There are plenty of things to love about ActiveCampaign, one of the most popular email marketing platforms out there. It lets you enjoy a lot of flexibility when it comes to list management, plus it has a lead scoring feature so that you know exactly who of your subscribers are engaged and who aren’t. Not only that but its automation is powerful as well, allowing you to have maximum control over your workflows so that you can target the right people with the right information. That said, it’s not the only email marketing platform that can meet your business’s needs. In fact, there’s no harm in exploring other tools because you might just find that they’re even more capable of helping you accomplish your goals.
To help you decide if you should switch ActiveCampaign out for another email marketing platform, here are some of the best alternatives that you can try out.
Sendinblue
Sendinblue offers the same features at much more affordable prices.
Sendinblue has been slowly but surely stealing customers from platforms like ActiveCampaign because they pretty much have the same features but are able to provide them for a much cheaper price. Its pricing plans aren’t based on your email subscribers but rather on the number of emails you send. They even have a free pricing plan that allows you to send 300 emails per day and have an unlimited number of contacts. Aside from being the more affordable option, Sendinblue also makes it easy for users to navigate their way around, boasting of a simple marketing automation. To boot, it has heatmap analytics to improve your customers’ journey, a Send Time Optimization feature which sends your campaigns at the perfect time, as well as real-time sales alerts.
There are, however, some drawbacks to using Sendinblue. For one, you’re only allowed to have one user per account upon starting while ActiveCampaign immediately lets you have three. You also don’t get to have as many third-party app integrations. There’s also the fact that it doesn’t have as many CRM features such as ActiveCampaign’s lead scoring and two-way CRM syncing.
HubSpot
HubSpot is an all-around CRM automation platform and marketing hub.
HubSpot is the full package. Not only is it a CRM automation platform but it also doubles up as a marketing hub that goes beyond just email marketing. It has been around for a long time and has been tried and tested, making it a trustworthy service provider. Aside from its credibility, another thing it’s well known for is its 100% free CRM, making it a cost-effective option. As for its features, customers get to benefit from fully automated workflows, plus they have access to templates to make the process a lot easier. HubSpot also boasts of excellent lead management and scoring features. It has an analytics dashboard that features more segments compared to that of ActiveCampaign as well. Overall, HubSpot is a great choice for bigger marketing and sales teams.
There are some downsides to HubSpot, however. You have to keep in mind that while its CRM is completely free, the add-ons are very costly and so the charges will probably get higher as you grow your business. Also, HubSpot may be too much for the smaller businesses out there who just want straightforward email marketing and nothing more.
Ontraport
Ontraport is much more powerful than ActiveCampaign when it comes to CRM.
Ontraport is like ActiveCampaigns’ bigger, more capable brother when it comes to CRM. Because it’s a full-scale CRM solution that offers 360-degree contact management and nurturing, you should definitely expect it to be more technical than ActiveCampaign. The learning curve is justified though because it’s also more powerful. It has more planned out automated workflows, better predictive analytics that improve send times, as well as real-time sales alerts. It doesn’t hurt either that it has been in business for a long time and is trusted when it comes to automated campaigns. Affordability-wise, Ontraport is more cost-effective than a lot of its CRM peers and it even offers a 14-day free trial so that you can take it out for a test drive and determine if it’s the right platform for you.
The biggest disadvantage of using Ontraport, however, is the fact that it’s a lot more complicated to use and so you do need to spend some time finding your way around the platform. You should also know that it’s pretty limited when it comes to social media CRM features. In addition, it’s way more expensive than ActiveCampaign.
AWeber
AWeber has been revamping its automation offerings over the past few years.
AWeber has been around since the early 2000s and it’s known as an email marketing pioneer for smaller businesses. But because it’s a much older service provider, there’s a tendency for it to get overlooked. If you’ve completely forgotten about AWeber, it’s worth looking into it again because it has actually revamped its automation offerings over the past couple of years. It now has plenty of integrations including Shopify, Facebook, PayPal, and WordPress. It also has loads of marketing and email campaigns that are very easy to use, plus over 700 email templates for you to choose from. It even has a double opt-in feature which reduces spam addresses. If you’re not sure if you want to go all in, it offers a 30-day trial period so that you can test the waters.
Moving on to the disadvantages, one of the biggest ones is the fact that AWeber’s starting price is much higher than ActiveCampaign’s. Customers also don’t have the most seamless experience when they’re moving and migrating lists. It’s also quite troublesome that unsubscribers are still included in your total subscription count.
SharpSpring
SharpSpring is the perfect automation platform for large enterprises.
If you’re a large enterprise or an agency that needs to deliver big results, there really is no better automation platform for you than SharpSpring. Compared to ActiveCampaign, its workflows are much more advanced and are able to branch out into more complex pathways. Other great benefits of using SharpSpring include countless dashboard customizations, real-time sales alerts, integrations with large enterprise software suites such as Netsuite, SAP, and Oracle, templates that you can share with multiple clients, and rebrandable product offerings. If you’re always on the go, you can still access your marketing and sales contacts and leads via SharpSpring’s mobile application which is available on both iOS and Android.
SharpSpring, however, is not for everyone. It’s definitely not the starter solution that smaller companies and blogs are looking for. It’s also important to note that it doesn’t come with SMS marketing integration. Also, because it’s more complex than other marketing tools out there, you should be prepared to pay more upfront.
Verdict
Assess your business and see which marketing platform is the best fit for it, whether it be ActiveCampaign or its alternatives.
It can’t be denied that ActiveCampaign is a powerful marketing tool. That said, you should definitely assess your business’s needs and goals and see if ActiveCampaign is indeed the best option for it. If not, know that there are other platforms out there that are just as, if not more capable. If, for example, you want to focus on CRM, Ontraport is the full-scale CRM solution you’re looking for. But if it’s the full package you’re after, HubSpot gives you the best of both CRM and marketing worlds. As for the large enterprises out there who need to drive impressive results, look no further than SharpSpring. If it’s affordability you’re concerned about, however, Sendinblue provides all the same features at a much lower cost.
