ActiveCampaign vs. Emma by Marigold

I've been using ActiveCampaign since around 2018-2019 and I've always been satisfied with the software. It's simple to use, connects with the other tools I use and makes it easy for me to duplicate automations, email templates and workflows as I need to. On top of that, any time I've had an issue (which I think is around twice in the past 5/6 years), the customer service has always been super helpful and my issue has been resolved quickly.

Incentivized

Using Emma for weekly templated email use with minimal changes is awesome. If you want you can create a master and make minor graphic edits quickly and easily from your smartphone. Any edit is possible as long as the artwork is on the online server. Only time I hit a bump in the road is when I was asked to change the style sheet and did not know that the pricing plan I was on did not include this feature. Client had to wait to send new format until Emma performed the requested changes.

• The graphic design is very good, especially fonts, colours and templates
• Flexibility of design and functionality
• Takes a little while to learn it, but generally user-friendly
• Looks very professional but doesn't cost much to get started
• There are masses of integrations for ActiveCampaign, and the ones I tried all worked well and didn't take long to figure out.

Incentivized

• Drag and Drop Interface - I love the drag-and-drop interface used to design campaigns. It makes it easy for creative types to get the look they want, and it helps less technically and aesthetically adept users to create campaigns that still look great. After using both Constant Contact and Mailchimp, I think Emma comes out on top in terms of ease of template design.
• Master Admin Account - Having a master admin account controlled by one person allows us to deploy brand assets to each sub-account, and we're also able to push out templates for users who aren't ready or don't have the time to design their own.
• Dynamic Content - Dynamic content has proven so useful to us, especially in our Admissions Office. Making it possible for regular users to easily create emails using dynamic content is a VERY strong feature that, in my experience, is unique to Emma.
• Great Tutorials - Emma does a great job taking care of its users. The support folks are always kind and helpful, but Emma publishes an array of tutorials and resources to help with just about anything its users encounter, from how to use custom merge fields to advice on creating the best campaigns.

Incentivized

• The email designing part could be easier to use. There are certain simple shortcuts that don't work, for example, adding links is more complicated than it should be, moving blocks around is hard, etc.
• There's no good way to filter by 'active' and 'inactive' subscribers when editing en-mass.
• I'd like more reporting data on one page.

Incentivized

• Setup of users - We used to be able to setup a user and send them our own welcome email. Emma has since set up the ability to add users where they send the welcome email. It's a great new feature, but it doesn't always work. We've had some users who never receive these emails and then we need to reach out to support anyway.
• The code to set up a configurable email is cumbersome. It's great that it is so customizable, but there is a learning curve.

Incentivized

I am committed at the moment. Rebuilding the automations I have would be a huge time drain. Plus the cost of learning a new system and the risk to deliverability of porting a 6,000 person list to a new platform. Also, AC offers everything I need ast a reasonable (but a little high) price. So, why not a 10? Because, early 2023, AC dropped a massive 2x price hike on long-term customers. They knew few would shift, so this feels like a cynical cash grab and left a bad taste, If they do something like this again, this camel will have a broken back.

Incentivized

Easy to use and gets the job done without too many "extras" (ex. we didn't need a full marketing automation platform so Emma had what we needed to send email marketing communications without having to pay for the stuff we didn't need)

Incentivized

ActiveCampaign has been the easiest marketing automation software we have ever used. They provide tips throughout the entire process of anything you are building. Their support team through LIVE CHAT has been extremely fast and helpful. The monthly meetings provided with the enablement team has helped us through several large and urgent needs.

While every WYSIWYG software will experience glitches, Emma handles them well. Keep in mind they rarely happen, but they do, it can be of annoyance. Regardless, Emma allows my organization to create seamless email campaigns using fresh data. Emma makes coming up with strategic decisions very easy. The list segmentation that Emma feature allows us to easily manage a large list without issues. Overall, Emma is extremely usable with nearly no learning curve!

Incentivized

I haven't experienced application errors or unplanned outages at all. Active Campaign is ultra reliable and I would not be using them if that were the case. Also, the helpful emails they send are welcomed and informative, and present very practical tips and guidance for using the platform. They're always demonstrating new features and I'm thankful for that.

Incentivized

Oh my gosh, Active Campaign's performance gets an A+++ in my book. The pages load quickly and so do the reports. I haven't noticed any slowdowns when it's integrating with other programs and it performs excellently on all levels.

Incentivized

This might be the best part. The chat support lady offered to make a video to help me solve my problem. I worked in customer service for years and I've never done that, lol. So, if they're offering things like that, I can only imagine that they'd be able to handle most any issue you throw at them.

Incentivized

I hate that to get support I have to submit a question to a public forum and wait for a response. I just want the ability for a quick live chat to answer my simple help questions quickly or at the very least submit a ticket via email and get a status update.

Incentivized

Very satisfied with our implementation in our professional medical practice, allowing us to be on top of client service, and not miss out on crucial information and insights. Marketing is often neglected in professional practices and ActiveCampaign solved this problem with aplomb.

Incentivized

I transitioned from Mailchimp to ActiveCampaign because it was so much more user friendly and allowed me to do a lot more in regards to lead magnets than Mailchimp can. For example, ActiveCampaign allows users to sign up for a lead magnet as many times as they like to keep receiving it (in case they've lost or deleted the email with access to the lead magnet). Mailchimp was unable to do this. And the categorization of users and the trigger email sequencing was a lot easier in ActiveCampaign.

Incentivized

Emma had a more robust multi-level account structure which empowered individual locations to participate at the ground-level. Additionally corporate was able to maintain oversight, template creation, marketing automation, and data reporting. The goal is to provide the locations with the ability to send their own marketing messages, saving corporate marketing time, and providing more genuine, locally-focused email campaigns. Emma was very effective at making that happen.

Incentivized

My web designer told me about Active Campaign and although I don't recall which platform I had before, I LOVE Active Campaign and its user friendliness. The transition was seamless and I've never had a problem with functionality or server failure.

Active Campaign provides so many features, and makes it easy for non-techies to maneuver around the site with ease. They capture information and put it in an easy-to-read format.

At this point, I don't think I'd ever use any other platform!

Incentivized

• Automations free up time - once set up, email campaigns execute in seconds
• Emailing my newsletter is a second touch-point for my clients
• The flat rate for my subscription means that I reach my clients and prospects for fractions of a cent each month

Incentivized

• It's been pretty overwhelmingly positive. Our clients are happy about the savings that we're able to pass onto them.
• We're able to better determine what headlines receive the most clicks from our client's emails based on the dashboard.
• Super easy email designer that frees up some of our graphic designers to take on other jobs.

Incentivized