ActiveCampaign Marketing

We moved to AC from a much older ESP, which initially made AC a great option. The ability to directly pull product images from Shopify via automation emails seems like a perk BUT AC cannot handle .PNG product images. AC coerces them into .JPGs which creates a black background and essentially ruins the functionality and purpose of dynamically pulling product images from shopify. This makes abandoned cart emails and similar automations completely unusable. Other than that, the system is somewhat easy to use and understand, however there is a learning curve for automations. A better system for testing automations would be highly beneficial. The reporting system isn't very robust, but provides general data. Pop-ups are easy to create, but there isn't yet a way to set a delay, so they pop up on page load, which aggravates many users. AC does have great deliverability rates. Our emails land in inboxes right where they are supposed to.

Great app and seamless integration

I had AC recommended from a friend and have started with the free version and upgraded time and time again to now almost 50k contacts as well as their highest plan.

You can literally build any automation you want with AC as well as send regular campaigns. They have great blueprints for useful automations to get you started such as figuring out who your most active subscribers are etc.

They frequently add integrations (like with Typeform which is amazing) and help solve issues quickly and reliably.

The integration with Shopify works flawlessly. I have all our customer data right in AC and can filter contacts based on their shopping history with us which is great. A segment like "send campaign to customers who purchased within the last 30 days" takes 5 seconds to create).

For us it's a vital tool and the app we spend most for each month but it's dollars for pennies as it pays for itself. Highly recommended!

We are happy that Activecampaign can sync product data with customers within Activecampaign, but it is still limited. We would love to see e-commerce features on par with software like Klayvio. Cheers.

Terrible revenue reports! They are incorrect and unreliable. If you need any type of reports to justify your cost do not use AC. I have contact support several times and evidently this is not a priority. We are unable to justify the high cost of AC because of their faulty reports.

If reports are important to your business DO NOT USE! ActiveCampaign. We depend on accurate revenue reports to justify our cost and time spent but evidently this is not a priority for AC. Reports have broken multiple times and support takes moths to fix it. All data is lost during these times

We was using during test period and after we deleted the APP. 3 days after that it was deducted the monthly fee from our account. It is absolutely unfair, pay back this amount ASAP!
1 day later
One day passed no answer !! Is my credit card information at risk? Can they deduct anything at any time? Why don't they answer? When they wanted to sell something within 1 hour they answered ...

UPDATE: Revenue reports are unreliable. If you need any type of accurate reporting do not use AC. We currently are not able to see how much revenue out campaigns are generating. UPDATE: After several months of monitoring, we can see that segmenting is improving deliverability and increasing revenue. Worth the switch! The segmenting has helped us clean up our list and put us on the path for better deliverability. Still deciding if it was worth the switch from Mailchimp.

UPDATE: Revenue reports are terrible and unreliable. Support has not been helpful with this problem. If you need any type of ROI reports do not use AC. You will have no idea how much revenue your campaigns are generating. Overall the experience with AC is good. Technical support is not up to the standards it should be and has caused numerous problems with our account, but our account manager has been fantastic. If you are considering switching to ActiveCampaign just do not rely on tech support.

UPDATE: Revenue reports are down AGAIN. I contacted support about this over weeks ago with very little help. We are spending over $600 a month with Activecampaign and we are, once again, unable to have any reports that tell us the revenue generated through our campaigns. We have no idea who purchased from our site through the emails. As a wholesale distributor automation and list segmenting is crucial, and Active campaign combined with Zapier has us covered. Wish it was more consistent and reliable... we have had too many issues with tech support.

The concept and function of AC is great, and the automations are dynamic and versatile. But I can't help but wonder why designing an email in AC is so terribly clunky and difficult to use?

If visuals are a core part of your brand, you might be better off with a diff program. And if you don't have the time to dive deep into understanding automation flows, you also might be better off with a diff program. It's very complex, not intuitive, and easy to make mistakes with.

Eventually I had to hire a consultant to help build automations in AC, and my emails still don't look as good as they did in Mailchimp, but (again) the automations are more versatile and powerful.

Unfortunately, it's a bunch trade-offs.