

ActiveCampaign offers a very intuitive and full-featured email editor which allows you to craft the perfect email creative to send out to your various email newsletter subscribers and customers. ActiveCampaign’s built-in email editor allows you to create and save custom “blocks” that you can use to see if any of your team members have made changes to the content in your email creatives.

The ActiveCampaign email editor also gives you the ability to include dynamic content in the body of your email so that customers can interact with responsive elements in your email without having to visit a link manually. The ActiveCampaign email editor is everything you would expect and more, the editor itself has over 40 pre-designed templates that you can use in order to craft high-quality emails.

All of the templates that come with the ActiveCampaign editor are responsive so you can create engaging email creatives without worrying about boring content or presentation. The email editor in ActiveCampaign also lets you preview your templates in another window so you don’t lose the current email campaign that you’re working on.

Email Campaign Automation

ActiveCampaign has a powerful email automation system that allows you to create several different campaigns and newsletters with ease. The ActiveCampaign email automation process is simple to use yet very robust in terms of the number of capabilities that it offers.

The ActiveCampaign email automation feature allows you to set-up automatic follow-up campaigns which are great if your subscribers show a lot of interest in a particular product, service, or promotion that you’re offering. ActiveCampaign also offers pre-made “recipes” which are basically campaign automation guidelines that you can use which have been proven to bring results without inputting all of your preferred rules manually.

All of the automation accomplished by ActiveCampaign can be set-up using a very easy to follow flow chart style which will help you keep track of all the changes you’re making in your campaign.

Opt-in/Opt-out Process & Registration Forms

ActiveCampaign makes it very easy for you to create a custom responsive text field that your email subscribers can interact with. You will be able to create floating forms and other modules that you can input specific call-to-action buttons or anything else you may want to add to your campaign.

When it comes to deliverability, it’s one of the most important things to keep in mind when using an email campaign automation platform.

Deliverability

When it comes to actually deliver your emails to the subscribers on your list, most email campaign management systems have a very high rate of your content being marked as spam.

When compared against other solutions, ActiveCampaign has the highest success rate of successfully delivering your emails to the recipients of them. This is great because ActiveCampaign has a high deliverability rate for popular email services like Yahoo, Gmail, and more.

Analytics & Reporting

ActiveCampaign has some pretty in-depth campaign monitoring and analytics capabilities which can be very useful for those email marketers who are serious about creating high-quality email campaigns.

You’ll be able to access in-depth information such as the location that your subscribers are accessing your email newsletter from by geo-tagging, the amount of page visits that your email gets, and ActiveCampaign also gives you the ability to track your e-commerce progress by way of reporting for popular e-commerce platforms like WooCommerce and BigCommerce. This can be very useful for those email marketers who are using ActiveCampaign for managing their e-commerce efforts also.

Spam Testing & Design

ActiveCampaign allows you to test the deliverability rate of your emails by way of using the “pas” or “fail” system which will show you a percentage amount of how many emails were successfully delivered and how many weren’t.

You can also request email reviews which will help you better understand how people interact with your content on a regular basis. You will also be able to test the soft bounce metrics and hard bounce metrics of your email campaigns by setting up a custom exclusion list.

All of the above-mentioned features come with each plan tier of ActiveCampaign however when you get into the higher tiers of the service, you gain access to a lot more capabilities and features. Check out some of the pro features you get access to when using the higher tier options available from ActiveCampaign.

Pro ActiveCampaign Features

  • Authentication
  • Account access levels
  • Integrations
  • Custom own domain name

The integrations that come with the pro features of ActiveCampaign are compatible with popular apps and sites like PayPal, Shopify, Google Analytics, and more even WordPress.

ActiveCampaign truly is an all-inclusive email campaign management solution that anyone can use to further the efforts of their email marketing efforts. If you need serious email marketing power, ActiveCampaign definitely has the features and ability to do so.

Now, let’s look at a summary of all the various pros and cons that you’ll receive when using ActiveCampaign for your email newsletter management tasks.

Pros & Cons: ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign has a lot of robust and powerful features and functionalities however that doesn’t mean that it’s perfect. Below, we’re going to cover the pros and cons of ActiveCampaign so you can decide if it’s the right option for your email marketing needs or not.

ActiveCampaign Pros

  • Easy integration with other apps which allow you to build on your current email campaign progress
  • An integrated CRM system that makes it really easy for you to manage customer relationships without having to use third-party apps or websites
  • Automated campaigns that give you the ability to perform automatic tasks based on the behavior of your subscribers in order to optimize your campaign further
  • High deliverability rate so you won’t have to worry about your emails being marked as spam by popular email service providers
  • SMS alerts that can be set-up once your customers enter their information into lead capture forms you create
  • Intuitive email personalization and customization options which allows you to express creativity in your email newsletters
  • User-friendly interface that makes it easy for you to create and manage email campaigns with minimal effort
  • Reports and analytics tracking which makes it easy for you to monitor the progress of your email campaign without using a third-party solution

ActiveCampaign Cons

  • There are a lot of different features and menus for you to go through which can be quite confusing for beginning email marketers

You might also be interested: ActiveCampaign vs GetResponse: Which is Better for Your Business?

More Email Marketing Tools

FAQs About ActiveCampaign

What is ActiveCampaign good for?

ActiveCampaign is one of the best email marketing softwares available on the market, making B2C experience more pleasant thanks to the triggered campaigns, dynamic email content, page visits, geo-tracking and so many more other features they offer.

Is ActiveCampaign free?

No. While ActiveCampaign is not free, you can still try it for free, but you will have to provide your email in order to do so, which later might be used for marketing purposes too.

Does ActiveCampaign offer affiliate marketing?

Yes, ActiveCampaign offers partership and you will get 30% from every account value every month.

How many integrations does ActiveCampaign has?

ActiveCampaign offers more than 300 integrations with your favorite platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, Facebook, Google Analytics and many more Integration apps, Analytics apps, CRM, CMS, Sales etc. essential for every business making it one of the best softwares for businesses.

Conclusion

Use all of the information in this guide to help you decide on whether or not ActiveCampaign is the right automated email management solution for you.

By going through all of the above sections, you’ll be able to get a first-hand glimpse into how ActiveCampaign works and all of the various benefits that you’ll receive by using the platform. There are a lot of beneficial features and functionality that ActiveCampaign has to offer so if you’re a serious email marketer, you should consider using ActiveCampaign for your email newsletters as soon as possible.

Once you read this entire guide, you’ll be able to see all of the areas in which ActiveCampaign can help you boost the results you get from your email campaigns.

Why Go with ActiveCampaign?

ActiveCampaign SCALES with best in class marketing automation features with many gradual pricing tiers. Whether you are running a store or blog, AC just WORKS! From basic automation triggers to advanced CRM-like functionality.

Try ActiveCampaign FREE
We earn a commission if you click this link and make a purchase at no additional cost to you.

Further read:

Marketing Satchel Team

The Marketing Satchel team is a group of business and marketing professionals that came together to help others struggling with these topics. We're here to make sure that you understand all of the important parts of marketing.