ConvertKit vs ActiveCampaign
A suitable marketing automation solution increases the efficiency of your marketers and sales team. It can provide greater personalization and increase key performance while automating repetitive marketing tasks. You can generate more leads and revenue when people, tools, and processes are well-coordinated.
The two platforms that guarantee growth in your sales productivity through marketing automation are ConvertKit and ActiveCampaign. Though having similarities, there are differences in design, scope, and features.
If you are choosing between these two, you can start with the question: “Who is this software for?”
ConvertKit is best for bloggers and course creators. It is an email service provider to power your blog. Though it has simpler functionalities, it is sufficient for selling digital products and building your audience and subscribers.
ActiveCampaign is best for bloggers, business owners, and email marketers. It is essential if you need an integrated sales and marketing platform for your business. It performs multi-channel marketing and automates from sales emails to lead scoring.
The following review will elaborate on the features, integrations, and pricing of both software. Compare and find out which one is the best for you.
Features
Opt-in Forms and Landing Pages
Opt-in forms and landing pages are ways to capture customers and visitors for subscriptions and promotions. Opt-in forms are users’ consent for acknowledging interest in a product or service and allowing a third party to get in touch with them for more details. On the other hand, landing pages are standalone web pages for a marketing campaign.
ConvertKit and ActiveCampaign have simple and easy-to-use form builders.
ConvertKit
You can grow your audience by creating a good impression with a customizable sign-up form and landing pages that suit your brand. Generally, the sign-up form has two fields – the user's name and email address. You can also add other fields for specific information helping you organize your audience and send them applicable content.
You can customize colors, texts, and images for better presentation. CovertKit integration with Unplash provides a free gallery of unique photos for your forms. These forms can be embedded on popular sites such as WordPress through ConvertKit integrations or by the use of JavaScript. Its format is compatible with any platform and device.
You can also connect your landing page builder to analytics tools to track your audience. Optimizing it with an SEO title and description can potentially reach new visitors across the internet.
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign’s form builder provides various options of well-designed and customizable templates for your landing page. There are four display modes – inline, floating box, modal pop-up, and floating bar – some of which are only available for Small Business and Enterprise users.
Furthermore, you can create personalized web experiences by editing elements, special buttons, social links, and a countdown timer. You can add custom fields like checkboxes, list selectors, and CAPTCHA. You can choose from a wide range of style options or customize styling through CSS code.
ActiveCampaign offers more than 250 pre-built automation recipes to increase productivity. These can be categorized by industry, experience level, and features.
Email Marketing Automation and Broadcast
Through email marketing automation, you can engage with your audience by sending the right emails. Both ConvertKit and ActiveCampaign offer data-driven segmentation, split testing, and customization.
ConvertKit
ConvertKit has a visual flowchart builder making it simple and easy to understand. It allows you to set triggers, actions, and conditions to regulate the automation sequences.
You can enter subscribers into the sequence automatically after they are included in the list. You can organize your subscribers by adding tags or custom fields. This includes tagging them based on their interests or behavior on your site. You can set up automated event funnels with these events, actions, and conditions. Using smart filters, you can exclude subscribers from irrelevant emails. Therefore, you can send or schedule highly targeted content on a specific day.
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign provides email campaigns applicable to your business such as broadcast and autoresponders. It also features a lot of tools including audience segmentation and site tracking.
You can create different segments through tags, custom fields, and data collected with ActiveCampaign. Data collection includes geographical location, job function, people who open your email, people who contact your sales team, and results from quizzes. The triggered and targeted email is automatically sent to the segment at the right time.
ActiveCampaign has a library of more than 250 responsive email templates designed for abandoned carts, events, customer service, newsletters, and more. They are customizable for any part of your business. Also, they are B2B and B2C friendly. You can engage with your customers without compromising your brand and style.
Integration
Through integrations, you can connect with applications and platforms to help you grow your business.
ConvertKit
ConvertKit integration has around 90 applications available. Some platforms are Squarespace for websites, Teachable for membership and courses, and Shopify for E-commerce.
You can integrate your opt-in forms with WordPress through the official ConvertKit plug-in. You do not have to worry about integrating with third-party software because ConvertKit integrates with Zapier and has its API.
ActiveCampaign
In ActiveCampaign integration, you can connect with more than 870 applications. The recommended applications are Shopify for E-commerce, Salesforce for CRM, and Jotforms for forms. It has extensive options such as tools for accounting, CMS, Event Management, and Social. You can also build your own custom Webhooks APIs to connect with a platform for easier transfer of data.
ConvertKit: Pros and Cons
Pros
Simple and User-Friendly: It is easy to get started with ConvertKit. You can learn the features quickly even without technical knowledge.
WordPress Integration: It is designed mainly for bloggers and content creators who most probably use WordPress. ConvertKit opt-in form can be integrated with WordPress through official plug-ins.
Functional Lead Capture Form Creation: It can be accomplished with easy guidelines in five minutes.
Email and Deliverability: Emails can be written like a personal message. It is also designed to look great with any device. This process is a great contribution to its deliverability. Email courses and automation rules can be easily created and modified to organize and deliver your emails.
KPI visibility: Open rate, click rate, and daily subscription are all displayed to aid metrics analysis.
Cons
Costly: Compared to other marketing automation platforms, it is more expensive. It also does not offer a free trial; however, they have a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Not used for PPC traffic: ConvertKit has simple functions and integrations. ConvertKit has only four landing page templates designed for gathering the names and email addresses of prospects. If you require more than this, you will need a third-party landing page tool.
ActiveCampaign: Pros and Cons
Pros
Effective Templates: ActiveCampaign provides engaging layouts for emails. It increases the response rate on your email campaigns. This goes the same for the opt-in forms that can be embedded on your website in four options.
Versatile Email Builder: ActiveCampaign’s segmentation includes many factors such as users’ interaction with your campaign or website, contact information, interests, and other variables. Using these data, ActiveCampaign customizes your emails to be sent to the target audience. It can also send follow-ups automatically to them.
Geographical Location Tracking System: It can give you the location of your users in real-time.
Seamless CRM Integration: It has built-in CRM to improve efficiency in your automation processes. This will help your sales and marketing teams engage with your prospective customers.
Cons
Advanced Features: It takes effort to learn the features especially if you are new to email marketing automation.
Non-standard Features: There are features such as customized branding, domains, and on-site chat that are add-ons or available only for Small Business and Enterprise plans.
Pricing
The rates for each plan vary with the number of your contacts or subscribers. To determine the plan for your business, here are the details for ConvertKit and ActiveCampaign pricing for 1,000 and 10,000 contacts.
ConvertKit Pricing
Free – this plan is only applicable for a maximum of 1,000 subscribers. It is suitable for new bloggers and content creators who are building their lists. It has unlimited access to landing pages, forms, and email sending. It also includes segmentation, selling digital products and subscriptions, and community support.
Creator – this plan costs 29 USD and 119 USD monthly for 1,000 and 10,000 subscribers respectively. It is designed to mainly automate your work. On top of the free plan, automated email sequences, visual automation builders, third-party integrations, and other features are added.
Creator Pro - this plan costs 59 USD and 167 USD monthly for 1,000 and 10,000 subscribers respectively. It is the best support for scaling your business. On top of the Creator plan, a newsletter referral system and advanced reporting are included.
ActiveCampaign Pricing
For more detailed information, the website gives you features by business type: B2C, B2B, and E-commerce. Also, the rates are on a monthly basis but billed annually.
Lite – this plan has a monthly rate of 29 USD for 1,000 contacts and 139 USD for 10,000 contacts. It includes main features such as sending newsletters, templates, email marketing, and marketing automation. Its integration is limited to auto-import from other services, subscription forms, site, and event tracking, and API and webhooks. It has also limited access to support and training.
Plus – this plan has a monthly rate of 49 USD for 1,000 contacts and 229 USD for 10,000 contacts. In addition to the Lite plan, you can access ActiveCampaign’s built-in CRM, sales automation, and contact and lead scoring. There are 5 free inbox previews per month. Its integration extends to social media, rebranding, and database sync.
Professions – considered the most popular plan with a monthly rate of 149 USD for 1,000 contacts and 339 USD for 10,000 contacts. On top of the Plus plan, the main features cover split automation, one-to-one email automation, and web personalization for up to 5 experiences only.
Enterprise – this plan can be customized to fit your business and needs.
Final Thought
ConvertKit and ActiveCampaign are both competitive tools for email marketing automation. They cater to different needs and scopes; nevertheless, they can improve the efficiency of your sales and marketing team. It can provide solutions and support to grow your business and increase profitability.
