Planning to implement marketing automation and considering ActiveCampaign? We advice to view similar platforms to find a solution.

When customers choose marketing automation app, most often they are trying to find functionality for omni-channel communication, lead management, website builder, lead scoring, B tests etc.

Comparing ActiveCampaign with competitors people pay attention to the HTML email builder, customer data platform, chatbots, conversations, form builder, segmentation, number of triggers and actions and so on.

We’ve made a list of top 10 competitors that are very resembling in cost and functionality to ActiveCampaign. The list is based on user reviews, so if ActiveCampaign doesn’t suit you in any way, here you can easily choose the best solution for you.

E2 Shop System

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We help shops and manufacturers of all kinds and sizes work smarter for improved efficiencies, greater flexibility and bigger profits.

Pardot

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Pardot enables organizations to track and measure the effectiveness of their communications, gain insight into user's behavior, and personalize content across campaigns based on any number of specific criteria. You've heard the axiom, Right Place, Right Time. With Pardot, you can be sure that you're speaking to the right person at the right time with the right language.

Softbook

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Softbook is an educational space where anyone can easily share their knowledge with a lot of people. Enjoy creating an online school within a simple and powerful system. Become part of our «Softbook family» join the educational space and change the world.

1factory Manufacturing Quality

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1factory provides easy-to-use yet powerful Manufacturing and Supply Chain Quality Control software. With 1factory, manufacturers can control product quality both within their factories, and across their supply chains.

BambooHR

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BambooHR's cloud-based system is an intuitive, affordable way for growing companies to manage essential employee information in a personalized Human Resources Information System (HRIS).

Sender

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Sender is SaaS online platform, which helps for business and bloggers to grow sales with email marketing automation. It's the best tool to send automation newsletters, auto responder, reminders, follow ups and other type of emails to large email lists. Every user can use prepared email templates or create own design.

AppMaster.io

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AppMaster.io is a no-code platform to create and publish web and mobile applications suitable for any operating system. The platform can generate code based on the app features and design requested by the user. As a result, the user gets a complete app supported by source code and API documentation.

Omnisend

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Omnisend is an omnichannel marketing automation platform built for eCommerce. With email marketing at its core, creating effective email campaigns is easier than ever before. Using Omnisend's marketing automation, you can personalize your message with customer data, campaign engagement, and shopping behavior. Omnisend allows you to add several channels into the same automation workflow: email, SMS, push notifications, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and more.

ClubExpress

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ClubExpress provides clubs and associations with an Internet platform to manage both front-office and back-office operations. ClubExpress combines the association web site with the membership and non-member databases, secure online member signup, renewals and expirations, credit-card processing, membership directory, discussion forums, event calendar and online registration, E-commerce storefront, committees, documents, interests, surveys, and other modules based on what clubs and associations do. The platform includes a full suite of administration tools to run the organization. There is no programming or HTML experience required; everything is controlled by menus and dialog boxes, and all changes are immediately live. We use state-of-the-art security, there's no advertising and associations own their data at all times.

IXACT Contact

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IXACT Contact is a real estate CRM oriented toward the agent who focuses on emails, drip campaigns, and snail mail to cultivate their relationships

Shortlist

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Shortlist is a smart, user-friendly contractor on-boarding platform.

How to choose ActiveCampaign substitute

Many marketing automation apps are similar to each other. Tools with identical functionality can differ in price by 4 times. The first feature you should look at is the availability of funnel builder. This is a basic feature of marketing automation platforms and if it doesn’t include this feature, most likely this software isn’t completed yet. All node interfaces look almost the same. It's important not to pay attention to the UI, but pay attention to the functionality.

In a month, you'll get used to the design, but the lack of functionality will always annoy you. Changing marketing automation apps is very time-consuming. If you have the usual email chains set up, it's not that hard to switch to another tool. But if you've already set up integrations, business processes, and have complex funnels, it can take weeks to change the software. That's why you should be attentive to choosing an alternative.

What to pay attention to when investigating the node interface? It has 4 significant features categories.

1. Triggers. For instance, "Form submit" is a trigger that starts a business process. The most popular triggers are: opening an email, clicking a link in an email, reaching a goal, adding or removing a tag, closing a deal, visiting a page, etc. In each platform for marketing automation this set may differ. The more, the better.
2. Action. For example, "Send email". This is the most basic action you can have. The most popular actions are: add or remove a tag, send a text message, send a messenger message, set a salesperson task, update a transaction, notify someone by email, move a transaction to another stage, etc.
3. Delay. For example, "Wait 3 hours. Prospect fill in the form on the website and get in the marketing automation platform (Trigger), the tool sends a Welcome email (Action). After that the app waits 4 hours (delay) and sends a second email. This is the most simple automation. But there are other options. For instance, "Wait until something happens". Or wait until January 10th, or wait until 10 PM in the contact's time zone.
4. If/else. For example, "If a lead, has the tag "Bought product #1", send the email, if the lead doesn't have the tag "Bought product #1", wait 5 days and send the email. The most popular if/else parameters are: visited the site page, bought certain items, opened certain emails, user field the client card matches some criteria. This is data according to which you can segment the subscriber base.

Studying the automation builder, you should look carefully at all four categories of functions. The more, the better. Sometimes it appears that powerful marketing automation platforms with the biggest number of functions look uncomfortable. Young software look nice, but they have few functions. You look into the software you want to use very deeply. Otherwise, it will be very painful to change it in the future.

Once you've studied the automation builder, you understand whether there are integrations with the tools you need. Fortunately, Apiway can help you. In most cases, software like ActiveCampaign are the core of business IT infrastructure. It's kind of digital hub for all your subscriber. This type of system is like an tree, which is putting its tentacles into other system. Tool like ActiveCampaign need to integrate with most other ones. Or you’ll have to spend a lot of money and time developing custom integrations.

Also people who are looking for alternatives to ActiveCampaign use systems from other categories like email marketing software, helpdesk software, CRM software, sales engagement software