Most marketers know that one of the best ways to engage contacts is through email marketing. Not only does email marketing have a high ROI--email generates $38 for every $1 spent (source), which is an astounding 3,800% ROI- but also, email marketing can be easy to implement given the tools at your disposal.
ActiveCampaign is mainly a tool equipped to help marketers with their email marketing. You’ll be able to create subscription forms, dynamic content, email segmentation, and split testing to help you engage and nurture your contacts. The drag-and-drop email designer lets you set up campaigns in minutes. At the same time, you can select among various email templates, or start from scratch to create your own unique design. One thing to note about ActiveCampaign’s email editor is that it’s not a WYSIWYG HTML editor, so you may have to fiddle with certain editing blocks to achieve your intended design. ActiveCampaign is equipped to help marketers who solely rely on email marketing, and not social media, ads, or other channels. You’ll find it hard to send one-to-one emails from ActiveCampaign.
HubSpot pioneered the inbound methodology to give power to the marketer via inbound marketing software. From there, HubSpot created best-in-class tools that help marketers tell their stories to their audiences. HubSpot offers the same email marketing features as ActiveCampaign, and a lot more. Our drag-and-drop email editor is easy to get started with, and we offer a variety of templates that you can personalize to meet your brand’s specific needs. You’ll also enjoy personalization features like smart send times, A/B testing, list segmentation, and personalization tokens using any information you’ve collected in the free HubSpot CRM. You’ll be able to report on all your emails using HubSpot’s email analytics, offering you in-house data with deep insights into how your marketing emails are performing. Inside the analytics tool, besides email specific analytics such as open and click rates, you can drill down into emails to see exactly which links are generating the most clicks compared to other links, without needing to use Google Analytics.
The real power of HubSpot’s marketing email tool comes when it’s combined with the CRM and our marketing automation platform. With HubSpot, you can create smart email campaigns that give each contact a customized experience based on the information you’ve gathered within the CRM. With more information on the contact record in HubSpot, imagine the possibilities that come when you want to create personalized emails for your contacts or connect nurturing emails to your sales process. This holistic, all-in-one capability in HubSpot is what separates it from ActiveCampaign, as you won’t need to use multiple tools to run and report on your marketing campaigns.
Email Marketing Features
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HubSpot
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ActiveCampaign
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Drag-and-drop email editor
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Custom coded email templates
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Ecommerce emails
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Email personalization
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A/B testing
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Optimized for any device
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Post-send email analytics
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Comparative reports
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Send 1-to-1 emails from the CRM
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Dynamic/smart send times
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Holistic CRM personalization
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Learn more about how you can create email marketing campaigns in HubSpot