There are so many tools out there for email marketing or automation. Choosing the right email marketing software can be tough for business owners or marketers.
ActiveCampaign and AWeber are two big names you've heard of. But you're probably scratching your head, thinking, "Which one's the best for me?"
ActiveCampaign and AWeber are big names in the market. They both offer many features to meet all kinds of user needs. Frankly speaking, both services are excellent in their own right.
In this article, I am going to dive deep into both platforms. We're talking about everything from how user-friendly they are to their automation features, pricing, and customer support.
Let’s start with making a rapid comparison of both tools and then jump into more details.
First, it's important to remember that no email marketing solution is flawless. After testing both platforms, I found that ActiveCampaign usually offers a better deal.
However, AWeber is great at analytics and is a good choice if you have a smaller email list. The advantage of AWeber lies in its ability to be used without any cost, as it offers a free plan option.
Now let's dig deep and compare both tools regarding the following features!
ActiveCampaign stands out with a user-friendly backend that's fast and well-organized.
Despite having various features, which could potentially complicate things, it's surprisingly user-friendly. It provides a flexible, efficient way to manage lists and subscribers.
In addition, creating campaigns is streamlined, allowing you to move quickly between steps for easy review.
AWeber, however, isn't as intuitive. Some functions, like reusing a campaign or choosing sender addresses, are less accessible than they should be.
Their word choice is confusing. For instance, they call regular newsletters "Broadcast," they use "Campaigns" to talk about email automation.
The focus is predominantly on the subscriber list, making it more difficult to find campaigns and automation. Also, AWeber doesn't offer a visual, workflow-based navigation menu - a feature that ActiveCampaign provides and excels in.
Winner:
Based on my research and user reviews, ActiveCampaign is the clear winner regarding ease of use. Despite its abundant features, it offers a user-friendly interface that is well-organized and fast.
Related: 10 Best ActiveCampaign Alternatives For 2023 [Comparison]
We can analyze the email marketing functionality of both tools according to their main functionality:
When it comes to email marketing functionalities, ActiveCampaign truly shines.
Their automation feature is great; it helps you see what visitors do on your site and lets you personalize your emails.
Imagine you run an e-commerce site for fashion apparel, and a customer browses a specific category, like summer dresses. You could set up an automated email that showcases a variety of other summer dresses they might like.
Or, if they leave items in their shopping cart without buying them, you could send a reminder email about the items they didn't buy.
The options are seemingly limitless. Plus, building this automation is a breeze thanks to their intuitive visual workflows.
AWeber is still improving its automation. It has some features, but they're not as powerful or innovative.
You can tag subscribers based on their interests (say, "summer dress lovers") and segment your mailing list accordingly, but it's fair to say that the system lacks sophistication.
So, in the email automation category, ActiveCampaign takes home the cheesecake! Their automation system is one of the best I've tried.
AWeber is in the game, but it's a far cry from ActiveCampaign's power-packed performance.
ActiveCampaign gives you good options for making and customizing sign-up forms with all the fields you need.
However, if you opt for the more budget-friendly plan, ActiveCampaign's branding will remain on the form.
There's an added perk with their higher-tier Professional and Enterprise plans. You can access extra form types, such as floating boxes, modal pop-ups, and floating bars.
AWeber also provides robust form-creation tools. You can easily customize your form's design, add custom fields, and even include a thank-you page.
AWeber's forms also integrate seamlessly with most major website platforms, making incorporating them into your website convenient.
ActiveCampaign lets you group contacts based on the data you collect about their actions on your site or reactions to your emails.
ActiveCampaign also lets you use many conditions to group your audience in particular ways.
AWeber lets you group your list based on standard fields and tags you've used.
While this offers a decent level of segmentation, it may not be as advanced or flexible as ActiveCampaign.
Winner:
ActiveCampaign wins this battle for its remarkable automation capabilities.
ActiveCampaign has about 250 templates. They are modern, responsive, and clean.
The platform makes editing these templates a breeze, allowing you to modify them as needed. For those who like to delve a bit deeper, including HTML code is also available.
On the flip side, AWeber boasts a colossal library of 600+ email templates – a figure that easily beats its competition.
However, there's a downside. Many of these templates look old-fashioned and not as modern as we're used to.
Although AWeber lets you customize templates, its editor isn't as smooth as ActiveCampaign's.
The good point is that you can add custom HTML code. This helps if you want more control over how your template looks.
Winner:
It’s a bit tricky to announce the winner here. AWeber offers more templates when compared to ActiveCampaign, but I like working with the latter.
Why? Because I feel AWeber has a broad collection of outdated templates. I would prefer to have fewer but highly customizable, modern-looking templates. So, in my opinion, ActiveCampaign is the winner!
ActiveCampaign offers a fully integrated CRM system as part of their Sales Plus plan and above. It enables users to manage and nurture leads, close deals, and create custom pipelines.
Features such as lead scoring, predicting the likelihood of winning a deal, and automation within the CRM take it beyond just being a contact database. These tools transform it into a powerful and dynamic platform for sales and marketing.
Its CRM system is well-regarded for its robustness, flexibility, and integration with the rest of the platform.
AWeber, on the other hand, primarily focuses on email marketing. It doesn't offer a built-in CRM in the same way ActiveCampaign does. But it’s possible to integrate AWeber with different CRMs.
AWeber also lets you do basic contact management and tagging, but these features aren't as broad or built-in as a full CRM system.
If you need a high-level CRM inside your email marketing platform, AWeber may not be enough.
If you need a full CRM system that works with your email marketing platform, ActiveCampaign is a good choice.
If CRM is not a priority, AWeber could still be a good fit for your email marketing needs. Consider your specific requirements and how each platform can best cater to them.
Winner:
Having said that, the winner in terms of CRM capabilities would be ActiveCampaign. However, the choice between the two depends on your specific needs.
ActiveCampaign offers templates and many formatting options, making it easy to change opt-in forms.
The platform also allows you to design landing pages. ActiveCampaign might be costly for those on a tight budget, but the good news is that it offers many landing page templates. These can be easily changed with their simple drag-and-drop builder.
Like ActiveCampaign, AWeber gives users over 100 landing page templates that you can easily edit.
AWeber actually takes it a notch higher than ActiveCampaign, integrating Canva into its platform to assist you in designing your landing pages.
You can leverage these landing pages to sell physical or digital goods, gather leads, increase your email subscribers, and more.
AWeber offers a host of functionalities, such as selling physical and digital goods, acquiring email subscribers, offering discounts, generating leads, and more.
A WordPress plugin provided by this platform enables you to embed opt-in forms directly into your WordPress blog. However, integrating landing pages into your blog is not a supported feature.
Winner:
I personally like working with Aweber’s landing page builder because of its versatility and Canva feature.
ActiveCampaign's email deliverability remains a standout feature, as showcased in the recent report by EmailToolTester.
The platform has demonstrated its ability to ensure that marketing emails land in the recipient's inbox, maintaining its place as a leader in the email marketing service providers arena.
What makes this more impressive is that the platform always works to improve its email system. They do this regularly to keep their email delivery rate high. This helps businesses keep in touch with their audiences effectively.
It's worth noting that ActiveCampaign's exceptional deliverability doesn't happen by accident.
It is achieved through elements like reputable IP addresses, robust authentication protocols, and a well-designed content analysis system that prevents spam-like behavior.
This way, the platform ensures that marketing emails bypass the spam folder and reach their intended recipients.
AWeber also has a strong reputation for good email deliverability rates. It has robust infrastructure and practices, such as authentication tools and adherence to CAN-SPAM Act guidelines, to help maintain high deliverability.
AWeber, like all email service providers, can't promise that every email will reach the inbox. This is because some factors are beyond their control.
These factors include how users engage with emails, the reputation of the sender, and rules set by the recipient's email server.
Winner:
Once again, ActiveCampaign beats AWeber in terms of email deliverability.
ActiveCampaign is recognized for its in-depth reporting features. This feature lets you examine your email campaigns, giving you useful data like open rates, how visitors behave, where clicks are happening, where your readers are, and more.
If you run an online store on platforms like WooCommerce, Shopify, or BigCommerce, and sell digital or physical items, the Plus plan or any higher plans provide additional reporting features. This is quite beneficial.
ActiveCampaign's CRM capabilities add another layer to its reporting. This means you get insights on deal progression, sales performance, and even forecasting, apart from the standard email and automation reports.
On the other hand, AWeber also stands out in its advanced reporting and analytics capabilities.
This email marketing platform boasts some of the most comprehensive reporting tools.
Interestingly, even AWeber's free plan grants access to various reports, usually exclusive to ActiveCampaign's paid plans.
AWeber allows you to dig into detailed reports on A/B testing, email opens, audience demographics, geo-tracking, and e-commerce.
These insights can greatly boost your newsletter campaigns, making sure your targeted emails consistently reach your subscribers' inboxes.
One of the unique features AWeber offers is the ability to modify your lists and craft new segments straight from the reports section.
This capability facilitates advanced segmentation of your mailing lists. For example, if a specific promotion like Black Friday sales was successful, you can target those subscribers who opened the email for subsequent campaigns.
This is a clever way to personalize and optimize your email marketing strategies.
Winner:
If you ask me which tool is better for reporting, I would say AWeber because of its highly advanced reporting capabilities.
For effective email marketing, you need a tool that connects with many marketing channels.
ActiveCampaign shines with over 900 integrations.
This means it can connect with many tools like CRM systems, website platforms, online stores, and social media sites.
These integrations help smooth your work process and keep your data consistent across platforms.
For example, ActiveCampaign's CRM integrations keep your customer data fresh and accurate. Their ecommerce integrations ensure a smooth customer shopping experience.
Apart from Zapier, which lets you link ActiveCampaign with loads of other tools, ActiveCampaign also has an easy-to-build API.
On the other hand, AWeber has over 700 integrations, giving you even more ways to connect with other tools.
Like ActiveCampaign, AWeber's integrations cover a wide area, allowing businesses to adjust their workflows as needed.
Moreover, AWeber's email marketing API is useful for developers who want to build apps that work well with AWeber's services.
Both platforms offer many integration options, making them flexible choices for businesses of all types and sizes.
However, the specific needs of your business will ultimately determine which platform and integrations are best for you.
Winner:
AWeber is clearly a winner as it offers more native integrations than ActiveCampaign.
When picking an email marketing software, the quality of customer support should be a priority. ActiveCampaign and AWeber boast comprehensive customer support services, but which one really outshines the other?
ActiveCampaign extends its assistance to users through live chat and email support options. Furthermore, they offer an extensive range of tutorials via their knowledge repository.
Users subscribing to their Professional plan are entitled to three personalized training sessions. There's also an active community forum available for peer-based help.
However, ActiveCampaign falls short in two areas: there's no option for phone support, and the speed of their response could use improvement.
On the other hand, AWeber excels in providing prompt customer assistance. This includes the availability of phone support - operational from 8 AM to 8 PM ET in the USA - and round-the-clock live chat and email support.
A well-detailed knowledge base is also available to users at all times, helpful in tackling common issues independently.
Comparatively, AWeber outperforms ActiveCampaign due to its phone support facility and its rapid response time, earning itself extra merit.
Winner:
Both platforms offer quality customer support, but AWeber wins because of its phone support and prompt response.
While ActiveCampaign offers a free trial, AWeber comes with a free plan with basic features for users who want to try out the platform before signing up for premium plans.
ActiveCampaigns offers pricing in 4 categories: marketing automation, CRM and sales, marketing automation +sales, and transactional email. If we talk about marketing automation, you can choose from 3 plans:
Now let’s talk about AWebers' four different pricing plans:
The Unlimited plan offers the most extensive range of features for large businesses, while the Plus and Lite plans provide a good balance of features for growing businesses and creators. The Free plan provides an entry point for new users looking to explore AWeber's functionality without making a financial commitment.
So, what do you reckon fits your business and budget best?
Deciding on the right email marketing tool is pretty important. Both ActiveCampaign and AWeber have their special perks.
ActiveCampaign is the star when it comes to powerful automation and CRM features. It's just right for businesses wanting complex email processes and sharp audience targeting. It's a bit more expensive, but its wide array of features and learning resources make it worth the extra bucks.
Now, AWeber? It really stands out with its easy-to-use interface, top-notch customer service, and straightforward approach to email marketing. Its wallet-friendly plans are great for smaller businesses, but keep in mind, costs may go up as your subscriber list grows.
If you're after advanced automation and CRM integration, go with ActiveCampaign. But if you want a simple, reliable email tool with great support and predictable costs, AWeber might be the one for you. In the end, it's all about what you need and what you can afford.
Irina is a Founder at ONSAAS, Growth Lead at Aura, and a SaaS marketing consultant. She helps companies to grow their revenue with SEO and inbound marketing. In her spare time, Irina entertains her cat Persie and collects airline miles.
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