My Recommended ActiveCampaign Alternatives

ActiveCampaign is a solid email marketing platform. I’ve personally implemented a whitelabeled version on behalf of the family’s print shop, used it on my own projects as well as client projects. ActiveCampaign has an impressively competitive entry-level pricing, robust automation, personalization and many more features. But if you’re looking for ActiveCampaign alternatives, here is what I’d personally recommend.

GetResponse: Very Similar Features and Pricing

GetResponse is the first ActiveCampaign alternative that I’d recommend. I fell in love with GetResponse when I first tried it out, and I really can’t wait to really see what it can do on a client project. GetResponse is on-par with ActiveCampaign on pretty much every feature, plus some that ActiveCampaign doesn’t have. This includes webinar functionality and landing pages. Plus, I feel that GetResponse is a little bit more intuitive and has a cleaner interface.

Email Marketing Automation

The GetResponse email marketing automation is very comparable to ActiveCampaign. Adding new elements to the automation workflow is as easy as dragging and dropping a new element. Campaigns are able to fork using various if/then statements. There’s elements for sending emails, waiting (duration), if/then statements, tagging and more.

I personally think that the GetResponse automation workflow is a lot cleaner and more intuitive than ActiveCampaigns. I think that ActiveCampaign is a little bit more robust as to what is possible, however. If you’re not doing anything with CRM integration or lead scoring, this might not be that relevant. Just depends on how crazy you’re trying to get with automation.

Host Your Own Webinars

If you’re B2B, you’re going to love this feature. GetResponse makes it insanely easy to host your own webinars. The webinar functionality is also highly integrated with the other features. For example; you can setup a landing page to register for the webinar. That landing form opt-in starts an automated drip-campaign that starts with a confirmation email, contains reminder emails and finally a thank you email that contains a link where they can find the archived version. And of course, lead scoring for webinar participants.

Landing Page Builder

I kind of feel like the landing page fad has kind of died out a little bit. CMS has made it much easier to set these up on the company website, meaning having it integrated into a marketing platform isn’t quite as important as it was back in the day. I do like how the landing pages integrate with the automated workflows and especially the webinar functionality.

It’s also worth mentioning that the landing pages can be used for other marketing campaigns from other platforms and marketing channels. It’s also possible to whitelabel the landing pages so they show up on a sub-domain of the company website.

More GetResponse Features / Information

Drip: Better Automations and Forms But Not Intuitive At All

Drip is an email marketing platform specializing in drip campaigns and marketing automation. Drip is definitely not trying to appeal to the newbie marketers. It’s recommended to have some experience with markup language of sorts when dealing with Drip. But, if you’re going for some insanely robust automation, Drip is something worth considering.

Drip Campaigns / Marketing Automation

As mentioned above, Drip specializes in email marketing automation. In fact, when first getting started, you’ll be walked through creating the first automated workflow. Drip also provides a javascript snippet to add to your site. This way you can easily integrate web-based goals / triggers into the email campaign automation.

The opt-in forms / widgets are also meant to be paired up with specific onsite content. This is to get your current traffic / customers to opt into informational email drip campaigns, even if they’re already a recipient.

Best Opt-In Forms / Widgets Ever!

This is the one area where Drip really impresses me. Their opt-in mechanisms are very impressive. Rather than static HTML forms, Drip gives you the option of interstitial and other widget types. These widgets are very sleek, beautiful and clickable. Plus, they don’t require any website real estate, like a standard opt-in form does. You can also set rules and logics that dictate how the widgets are displayed.

The Email Campaign Designer Sucks At Life!

Drip would get a much more raving review from me if their designer didn’t suck at life. We’re in the generation where all the entry-level email marketing suites offer WYSIWYG or modularized / widgetized designers. Drip’s is very basic. If you’re only sending text-based emails with simple graphics, this might not be a problem. Otherwise, to design anything visually stunning, you’d have to do it through the source code. That’s why I say Drip email marketers should know HTML, at the very least.

If you want all the badass forms and marketing automation, I’d honestly suggest looking into LeadPages and their integration partners. LeadPages is the company that developed Drip, and allows you to do the same thing with the opt-in widgets. LeadPages integrates with a number of products, including ActiveCamapaign. That way you can have the same features but while using a platform with a decent email designer.

More Drip Features / Information

Upgrading To More Robust Marketing Automation

If you want something way more robust, I’d suggest upgrading to a marketing automation suite like SilverPop or Bronto. Keep in mind, that with the upgrade you’ll be paying significantly more for these services. As impressive as their platforms are, this might be something that makes many SMBs or non-profits cringe. How much exactly? Just shy of $1,000 per month.

If you’re an enterprise company, that investment is a lot easier to justify. I personally have not worked with very many companies that needed anything more robust than what’s mentioned above. But if you want the most powerful marketing suite available, this is the route you should be exploring.

More ActiveCampaign Alternatives

Looking for more ActiveCampaign alternatives? Check out our email marketing directory. It makes it incredibly easy to compare the different email marketing platforms side by side. See what else is available and how ActiveCampaign compares to the competition. The directory contains links to additional information on all the different platforms for in-depth platform comparison.

View The Email Marketing Directory