Email Marketing: ActiveCampaign Vs. Emma

Email Automation and why you need ActiveCampaign as your email automation platform

There are a lot of email marketing service platforms out there. This proves one thing – you need one.

We’ve looked at multiple email marketing services out there so that you don’t have to. And what we’ve found is that ActiveCampaign is one of the best light CRM platforms on the market because of its strong email automation process. 

What’s email automation? 

Email Automation is an integrative marketing tool that allows you to connect to your audiences, build and develop relationships, perpetuate your messaging, and personalize the experience for your customers and clientele. It’s a way to send the right messaging to the right people at the right time so it’s most well-received. It allows your audience to take action and it allows you to grow your business. 

Email automation works for you based on triggers and touchpoints. You select the time, the date, the messaging, and target audience to deliver an email message directly to the desired inbox. 

Key Takeaway: Why Email Automation?

From cart abandonment to welcome emails to Black Friday deals, email marketing automation is the star you need in your toolbox to maximize your business, grow your platform, and communicate to your clientele. With these triggered emails, you’re able to tap into your customer journey at the right time to create the most essential and actionable touchpoints. 

Email Automation vs. Spontaneity 

Email automation is based on triggers. Sure, you could be spontaneously sending your audience messaging.  But if you want results and want to diligently track what’s going on with your audiences, you want automation to touch on triggers, leading and tracking, and following your customers on their customer journey.

 

Benefits and Characteristics

Email Automation

Email Spontaneity 

Strategy

Requires careful planning and strategizing to automate time, date, build, and lists for specific triggers. 

Can be done ad hoc and on the fly. Does not require a specific strategy in place to implement and can be done as needed.

Work Load 

Maximizes time and efficiency for the email marketing team as a whole.

Often last-minute work or impromptu email building and list generation.

Customer Journey

Enunciates the customer journey by setting up triggers and triggered emails to increase the number of positive actions taken. 

Traditional emails remind the customer of the brand itself (while automation relies on a trigger). These have a time and place and keep the conversation and communication going without a specific trigger. 

 

ActiveCampaign 

Now it’s time to take a look at the #1 automation platform out there, ActiveCampaign. 

Why is it #1? 

  1. Integrations

For starters, it activates the entire customer experience by sending customers on a journey through email marketing and building that relationship. This brings us to integrations. With over 350 integrations including WordPress, Shopify, and Salesforce, ActiveCampaign seamlessly combines customer relationship management with your email marketing, creating a platform that’s efficient, time-saving, and dynamic.

  1. Customer Experience

Using orchestration, segmentation, personalization, and automation, ActiveCampaign creates a completely unique and specific experience for each of your customers, whether you have 10 or 10,000. It builds the customer journey and adds value to each touchpoint. By segmenting by “individual” preferences instead of bulk, the customer experience is based on behavior, preferences, and overall attributes to create the most intimate customer journey. Add to that personalization and automation, you have a 1:1 conversation and ongoing communication working to enhance the relationship 24/7.

  1. Sales CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

As ActiveCampaign’s website states, “A sales CRM with automation stops tasks from piling up on your desk.” It helps things run smoothly and prevents leads from slipping through the cracks. With automation, you’re keeping track of each and every individual, whether they’re a lead or prospect or lifetime customer. You’re saving time, saving money, and making more time to sell. Plus, ActiveCampaign’s lead scoring helps you prioritize your contacts and know which ones to touch based on what triggers. It gives you the tools you need to personalize your communication and “relate” to each relationship. 

Now that we’ve gone through a few of ActiveCampaign’s star qualities, let’s see how it compares to one of the other players out there, Emma. 

ActiveCampaign vs. Emma

Gone are the days of bulk emails and sporadic emails. Enter ActiveCampaign’s Customer Experience Automation, a pathway to creating unique experiences that make each and every customer feel like the one and only, giving users a specific journey to carry them through the purchasing process.

But how does it stack up against its competitor, Emma? Let’s take a look. 

ActiveCampaign

Emma

Pricing 

4 plans starting at $9/month for 500 contacts  and going to over $500 for 100k contacts depending on the tier. Custom pricing available. 

3 plans starting at $89/month for 10k contacts to $279/month for 10k contacts depending on the tier. If over 10k contacts, pricing custom available. 

Features 

Lead scoring, integrations, customizable dashboard, email segmentation, subscription forms, dynamic content, A/B testing, event tracking, SMS marketing, sales automation, contact, and lead scoring, mobile app

List segmentation, branching logic, trigger messages, dynamic email content, A/B testing, campaign landing pages, email marketing analytics, Email build, and reporting

Business Size

Any sized company (but preferably one with a marketing team) 

Small to mid-sized businesses 

Ease of Use

Good has a dynamic and multi-functional platform. Lead scoring allows for

Excellent provides phone and email support through all modules and provides a clean, easy-to-use platform.

Claims to Fame 

Prides itself on adding a human touch 

Ease of use and customer support 

Pros 

Lead Scoring, Sales automation

Great personalized service 

Cons 

Only enterprise-level users have access to phone support, ideal fit is a business with a marketing team or person who can devote their time to the product

Lack of integrations; requires a year-long contract which can put a strain on your wallet

“Do I really need email automation marketing?” 

The answer is yes. 

First off, email automation marketing keeps your product top of mind. It gives consumers not only something to look forward to but provides a vessel for bringing your brand front and center to their lives. 

Need more reasons why? 


Here are some of the most profound and critical reasons why your brand, your company, your message needs email marketing. 

  1. Strategy 

You have a marketing strategy, this much is true. But email automation gives you the opportunity to continually reinforce your brand and create an ongoing strategy complete with direction and tactics to grow your business and build trust. This method of communication focuses on long-term goals for your business, with short-term goals sprinkled in, but primarily enunciating the goal that each audience segment should look forward to and want to open your emails and take action on them.

  1. Branding

Ah, branding. Let’s, for the purpose of this post, include brand loyalty, trust, and awareness under branding. And we’ll be honest, it’s something we all want with our brands, to have loyal customers and clientele, to be trusted, and to be front and center and top of mind. Well, email automation does just that. With the right strategy in place, you have the opportunity to build and develop your online presence and craft your messaging to create, build, and enhance your relationship with your audience. Looking to enforce your branding and illustrate it in an intimate conversation with individuals? Email automation is your ticket in.  

  1. Communication 

Email automation gives you an opportunity to speak directly to your leads, your consumers, your clients, anyone, really, in your market realm that you’re trying to reach. It’s a direct line of communication that’s convenient for audiences to interact with when they see fit, giving power to an intimate, personal, and friendly conversation. By creating 1:1 communication, you’re building trust among parties and opening the door to a buildable relationship.

  1. Measurable 

Email automation is measurable, meaning you’re not simply blasting out hundreds or thousands of email newsletters with no inclining of what happens next. No, you’re tracking them, gathering data, and preparing for your next launch of emails. You’re determining what works, what doesn’t, where the trends are, and analyzing what the next steps are to make each campaign more successful than the last. 

  1. Customer Behavior

Going along with “measurable” is customer behavior. While email automation analytics gives you the numbers, it also gives you the chance to look into the why. Campaign tracking allows you to gather information on your audiences and realize their patterns, their click-through rates, whether they are drawn to text or headers or images, and so forth. Email automation gives you the opportunity to not only see your customer’s behavior as it relates to your messaging, but it also gives you the chance to do something about it.

The verdict

If you’re looking to grow your business and you’re looking to build customer relationships, you’re looking at email automation. Do more than just grow your email contact list – develop, foster, and nurture your audience with dynamic email automation marketing to create an incredible, intimate, and personal customer experience. 

 

Your customer journey starts now. 

 

 

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