What Is ActiveCampaign? How It Works & How To Use It

The digital marketing industry as we know it today has grown by 40% within the last five years. This is because more businesses, including brick-and-mortar businesses, are now incorporating digital marketing tactics to attract potential leads to their business.

With more businesses implementing digital marketing strategies daily, more and more digital marketing tools that make it easy for business owners and freelancers to scale their businesses are being created daily.

Among the plethora of digital marketing tools available in the market is ActiveCampaign software.

According to global statistics, 65% of surveyed US and UK marketers say they use automation tools in their email marketing campaigns. Also, every 5 in 10 surveyed consumers say they prefer to be contacted by businesses through email.

ActiveCampaign is widely popular because of its excellent email marketing and marketing automation features. It is one of the leading email marketing automation tools available in the market today.

I will explain everything you need to know about this software in this article. I will clearly state its ActiveCampaign features, functions, pricing plans, and why you should use this software to enhance your marketing efforts.

What is ActiveCampaign?

ActiveCampaign is a marketing and sales software that offers email marketing, marketing automation, and CRM capabilities you need to provide excellent experiences for your customers.

This software is a cloud-based software best suited for any size of business.

ActiveCampaign was created by Jason VandeBoom in 2003 in Chicago. Jason, a marketing expert with over 20 years in the marketing industry, first began a consulting company that offered businesses various marketing solutions and automation.

By 2013, the company decided to switch its business model from consulting to a Saas Model. This comes after 20 years since the consulting firm had been in operation.

Currently, ActiveCampaign is being used by over 180,000 subscribers and businesses to create and manage their email marketing and sales automation processes.

ActiveCampaign’s goal is to support the development of strong customer relationships for different-sized businesses.

Over the years, this software has made a name for itself as a powerful marketing tool helping businesses automate their email marketing strategies and create targeted campaigns to send to their audiences and leads.

While it is true that email marketing automation is mostly what the software is known for, ActiveCampaign is so much more than that. With over 180,000 users globally, they’ve become a tool that individuals rely on to stimulate the growth of their businesses.

What Is ActiveCampaign Used For, And How Does It Work?

ActiveCampaign is popularly known for quite a number of tasks for businesses. One of the many things I love about this software is that although it has a handful of features, its features are excellent and can get the job done for you with ease.

A list of what ActiveCampaign can do involves email marketing, lead scoring, web analytics, CRM, live chat messaging, etc. Below is a short explanation of what ActiveCampaign is used for.

#1. Email Marketing 

You can easily create an email from scratch or use one of ActiveCampaign’s templates, thanks to its dynamic drag-and-drop email builder. 

Also, you may develop flexible content, and email segmentation, work with functional subscription forms, and do beneficial split testing for your campaigns.

You can send any kind of email you require for your company with ActiveCampaign, and to anyone. With ActiveCampaign’s drag-and-drop email builder, you can send captivating emails, campaigns, or newsletters to your contacts.

As a subscriber to this platform, you have complete control over the kind of emails you want to send out. ActiveCampaign templates allow you to quickly create beautiful and engaging email campaigns targeted to your audience.

#2. Lead Scoring 

A lead score is a figure that is determined by how frequently a contact engages with your company. The lead score rises the more often they visit your website, engage your emails, or interact with your contact.

With the help of ActiveCampaign lead scoring, your leads are rated based on their activity and engagement so you can determine which customers are best to sell to.

#3. Sales And Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

With the use of ActiveCampaigns’ sales CRM, you can effectively manage each of your customers’ needs and keep track of all the data required to develop campaigns that work, all on a single platform.

Also, with the use of a sales CRM, you can automate your tasks and make decisions that will help you focus on the people you want to sell to. With it, you can easily update contact information and examine the whole sales pipeline.

#4. Marketing Automation 

With the help of ActiveCampaign’s robust marketing automation features, you can send automated emails, track website events, set automation goals, make automation maps, calculate attributions, and divide activities.

Marketing Automation is a massive part of what ActiveCampaign is known for.

#5. Messaging 

More individuals than ever are using their mobile devices to access their emails, favorite websites, and other content. 

By contacting your contacts through their mobile devices and social media accounts through your ActiveCampaign account, you can meet them where they are.

The messaging center includes;

1. Facebook Custom Audience

Before you begin the sales process, you can retarget your audience with bespoke Facebook ads that speak to them personally and continue to add value using the data ActiveCampaign has collected, such as clicks and engagements.

2. Conversation 

Combining automation with real-time chat on your website lets you have live dialogues with your audience. The Conversations tool in ActiveCampaign lets you tag users, conduct chat follow-ups, and design unique new offers just for your website’s visitors.

3. Webpage Messages

You can communicate with your audience through site messages when they are actively using your website.

Like other message kinds in ActiveCampaign, site messages allow for customization for identical audiences and the creation of unique designs and messaging relevant to the particular contact you are communicating with.

#6. Service And Support To Customers 

ActiveCampaign provides one-on-one training, live chat help, and email assistance. 

Users can use its comprehensive Help Center and online community forum to get assistance troubleshooting common issues.

You can also use ActiveCampaign to provide support to your clients. ActiveCampaign can help you monitor your customers’ behavior, recognize and reward your best clients, personalize your client experience, and help clients whenever they need it.

Who is ActiveCampaign for?

ActiveCampaign is typically for anyone that wants to take advantage of email marketing and automate different parts of their daily marketing efforts. 

This software is ideal for businesses of any size and brands looking to fully automate their marketing processes so as to increase conversions and sales. And also going beyond just sending out email newsletters.

It is also ideal for freelancers, marketing professionals, and marketing agencies who want to grow their outbound marketing efforts.

How Can I Use ActiveCampaign? 

I use ActiveCampaign to improve my customer relationship management, and I do this by making use of ActiveCampaign’s sales CRM. 

Below are the steps to follow if you want to improve your business’s CRM.

#1. Build Your First Pipeline

The repository for all CRM-related data is pipelines. By creating pipelines, you can better understand your customers, manage deals, and keep track of the client sales lifecycle.

#2. Increase Your Pipeline With Your First Sale

Sales will enable you to control the path your contacts take through your pipelines. You can manually enter sales into your pipelines or use automations as you start to build them.

#3. Automate How You Do Business

You are ready to automate once you have configured your CRM to correspond with your business procedures. You can stop performing manual tasks with the help of sales automation, giving you more time each day.

ActiveCampaign Pricing 

Note: ActiveCampaign Pricing plans can be pretty complicated to understand because this software boasts of four unique features. 

These four unique features include the following:

• Email and Marketing automation.
• CRM and Sales Engagement.
• Bundles, which include marketing automation with sales CRM.
• The Transactional Email.

These four features individually have their pricing plans and subfeatures.

This is why it is advisable for you to know exactly what you want to use this software for and pay according to the feature you will be mainly using the software for.

Category	Lite Plan	Plus Plan	Professional Plan	Enterprise Plan
Email & Marketing Automation	$29 per month	$49 per month	$149 per month	Customized
Sales Engagement & CRM	–	$19 per month	$49 per month	Customized
Bundles	–	$93 per month	$386 per month	Customized

Below, I will explain each pricing plan to make it more straightforward for you to understand.

#1. Email Marketing And Marketing Automation

Under this category are four unique pricing plans: the Lite plan, Plus plan, the Professional plan, and the Enterprise plan.

1. Lite Plan

This pricing plan is an active plan for small businesses and solopreneurs who want to have a smooth experience with their marketing operations for their business.

This plan costs $29 per month for a single user, and you can also get up to 20% off when you purchase a yearly subscription.

Because this plan is under the Email and Marketing automation category, you have total access to this feature. It also includes a round-the-clock chat and email support system, API, integrations and Webhooks, event and site tracking, etc.

2. Plus Plan

This pricing plan is specially designed for small marketing teams with the goal of creating valuable experiences for each customer no matter the stage they are in the sales process. The Plus plan costs $49 per month and allows access for three users. 

In this plan, you can access everything in the Lite plan, including landing pages, lead scoring, lead ads, Facebook custom audiences, third-party app integrations, etc.

3. Professional Plan

This is the most popular plan under this category. It is designed for mid-sized businesses or marketing teams that want to optimize their marketing efforts. The Professional plan costs $149 monthly, allowing access to only five users.

It includes everything in the Plus plan, including integrations with Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamic 365, split automations, access to site messaging, and many more.

4. Enterprise Plan

This is a customized plan targeted to large marketing teams in large corporations interested in sending personalized experiences to their audiences.

The cost of the Enterprise plan is customized, and you would have to contact the ActiveCampaign sales team to find out more about the prices of this pricing plan.

The Enterprise pricing plan includes everything in the Professional plan, including custom reporting, unlimited email testing, custom mail server domain, single sign-on, and many more.

#2. Sales And CRM

Under this category are three pricing plans available.  This includes the Plus plan, the Professional plan, and the Enterprise plan.

1. Plus Plan

This pricing plan is targeted at small sales teams who want to grow and manage their leads and sales pipelines. The cost of this Plus pricing plan is $19 per month.

In this plan, you can access sales automation, lead scoring, account and deal management, task management, etc.

2. Professional Plan

This is the most popular pricing plan under this category. It is specially designed for sales teams who are very focused on identifying and closing deals faster and in the best way possible.

This pricing plan costs $49 per month. It has everything in the Plus plan, including split automations, sentiment analysis, Lead ads for Facebook, one-to-one email with sales engagement automations, etc.

3. Enterprise Plan

This is the customized plan under this category. It is designed for sales teams that want to make use of a CRM that is flexible and customized to what they want.

The price of this plan can be gotten when you contact the ActiveCampaign sales team. It has everything available in the Professional plan, including unlimited SLA, custom reporting, HIPAA support, and more.

#3. Sales CRM & Marketing Automation (The Bundle Category)

Under this category are three pricing plans available.  This includes the Plus plan, the Professional plan, and the Enterprise plan.

1. Plus Plan

This plan costs $93 per month, which is broken down under the yearly plan. This pricing plan allows access to 5 users, and you can manage up to 1000 contacts.

It is designed for sales and marketing teams who want to combine both departments together and scale the business.

This plan allows you to access sales and marketing automation, third-party Integrations, campaign and automation reports, lead ads, and more.

2. Professional Plan

This is the most popular pricing plan under this category, and it costs $386 per month under the yearly subscription but allows access to 10 users and up to 2,500 contacts.

It is designed to meet the needs of growing businesses that want to increase sales efficiency alongside increasing marketing effectiveness.

In this plan, you have complete access to everything in the Plus plan, including win probability, conversions, sales engagement automations, one on one email, split automations, etc.

3. Enterprise Plan 

Just like in other categories, this is the customized plan under this category. Because it is a customized plan, it allows more than 15 users with unlimited contacts. 

It works best for businesses scaling fast and need very adaptable software to their ever-growing needs.

This pricing plan includes everything in the Professional plan, including custom reporting, custom mail server domain, unlimited email testing, and more.

#4. Transactional Email

Under this category is the Postmark service, which is a top-rated transactional email service, and now it is part of the ActiveCampaign software. The pricing under this category largely depends on the number of emails your business sends out monthly.

For example: if your business wants to send 10,000 emails in a month, you will be charged $15 with an extra $1.80 to get access to 1000 more emails.

To understand this pricing plan better, it is better to visit the ActiveCampaign Pricing page and select the number of emails you want your business to have access to per month. If you haven’t used this service before, start with the Postmark free trial to see if this fits you.

This category is designed for sales and marketing teams who want to have a smooth time running transactional emails for the business. 

How Does ActiveCampaign Free Trial Work 

ActiveCampaign’s 14-day free trial is a fantastic chance for new users to test out this well-liked email marketing solution before committing to a commercial plan.

You are permitted to create up to 100 contacts and send up to 100 emails during the trial period. Even if the free trial’s features are limited, you can still use most of the features in the Professional plan.

Below are the steps to use ActiveCampaign for free for 14 days;

• Step 1: Go to ActiveCampaigns homepage here: https://www.ActiveCampaign.com/ 
• Step 2: Afterward, enter your email address and select “Get Started.” The free trial can be started without providing any credit card information.
• Step 3: To confirm your email address, you’ll receive a link in your email. In order to confirm the email address, click the link. You can utilize all of ActiveCampaign’s capabilities once your email has been successfully verified.

ActiveCampaign Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Makes use of Machine Learning to enhance marketing outcomes over time.	Conversations (also known as on-site chat) is a separate function that is not offered as part of the basic package.
Email builder offers a lot of versatility.	It is not a beginner-friendly marketing automation tool.
CRM is seamlessly integrated with the automations.	Each plan’s cost rises as the number of contacts rises, which may have an impact on the monthly spending plan.
It is easy to use.	For beginners, the learning curve is a tad steep.
It is affordable.
It has lots of integrations.
It supports automation split testing.
The report includes numerous analytics data that measure ROI to make strategic decisions.
Offers free implementation and migration services from any current software.

ActiveCampaign Frequently Asked Questions

See Also:

• ActiveCampaign Black Friday & Cyber Monday Official Deals
• Kartra vs. ActiveCampaign: Who Wins In 13 Critical Features?

Final Thoughts on ActiveCampaign 

Although the ActiveCampaign software does have some drawbacks, the advantages significantly outweigh them.

Additionally, ActiveCampaign offers you the chance to test the system without providing any credit card information. In other words, there is nothing to lose from trying out the service.

For businesses that have some expertise with email marketing or are prepared to step up their marketing game and want to start using marketing automation tools, I highly recommend ActiveCampaign.

You don’t need to be an expert to use ActiveCampaign; you just need to watch the onboarding videos and get started.

Overall, ActiveCampaign is a really effective tool that will aid companies in their marketing efforts. It includes distinctive features like automations that make all of your business needs efficient, particularly when it comes to email marketing.