ActiveCampaign Review: Best and #1 Email Marketing Software and Automation Tool

Nicholas Amundson

June 11, 2022
20 min read

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Are you seeking to read an honest ActiveCampaign review?

If your answer is yes, then you have come to the right place! In this detailed blog post, we will provide you with a comprehensive review of ActiveCampaign.

We will also let you know whether it is the best email marketing software available in the market. So, if you are looking forward to making an effective choice, then this can be an ideal guide for you to read.

Trust us, after reading this, you would surely be able to get a much better understanding of ActiveCampaign and make your decision on your own.

As you have come to this post, it can be clearly understood that you are searching for the best tool for email marketing automation.

If after shuffling through many different options, you have stopped on ActiveCampaign and wondering whether it would be the right tool for your business or not.

Well, in this case, you need to effectively judge every aspect of the tool and finally make your decision based on that. Below, we will comprehensively analyze every aspect of this tool.

We also recommend you stick to the end of this post to find out the advantages, limitations, and our personal thoughts about this.

So, without any further delay, let’s get started with our exploration journey:

ActiveCampaign Review 2023:

ActiveCampaign Review

Ease of Use (4.6/5)

User Interface (4.7/5)

Features and Marketing Tools (5/5)

Deliverability and Overall Performance (4.8/5)

Customer Support (5/5)

Value for Money (4.8/5)

What Is ActiveCampaign?

ActiveCampaign is known to be an all-in-one marketing automation software that possesses an in-built sales CRM.

By using this particular software, you can easily create automated campaigns which are based on varied conditions, nurture potential leads, etc.

Not only that, but it also allows you to provide an intuitive drag-and-drop builder with the help of which, you can effortlessly build and edit ActiveCampaign email.

ActiveCampaign calls itself the best customer experience automation platform. It tends to offer a comprehensive range of features by using which you would be able to conveniently build loyal customer relationships.

Apart from reading this review, if you wish to explore ActiveCampaign more, then you can sign up for this tool and enjoy a 14-day free trial.

During this period, you will get ActiveCampaign free and it also provides you the opportunity to know about this tool well.

Now, let’s explore all the features of this ActiveCampaign software in detail and find out whether it is worthy to call the right automation tool for your marketing and sales team:

ActiveCampaign Overview Details

Website: https://www.activecampaign.com
Founder & CEO: Jason VandeBoom
Industries: Software Development
Company Size: 1001-5000 Employees
Founded: 2003
Specialty: Email marketing, Marketing Automation, and Sales Automation
Free Trial: Yes, 14 days
Free Plan: No, but you will get a 14-day free trial
Monthly Starting Price: $9/month
Number Of Emails On Cheapest Plan: Unlimited
Number Of Contacts On Cheapest Plan: 500
Headquarters: Chicago, Illinois, United States
Capterra Rating: 4.6 / 5
G2 Rating: 4.6 / 5

ActiveCampaign is regarded as a high-quality email marketing software that is mostly recommended for those who are dedicated marketing professionals.

As it is an advanced tool and so, you will need to invest some amount of time to get familiarized with it and learn about its every detail.

But, one thing to note is that its in-house contact database and automation features are worth the effort you will put into learning this tool.

Before you choose this tool, you should essentially know that it does not comes with a survey builder, and so, you will fail to set up survey-based campaigns in it. Again, it does not support transactional emails.

Overall, ActiveCampaign is a robust marketing tool that is again a great choice for marketers who are patient and who wish to get a lot of value for their money.

ActiveCampaign Key Features And Tools For Businesses

In this section, we will mainly talk about the key ActiveCampaign features and functionalities that it tends to offer for businesses:

1. ActiveCampaign Marketing Automation

ActiveCampaign is known to be the best automation tool due to its remarkable automation features.

You will find that the visual automation builder of this software is straightforward and flexible to use. You just require dragging and dropping the elements for generating the workflow.

And, all the changes which you have made will be automatically saved and so, you do not have to worry about anything.

Also, based on your requirements, you can consider adding multiple triggers. Again, by tapping on the “+” icon, you would be able to add emails to the Active Campaign automation flow.

Personalization is another great aspect that will contribute to adding life to your ActiveCampaign email marketing campaigns.

ActiveCampaign helps you to accomplish this objective by adding tailored elements and incorporating dynamic content to your email copy.

The ActiveCampaign automation feature works flawlessly beyond your expectations. It offers you a range of automation templates that you can utilize for building automation for:

2. ActiveCampaign Email Marketing

ActiveCampaign tends to offer six types of email campaigns that will help you to get started. Various types of campaigns that it provides, include the following:

With the aid of its simple drag-and-drop email editor, you can easily move blocks.

Also, it helps you to flawlessly design a perfect email body in a matter of a few minutes.

Additionally, it allows you to show and hide certain content blocks on mobile devices for a better experience and design.

ActiveCampaign email marketing tool offers you magnificent email templates which you can customize to suit your requirements.

You can consider styling elements, placing blocks, and formatting everything to incorporate different functionalities.

It again lets you create your templates which you can easily reuse for your upcoming campaigns.

So, it is evident from this section that ActiveCampaign will help to save a lot of your energy and time which you are supposed to invest in designing email campaigns.

3. Email Deliverability

One of the big challenges in the success of any email campaign is email deliverability.

The best part about ActiveCampaign deliverability feature is that it ensures that every email gets landed in the mailboxes of subscribers as it offers the functionality of spam checking.

By keeping a close eye on spam checks, you can ensure that the emails you send are error-free and legit.

Another important thing to note in this aspect is that ActiveCampaigns provides one of the highest email deliverability rates.

So, it ensures that your emails reach the maximum number of people in their main inbox (not in promotional or spam tabs).

4. CRM And Sales Automation

The ActiveCampaign CRM tends to offer many interesting features as it takes care of every activity which is required for building a perfect sales pipeline.

The best thing is that it ensures a smooth flow of activities by offering notification to your sales team whenever a new contact is captured.

Not only that, but it helps you to update the status of the deal, create new tasks and nurture leads automatically for further follow-ups.

Again, depending on their activities, you can easily segment leads and automate your ActiveCampaign sales funnel.

You also get the option to send notifications to your sales team when it is the correct time to follow up with the leads.

Again, you can easily track the performance of your team members and assign tasks to them either within the automation or manually.

It facilitates team cohesion and provides you with all the important data.

5. Lead Scoring

The lead scoring tool of ActiveCampaign assists the sales and marketing teams to find out the most potential lead by assigning points to ActiveCampaign contacts depending on their engagement.

There are mainly two types of lead scoring that it provides including Contact Scoring and Deal Scoring.

A contact score refers to a value that is assigned to the email contacts i.e., subscribers along with resource downloaders.

The marketers are much benefitted from this as it helps them to discover the most engaged contacts and so, they can easily come across the marketing qualified leads.

On the other hand, a deal score is nothing but a numerical value that is assigned to open deals, especially in the sales pipeline.

It provides you with an idea about how nurtured a particular deal is. And ultimately the sales team can put those on priority for follow-up and closure.

By using ActiveCampaign, you can easily generate particular rules and assign points for subtracting or adding points depending on different factors.

It includes link clicking, email opens, resource downloads, purchase history, page visits, etc.

6. Advanced Contact Segmentation

Segmentation is something that helps you to offer a tailored experience to prospects, leads, and customers all through their journey.

With the help of segments, you can easily send the right messaging to the right group of individuals at the appropriate time.

The best part about ActiveCampaign is that it helps you to create segments out of anything that is based on the data you already exist in the database. What makes the segment builder of this tool unique is that it is available across the platform.

You can utilize it to generate segments from the contact list page, contact page, within the automation builder as well as the email campaign page.

7. On-site Tracking

It is one of the highly demanded features for marketers which they mainly use to target and follow up with the site visitors.

You can monitor the visitors actively with the help of this feature of ActiveCampaign.

For this, you will have to install a small piece of code on your site. Along with monitoring, you can also convert them into leads and finally into premium customers.

Whenever any contact sees any page on your website and applies contact or lead scored based on views or visits to particular pages, you can initiate automation ActiveCampaign.

By merging the data which you attain from ActiveCampaign site tracking with other behavioral observations, you would be able to conveniently map what your contacts require.

Based on that, you can again target those on other pertinent channels and thereby, it promotes more conversions.

So, it helps you to get a good understanding of the requirements of your customers and helps you to deliver a tailored ActiveCampaign marketing and sales experience.

8. Messaging And Chatbot

Not only email, but ActiveCampaign also tends to provide multi-channel conversation tools which include text messaging, Facebook messenger, live chat, and chatbot features.

You will again see that all the ActiveCampaign conversations are managed in a unified interface in this case.

As a result of it, you never miss anything.

To start communicating with them, you can focus on creating automation workflows whenever a visitor gives their email id to the chat agent.

The chatbot of this tool allows you to tailor every chat, and update the custom field data whenever it is needed.

You can also add tags to contacts which aid in effective segmentation of your contacts.

Again, by utilizing this feature, you can easily send automated text messages which establish solid connectivity with your subscribers.

You can also send coupon code delivery, flash sale notifications, thank you messages, appointment reminders, etc.

ActiveCampaign also provides a mobile application for Android and iOS devices. This ActiveCampaign app helps your team members to stay active and respond to queries at any time and from anywhere swiftly.

9. Landing Pages And Form Builder

ActiveCampaign allows you to build tailored landing pages and offers a wide range of appealing templates.

Although the landing page editor of this tool is good, there is a chance of more enhancement in this case.

The team of ActiveCampaign can think of incorporating more features and adding more flexibility to design elements.

However, for convertible and improved quality of ActiveCampaign landing pages, you can consider integrating with other landing page builders. Another important thing is the form builder.

It tends to provide various types of ActiveCampaign forms which you can embed into your site for amassing potential leads.

Also, you can trigger automation whenever any certain action is done by the visitors on your form.

10. Analytics and Reporting

ActiveCampaign offers ample reporting alternatives which you can utilize for analyzing the performance of your campaign.

Also, you can optimize it to ensure better outcomes. It tends to offer various reports such as Deal Reports, Goal Reports, Automation Reports, Campaign Reports, etc.

In this case, the Report tab will provide you with the list of all your automation, the number of individuals who have interacted with your automation, and how many of them accomplished it.

Again, it reveals the open trends based on weekdays and hours which allows you to alter your time frequency of sending emails to attain the highest ROI.

You can also get to see a total breakdown of all your deals depending on different criteria like value, status, duration, pipeline type, etc.

It also allows you to generate custom reports based on automation engagement trends and deal value, which is based on forecasted close dates, etc.

So, with its help, you can successfully build a data-driven strategy at a high level.

11. Migration Services

If you are presently looking for a new ESP, then ActiveCampaign tends to offer free migration to its email service. So, it can be a great advantage for the starters.

12. Excellent Training Program And Customer Support

The ActiveCampaign support is good. Previously, this software only had email support. But, presently, you can get multiple free onboarding or training webinars, live chat, and tutorial videos on ActiveCampaign YouTube.

You will find that the ActiveCampaign tutorial is clear yet short and also the reps are empathetic and knowledgeable.

If you opt for the ‘Plus’ plan, then you will get the privilege of one-on-one training, webinars (archived and live), and a lot more.

Note that live chat is available on all plans, but, you will not get phone support in every plan, you choose.

13. Social Media Integration

ActiveCampaign tends to offer the basic social media integrations which include the following:

If you are looking forward to engaging your audience, then you will find the availability of a built-in social media feed in your emails which you can use to achieve your desired objectives.

But, there is no social in-text block that would let you add a Facebook post or event, especially to your emails.

It is again worthy to mention that you can directly create social media posts within the dashboard of this tool.

Once you are done with it, you can easily send those to the pertinent social platform. So, it has turned out to be a great way to ensure aligned and consistent branding across every platform.

Who Can Use ActiveCampaign?

If you are an advanced marketer who is in need of high-level automation features and also wishes to leverage machine learning, then it could be the right tool for you to choose.

It is again a great choice for those who want to establish direct collaboration with the sales teams as it comes with many different features such as eCommerce, win probability and lead scoring.

ActiveCampaign Pros And Cons

Now that you have got a good idea about all the features of ActiveCampaign, it is time to have a close look at its advantages and limitations.

Don’t worry, we will focus on discussing this in detail in the following section:

Pros

ActiveCampaign provides you with a solid automation builder which is not only easy to use, but you can also build automation for anything with its help, by utilizing different available trigger options.
It works effectively to keep the marketing and sales team in sync by offering you an integrated marketing and sales platform.
It ensures high email deliverability which aids in effectively fulfilling the goals and objectives of your campaign.
It tends to offer you different analytics data in the report which helps to measure the ROI and allows you to make strategic decisions.
If you are a starter, then you would be able to reap many important advantages by using its free migration and implementation service from your present software.

Cons

The learning curve of this software is a bit high for beginners.
With the growth in the number of contacts, the pricing of every plan also increases which can again impact your monthly budget.
Absolute beginners can find it to be overwhelming as it contributes to offering several advanced features. So, we will recommend you to start your journey with the Lite or Plus plan and upgrade it only when you grab a good understanding of this tool.

ActiveCampaign Integrations

One of the most important features which people generally look for in a tool is its integration capability with other tools.

It includes especially those which you are already involved in using.

Luckily, ActiveCampaign tends to offer an overflowing set of integration alternatives. With more than 850 applications ranging from accounting to CMS and CRM ActiveCampaign, you get total freedom to select your most preferred apps for better data flow and automation.

Some of the well-known integration applications available are Google Analytics, Facebook, Shopify, WordPress, Salesforce, Instapage, Unbounce, and a lot more.

If you are unable to find any of your existing tools in the list, then you can always utilize Zapier which helps to easily connect ActiveCampaign with other tools.

ActiveCampaign Alternatives

Different alternatives of ActiveCampaign include the following:

MailerLite: It is regarded as one of the most cost-effective solutions. You will find its free plan to be generous. Their approach to email marketing design is commendable and they always focus on providing contemporary-looking templates. All in all, it is considered to be one of the easiest tools to utilize.
Sendinblue: It is one of the cheapest all-in-one email marketing tools available on the market. This tool comes with a built-in CRM and advanced automation options. It is again available in 6 languages.
GetResponse: It is a robust alternative to ActiveCampaign with a range of pro options like a webinar tool along with good automation. Unlike ActiveCampaign, they are involved in offering more than 20 languages on their platform. Also, their testing tools and design are extraordinary.

ActiveCampaign Pricing Plan

The pricing of ActiveCampaign plans is tiered and a bit more complicated than its competitors.

The more email subscribers you have, the more amount you need to pay. Higher-level plans are also available which tend to have more functionalities.

Based on the number of contacts you store; the monthly billing again increases for every plan.

There are mainly four tiers as follows:

ActiveCampaign Lite

The Lite plan starts at $15/month. It comes with a good range of features which is incredibly useful for small businesses.

ActiveCampaign Plus

The Plus plan begins at $70/month and is packed with different features such as CRM, SMS marketing, Lead scoring, and a lot more.

All of these are known to effectively boost your business.

ActiveCampaign Professional

This particular plan starts at $159/month, and it tends to offer extra features such as split automation and win probability.

Active Campaign Enterprise

Finally, the enterprise plan starts at $279/month which acts as a powerhouse of sophisticated features.

Other than this, ActiveCampaign also comes with a 14-day free trial which allows up to 100 email sends and 100 contacts.

During the trial period, you will get access to all of its features and so, you can thoroughly test and determine which particular plan suits your business requirements.

Our Final Verdict On ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign Review 2023

🥰 Ease of Use
🙂 User Interface
❤️ Features and Marketing Tools
🥰 Deliverability and Overall Performance
👍 Customer Support
🙃 Value for Money

4.8

Final Verdict

So, it can be concluded from this comprehensive review post that ActiveCampaign is one of the best email marketing software. Also, it is the ideal tool for any business that tends to have an in-depth understanding of marketing automation and the best ways to leverage it.
We highly recommend you try ActiveCampaign for 14 days for free.

But, before you try out this option, you should ask yourself whether your team is ready for ActiveCampaign.

As per our experience, not every business is ready to adopt an advanced marketing automation tool such as ActiveCampaign.

Due to this reason, we always recommend ActiveCampaign to companies who fulfill the below-mentioned conditions:

Have a compelling website
Have a well-defined marketing strategy in place
Have a devoted marketing team of at least 3 members
Have discovered their customer touchpoints
Have determined their preferred marketing channels and email marketing is considered one of these
Have defined ideal buyer persona and customer profiles

So, these are some of the most crucial elements which tend to make Active Campaign marketing automation successful for your business.

In case, your company fails to check any of the above-mentioned conditions, then it is suggested to focus on these aspects or choose any other basic marketing automation tools such as Convertkit.

Congrats, if your company has fulfilled all of these listed conditions. In such a case, ActiveCampaign can be the best tool for you to choose.

With its help, you can easily automate your customer journey along with other repeat marketing tasks.

If you have decided to try out this software, then you can kickstart your journey today with a 14-day free trial.

We hope you have found this detailed Active Campaign review to be very helpful.

ActiveCampaign FAQ’s

Is ActiveCampaign A Good Email Marketing Service?

ActiveCampaign is one of our best choices for email marketing solutions as it has a lot of beautifully designed templates along with visual automation maps.

This software is assured to provide you with the best email marketing experience.
If you are an absolute beginner, you can take advantage of its 14-day free trial.

Along with email marketing, this particular software also possesses robust sales automation features and integrations with more than 300 applications.

What Does ActiveCampaign Do?

ActiveCampaign is regarded as an amazing customer experience automation platform.
It possesses email marketing which will help you to establish a connection with and nurture subscribers and automated workflows for effectively saving your time.

Not only that, but it also possesses CRM tools that help in cultivating relationships and eCommerce tools that aid in generating revenue.

Is ActiveCampaign Free To Use?

You will get a 14-day free trial in ActiveCampaign, but it comes with some limitations. Once the trial period ends, you have to subscribe to a paid plan.

But there is no such obligation in this case. If you do not want to go for a premium plan, then you can close your ActiveCampaign account after the trial period ends.

How Much Does ActiveCampaign Cost?

If you choose to pay annually, the ActiveCampaign plan starts at $9/month. But, their Lite plan starts at $15/month, if you pay monthly.

The pricing will again depend upon the number of email accounts and whenever you start going over 50,000 contacts, you will have to talk with the sales team.

Can I Use ActiveCampaign For Free?

Unfortunately, ActiveCampaign does not have a free plan, but it does offer a 14-day free trial that allows up to 100 email sends and 100 contacts.

Its free plan provides you easy access to all the features that you are expected to get with the Professional Plan.

Does ActiveCampaign Have A Free Plan?

No, ActiveCampaign does not come with any free plan. Instead, it provides you with a 14-day free trial. So, before you commit to a premium plan, you can give it a try.

Just, require an email and password to get started. You will not require any billing info or payment details for this.