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5 Features that Made Me Fall Hopelessly in Love with Active Campaign

From 2009 – 2015, AWeber was my email service provider of choice.   

This was the service provider that everyone and their uncles raved about. 

In fact, AWeber was the IT email marketing service! A lot of the folks that I followed online were using the service….

Peeps like…

Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income and Brian Dean from Backlinko…and I could see why:

• AWeber is very easy to use.  You don’t have to be a tech superstar to use this program – at all.
• AWeber makes it easy to set up autoresponder campaigns. If you are running your business solo (and even if you’re not) you NEED an autoresponder. An autoresponder is kinda like a virtual secretary that runs behind the scenes in your business on autopilot
• AWeber is super affordable. AWeber starts at $19 a month.  Soooo if you’re growing your business on a budget, AWeber is a pretty amazing tool to use to get you going.

So yea, the autoresponder feature and affordability of AWeber make it an attractive email marketing solution for small businesses.

I Outgrew Aweber

As I started focusing more on increasing conversions to the YourChicGeek blog, I noticed that AWeber wasn’t cutting the mustard for me any more.

Little things like:

#1.  Moving email subscribers from one list to another

Moving email subbies from one list to another required manual intervention.If you’ve ever had to do this on multiple lists then you know it is a PITA!

#2.  Segmentation Woes

Ya so segmentation with AWeber was difficult to do.  Here’s what I mean:

Let’s say a new visitor (we will refer to her as Michelle) comes to the YourChicGeek blog for the first time.

Michelle clicks on a post to learn how to use Canva for graphic design and decides to sign up for a Free e-course on design.

In AWeber, she will get added to a list for visual design.  

Now:

Here is where things get tricky with AWeber.  After Michelle has gone through the visual design course, in order for me to add her to my main newsletter list, I would have to do it manually…

Can you imagine doing this for hundreds of folks opting into your email list?

Meaning that, I would have to log in to AWeber, export Michelle’s contact information, then add her to my main list.

To add to that, I would get charged twice for having Michelle on my list as an email subscriber.

This because the AWeber counts the same email address on different lists as two subbies, not one.

This can get expensive.

Goodbye AWeber, Hello Active Campaign!

It’s safe to say that my email marketing relationship with AWeber had run its course.  It was time for a change….

So, I started asking some of my biz buddies what email marketing platforms they were using.

Most of them were using AWeber and some were using Constant Contact.  While Constant Contact looked like a viable option, it was similar to AWeber so I decided to pass on using it.

I needed something with more advanced features.  This my friends is where Active Campaign came into the picture.

One day, I was perusing around the web searching for email marketing platforms and ran across some reviews of Active Campaign.

 

 

The reviews and feedback of the platform got me all excited. And so, I headed over to the site to see if they had some sort of free trial to give things a test run.

And what do ya know…they did offer a free 30 day trial. You can click here to give Active Campaign a test run!!

Guys… I.Was.Blown.Away!

I could not believe some of the things that I could use this platform to do. All I can say is WOW!!! (I was turning Cartwheels and Splits yall) in my head at least….

Features that Made Me Fall Head Over Heels with Active Campaign Email Automation

 

#1. The Automation Features in Active Campaign are Power-Packed

For example:

• Moving subbies from one list to another is automated. If you need to move your subscribers from one list to another, you can set this up as an automation in Active Campaign.  This means, no more manual moves.
• You can segment your email subscribers based on interest. Using the previous example with an ecourse, with Active Campaign if someone opts in for an ecourse and finishes the entire course, you can add a “trigger” in active campaign that tells the service to move them to your main list after “3 days”… and so forth (Wahoooo)
• Action based follow ups are a breeze to setup. Let’s say you are running a product launch and you send you an email to your entire email list.  Now…during your launch, 30 people click a link in the email you send out to “read more about your offer”.  Well my friend, with Active Campaign, you can send a follow up email specifically to the 30 people that clicked your link (You see where i’m going with this?)

 

#2.  One email subscriber = ONE email subscriber.  

Thats rightttt my friend. Active Campaign does not charge you twice for an email subbie that is on multiple lists that you have. AWeber does.
 

#3. The price!  

You would think that Active Campaign would be super expensive since it’s power packed but it’s not.

 

I’m paying around $30 a month for the Active Campaign Lite Version of software.  And it is friggin power packed for realz. 

Thing is… I was paying around the same price for AWeber (which has less features). I mean…I just cannot overstate how awesome this d$mn email marketing platform is.  It’s a #BOSS!
 

#4.  The drag and drop visual editor (that lets me view all of my automation funnels) (Yayyy for thissss)

I am a visual person, and so whenever I created automated sequences, I like to see what I am mapping out.  

Here is what a simple automation mapped out in AC looks like:

 

#5.  There are some great Done for you automation sequences (plug in play templates) in AC 

Sooo as an example, if you wanted to put together an e-course to build your email list with, you don’t have to start from scratch.

AC has an e-course automation already done for you.  You just have to add content to it and you are off to the races. (YAYYYY)

I could go on and one about Active Campaign y’all…because this email automation platform has been a game changer for me.

If you want to automate your sales funnels, nurture your email list on autopilot and take “you” out of your business a bit, then you should give Active Campaign a try.
 

Should You Use Active Campaign?

Well that depends…

If you only want to do things like send out mass emails to your email subbies and simple autoresponders, then you may not need AC.  

But, if you want a system that’s more advanced and you need advanced segmentation and automation features, then I highly recommend Active Campaign. 

Cheers peeps!