Mail Chimp Vs. Active Campaign

You can also see whether the completion rate has actually increased or decreased, how long it considers contacts to reach that goal, and you can search all contacts to see who did and didn’t reach the objective. ActiveCampaign’s Message Variables is my favorite feature. It conserves me a load of effort and time, and neither MailChimp nor ConvertKit (update: 9/2020 ConvertKit now has ” bits”) has an equivalent feature.
Let’s say you have the very first name of just some of your contacts, which holds true with my list. I generally don’t require a first name to sign up to my list, but sometimes I get a given name, such as when someone purchases a product. Wouldn’t it be nice to greet your contacts by name, in the cases when you have it? You can do this, but it’s troublesome.
I’m also filtering for generic terms included by other systems, such as a dash, or “Guest.” If they have a given name, I say “Hey,” and then their first name. If they don’t, I just state “Hey there,” (Mail Chimp Vs. Active Campaign). By building a Message Variable in ActiveCampaign, I can easily alter my greeting according to whether I have the contact’s first name.
Mail Chimp Vs. Active Campaign
I developed a variable that’s just %greeting-hey%. If I have the contact’s name, it shows up in the e-mail. If I do not have the contact’s name, it defaults to “Hey,”. Where Message Variables really save me a great deal of time is by allowing me utilize the exact same automation over and over once again for my webinars, and I can quickly change out all of the information.

Here are variables for a webinar I run called “Bust Through Creative Blocks.” You can see I have a bunch of different variables here, such as the date and time of the webinar, the rate of the product, deal terms, discount coupon code, and more. Each time I run a new webinar, I can change each of these variables to match any schedule modifications or offer changes.
And here it is in an email. This message variable allows me to easily alter out a countdown timer. I did point out earlier that a person of the cons of ActiveCampaign is their e-mail modifying experience. I switched from MailChimp, and MailChimp takes place to have the very best e-mail editing experience. I really like to send easy emails.
Mail Chimp Vs. Active Campaign
I’ve found that really difficult to do with ActiveCampaign. For some time, I was editing emails in ActiveCampaign’s hybrid editor, which is rather clunky. For a long period of time, I utilized ActiveCampaign’s hybrid HTML and WYSIWYG editor, which was triggered by a basic template I created. The user interface for the HTML editor appears like it was pulled from some free open-source job. Mail Chimp Vs. Active Campaign.
Nevertheless, adding images is a bit of a chore. You have to select them from a file browser. There’s no drag and drop option. ActiveCampaign’s HTML email editor needs that you compose totally in HTML. The alternative to this, if you want to have control over the HTML, is to modify pure HTML, with a sneak peek on the side.
Adding images to ActiveCampaign’s rich text editor is a clunky experience. You need different text boxes for above and listed below the image. Lately I have actually begun using ActiveCampaign’s abundant text editor. They have some great templates, however I still wish to send the simplest e-mail possible. They do have some plain-looking emails, but they have some degree of minimal formatting, which you can’t remove – Mail Chimp Vs. Active Campaign.
Mail Chimp Vs. Active Campaign
But, with some modifications, I can make my e-mail quite standard. I can make it instantly use up the whole window, and I can modify the typography to be a little larger, and have a little bit more leading. The most frustrating part of ActiveCampaign’s abundant text editor is adding images. Imagine you’ve simply typed out a great email. Mail Chimp Vs. Active Campaign.
You can’t just include an image to a block of text. Instead, you need to develop two blocks of text: one for before the image, and one for after the image. If you’ve made any format modifications, you’ll have to keep an eye on those to remain constant. That’s one thing to deal with when you wish to include one image, but when you wish to add numerous, it ends up being a huge task.
They even have a fundamental mage editor where you can crop the image – Mail Chimp Vs. Active Campaign. MailChimp’s editor is the best I’ve seen in all of the e-mail marketing platforms I’ve tried. You have access to the underlying code, so you can create a genuinely plain email, provided you make a standard design template first.
Mail Chimp Vs. Active Campaign
MailChimp’s integrated image editor is exceptionally effective. You can resize, crop, and add custom text to your images. I miss out on MailChimp’s email-editing experience (Mail Chimp Vs. Active Campaign). It would save me a little time to have that exact same experience on ActiveCampaign. However the highly-customizable automations I can develop on ActiveCampaign more than make up for that prospective time savings.
ConvertKit’s email modifying experience is very plain, however easy to navigate. Their templates are limited, which is great with me, but their e-mail modifying experience is somewhat simpler because you can produce inline images, and you can develop a totally plain e-mail, and even edit the underlying HTML. If you desire to make some fast edits to some emails in an automation, with ActiveCampaign, it’s cumbersome.
I’ll click an email, and it takes me to the editor for that e-mail. Note that I can’t even Command + Click to open it in another tab. Whether they suggested to or not, ActiveCampaign has handicapped Command + Click from the automation editor. If I desired to change backward and forward in between various e-mails, I would intuitively be inclined open the exact same automation in various tabs, then open the respective e-mails from each of those tabs.
Mail Chimp Vs. Active Campaign
In the Automations area, there’s a “Manage Messages” area. From here, you can see all of the messages in each of your automations. You can modify each one, or you can Command + Click to open each in a brand-new tab to more easily edit your entire sequence. Mail Chimp Vs. Active Campaign. Contrast that with ConvertKit’s Series.
Again, it would conserve me a great deal of time to have ConvertKit’s automation e-mail modifying experience on ActiveCampaign – Mail Chimp Vs. Active Campaign. However picking an e-mail marketing platform resembles selecting a spouse. ActiveCampaign offsets it with their Message Variables, more robust automations, and advanced division. Speaking of segmentation, another factor I switched from MailChimp to ActiveCampaign was that MailChimp has restricted division options.
You can integrate characteristics with an AND/OR operator, and you can blend and match those groups of qualities with another AND/OR operator. With MailChimp, you can just section by AND/OR, however MailChimp’s Pro strategy permits more sophisticated segmenting, for an additional $199 a month. In my search for the perfect email marketing platform, I saw many others, a few of which I have actually already mentioned.
Mail Chimp Vs. Active Campaign
ConvertKit. If I weren’t on ActiveCampaign, I would probably be using ConvertKit. Their automations are much simpler to build, though they aren’t as versatile as ActiveCampaign’s, and their divisions choices aren’t as sophisticated either. They likewise do not have objective tracking, or Message Variables. MailChimp. You already understand that I switched from MailChimp to ActiveCampaign.