Running a successful online business is a major challenge. So, it’s only natural for business owners to want the best tools to support their daily operations.
To sell products and services effectively and beat the ever-growing sea of online competition, companies need access to email marketing services, advanced automation capabilities, and more.
Thankfully, there are plenty of excellent solutions providers to choose from, including ActiveCampaign and Constant Contact.
Below, we’ll explore everything business owners need to know about these popular email marketing platforms and all of the advanced features they offer.
We’ll delve into everything from their pricing plans and ecommerce integrations to their split testing and event management capabilities.
We’ll also include a short explanation of what kinds of businesses may benefit more from the features offered by each platform based on factors like size, email marketing experience, and budget options.
Let’s dive in!
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Why does your business need quality email marketing and complex automation?
Email marketing is a major contributor to ecommerce business success, with effective email marketing campaigns earning as much as $36 for every $1 spent in return on investment (ROI).
Email services from providers like ActiveCampaign and Constant Contact make it easy to:
- Build and segment email lists
- Create custom templates
- Personalize your emails
- Track open and click rates
Another huge part of online business operations are automation capabilities, which businesses can apply to several areas. Some of the most useful include complex automation workflows and email automation.
By automating these key elements, businesses can see significant benefits in efficiency, productivity, and data accuracy.
Unpacking ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign is one of the many top-quality sales automation and email marketing providers online.
ActiveCampaign offers numerous software capabilities for businesses to leverage — all of which makes it easy to take consumers through automated customer journeys toward an eventual purchase.
The platform is relatively easy-to-use and offers top-notch customer support for users, including free online training and digital onboarding.
If you want access to even more great information about what this platform has to offer, view our in-depth ActiveCampaign review on our website.
Key features
ActiveCampaign offers a wide range of key features as part of its services. Including a landing page builder, SMS marketing automation, contact list management, and detailed reporting and analysis tools.
It also includes over 910 integrations with hundreds of applications, including;
- Shopify
- Salesforce
- WooCommerce
- Postmark
- WordPress
These integrations let businesses seamlessly connect to key platforms to make hundreds of tasks easier, like identifying leads and promoting marketing materials.
But these features only scratch the surface of all the stellar capabilities the platform provides for its users.
Email marketing and automation
Businesses turn to ActiveCampaign for its top-notch email marketing solutions and automation capabilities. Some of its most popular tools include:
- A custom email builder
- Pre-built email templates
- A drag-and-drop email editor
- Customizable email deliverability
- SMS and email automation
They also offer contact tagging and scoring, advanced segmentation, and seamless integration with Google Analytics for detailed analysis of business performance.
ActiveCampaign even provides access to a dedicated email deliverability team to help users better manage their email campaigns and marketing strategy.
Sales and CRM automation
ActiveCampaign grants plan holders access to a wide range of sales and CRM automation capabilities, including:
- Lead and deal scoring
- Customizable dashboards
- Mobile CRM
- Pipelines and stages management
- Split automation
- Workflow automation
These tools make running your daily operations effortless due to their unique, easy-to-use design, saving your business time and money in the long term.
Pricing
ActiveCampaign offers a range of plans and pricing options to suit any online business. Their plans fall under four categories to let you pick your ideal services, including Marketing, Sales, Bundles, and Transactional Emails.
For email and marketing automation, businesses can choose between four plans:
- Lite ($29/mo – paid yearly)
- Plus ($49/mo – paid yearly)
- Professional ($149/mo – paid yearly)
- Enterprise (Custom pricing – paid yearly)
For CRM and sales engagement, businesses can choose between three plans:
- Plus ($19/mo – paid yearly)
- Professional ($49/mo – paid yearly)
- Enterprise (Custom pricing)
We recommend scheduling a demo and reading our ActiveCampaign’s review to learn more about their system.
Additionally, please be careful when setting up your account, as different plans under different categories feature the same name.
Unpacking Constant Contact
As an email marketing tool and automation provider, Constant Contact is an excellent option, especially for beginners and small businesses looking for a simple, easy-to-use platform.
Constant Contact’s system carries several essential features needed to support a wide range of online business operations. Making it a good choice whether your business is just starting or already up and running in your specific industry.
The platform also proudly features a range of free training and customer support for users, including live chat, onboarding, and more.
Key features
Constant Contact offers users access to several top-quality features, along with over 5,000 integrations.
These integrations allow users to connect their accounts to everything from social media platforms and contact databases to image and video creators. The high level of connectivity makes it easy for businesses to leverage a wide selection of useful tools and resources.
Alongside these extensive integrations, some of the best features on the platform include:
- Targeting and personalization capabilities for email campaigns and online ads
- Detailed social posting options
- Unified data and tools for full-funnel analytics reporting
Each feature is well-designed and relatively intuitive, making it an ideal option for beginner users and veterans alike.
Email marketing and automation
Compared to ActiveCampaign, Constant Contact’s features focus much more on email marketing capabilities than automation.
Some of the platform’s most popular email marketing features include:
- Pre-built email templates
- A drag-and-drop email editor
That said, automation isn’t completely absent within the software. The system does offer some marketing automation capabilities to send timely emails, along with email list-building tools and reporting options to track email campaigns.
The platform also provides users with access to a helpful landing page builder. Which makes it easy to develop new product and service pages for any business that wants to expand operations.
Sales and CRM automation
For sales and CRM automation, Constant Contact offers many of the same capabilities as ActiveCampaign, including:
- Mobile CRM
- Pipeline, stages, and task management
- Lead scoring
- Workflow automation
- Custom dashboards
While this list isn’t as extensive as its competitors, it’s more than enough for most small businesses.
Pricing
Constant Contact’s plans fall under two overarching categories for businesses to choose from — Email & Digital Marketing plans and Lead Gen & CRM plans.
There are two plans under Constant Contact’s Email & Digital Marketing category, which include:
- Core (Starting at $9.99/mo)
- Plus (Starting at $45/mo)
Alternatively, there are three plans listed under Constant Contact’s Lead Gen & CRM category. These plans include:
- Essential (Starting at $199/mo)
- Advanced (Starting at $599/mo)
- Ultimate (Starting at $899/mo)
If you’re not sure about signing up for a paid plan yet, you can try out Constant Contact’s services first through their 60-day free trial.
Which business solution provider is right for you?
Overall, ActiveCampaign and Constant Contact’s services are both fantastic, and each system would be a beneficial addition to anyone’s online business operations.
That said, some businesses are likely to get more benefits out of one system or the other.
For example, larger, well-established businesses looking to expand their operations, improve their marketing strategies, and take advantage of more automation capabilities would likely get more use out of ActiveCampaign.
On the other hand, smaller businesses and beginners in the world of email marketing would likely do better with Constant Contact, especially if they’re not too interested in automation and have a more restrictive budget.
Ultimately, the right solution provider for your business depends on which system offers the right services to meet your needs at the right price.
If you have trouble picking between ActiveCampaign and Constant Contact, try out both of their free trials, experiment with their systems, and see which works for you.
Build up your business operations today
Having access to a top-quality selection of email marketing and automation tools is essential for a successful online business, especially one operating in the realm of eCommerce.
Thankfully, platforms like ActiveCampaign and Constant Contact are here to make things easy by providing access to all of the solutions your business needs to survive and thrive against the competition.
By signing up for one of these two providers, your business will get immediate access to a wide assortment of capabilities that’ll help make daily operations run smoothly and provide new opportunities for growth.
Take another look at the sections above to compare the features that both platforms have to offer and consider which selection is right for your business.
And if you want to learn more about some of the other amazing solution providers out there, consider exploring the other platform reviews featured on the Codeless website.