ActiveCampaign vs Drip 2024: Which Email Marketing Tool Is Best For You?

ActiveCampaign vs Drip Key Features

Templates

Which tool provides better, more captivating email templates that you can use to create your campaigns?

When it comes to variety, one of the two options edges out ahead.

Drip offers various colorful and fun email templates. And if nothing tickles your fancy, you can import your own HTML designs.

But ActiveCampaign takes the lead on this one!

With 250+ fully responsive email templates, ActiveCampaign surpasses Drip’s template selection. Plus, most of these templates are modern and sleek, which is an added bonus!

Winner = ActiveCampaign

Read more: MailerLite vs ActiveCampaign.

Segmentation

I must admit, Drip’s segmentation features are impressive for a fairly newish platform. With Drip, you can create segments based on various criteria, including event-based data.

For instance, you can generate segments based on the following:

• People who have or haven’t clicked on a specific automation email.
• Those who haven’t engaged with recent emails.
• Customers with a specific number of orders and more.

You can apply tags to contacts, allowing for easy categorization based on attributes like the source, customer status, or specific page visits.

Tags can be added through Drip’s universal ‘Rules’ function or within automation workflows.

Additionally, Drip enables segmentation using custom fields and implements lead scoring to identify promising prospects.

ActiveCampaign shares many of the same segmentation capabilities.

Like Drip, ActiveCampaign lets you create segments using tags, custom fields, contact actions, and event data. You can manually create these lists or use automations to generate cross-list segments.

ActiveCampaign also provides lead scoring capabilities, allowing complex scoring based on various criteria and actions.

It allows list management within the email editor through campaign actions. For example, you can apply tags or add contacts to specific lists when they click on an image or link.

The fact that you can execute these actions directly from the editor is pretty cool in my opinion!

Winner = ActiveCampaign

Read more: ClickFunnels vs ActiveCampaign.

Automation:

Known for being the ultimate automation king, can Drip beat ActiveCampaign at its own game?

Drip stands out with its visually appealing automation workflow editor, which I find more engaging and enjoyable. It’s user-friendly, well-designed, and flexible.

The wide range of automation triggers includes:

• Link clicks.
• Page views.
• Assigned tags.
• Integrated tool actions (like purchases in a Shopify store).

You can intuitively add workflow steps like sending campaigns, moving contacts into other campaigns, or branching them on multiple paths.

And with Drip’s Automation Rules (universal actions triggered whenever a contact performs a specific action), you can easily set up rules without creating a complete workflow!

Now, let’s look at the automation powerhouse that is ActiveCampaign.

ActiveCampaign’s visual editor for building automations is packed with pre-built templates for

• Abandoned carts.
• Post-purchase upsells.
• Tag assignments for webpage visitors, and more.

Although ActiveCampaign’s visual editor may not be as dazzling as Drip’s, it remains intuitive and flexible, boasting an extensive list of triggers and actions.

These can be combined to create complex workflows for email sending, lead scoring, and data segmentation.

And thanks to its integrated CRM, ActiveCampaign also allows for automation of various sales processes!

How, you might ask? For instance, simply automate the entry of leads generated from marketing campaigns into your sales pipeline as deals, then send automated follow-up sales emails.

So who wins this round? Well, Drip is better suited for eCommerce automations and, overall, is easier to master.

On the other hand, ActiveCampaign still reigns as the supreme choice for businesses that require extensive automation between marketing and sales teams!

Winner = Draw

Read more: How To Use Klaviyo Automations.

eCommerce:

What if you have an online store? Who can you count on? Well, when it comes to integrating with eCommerce platforms, both ActiveCampaign and Drip offer powerful solutions.

Both can import store/customer data and track revenue generated by emails and campaigns.

But which one is better for your online store?

ActiveCampaign has deep data integrations with popular platforms like BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Shopify, PrestaShop, and Magento.

This means you can pull customer data like total revenue, orders, and purchased products from your online store to create segments, campaigns, and automations.

Drip, on the other hand, also offers direct integrations with Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento, plus third-party integrations with platforms like BigCommerce and SamCart.

But Drip goes a step further, allowing you to trigger automations based on even the most minor customer actions, like viewing a product page or starting a checkout process.

These actions are readily available within Drip’s automation editor. That’s right, no special API is needed!

Drip also offers convenient ways to add dynamic product information into emails, including order confirmation emails with details about the ordered products.

The Visual Email Builder allows you to add content to newsletters like product recommendations and top-selling products.

Winner = Drip

Read more: PrestaShop vs WooCommerce.

Forms:

In terms of forms, Drip offers various form types, such as widget, embedded, and hosted forms.

You can easily customize form fields, design elements, confirmation messages, and more in their form editor, and form submissions can trigger actions like:

• Adding tags.
• Flagging as a prospect.
• Moving/removing from campaigns.
• Recording conversions.

But there are limitations! The widget/popup forms don’t support dropdowns, radio buttons, or checkbox fields, and embedded forms require customizing HTML to add these fields.

If you’re a beginner, this is less than ideal.

In my opinion, ActiveCampaign’s visual form builder is better for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, it offers more design control. And secondly, it easily allows different form field types (text, dropdown, radio buttons, checkboxes, etc.) without HTML customization.

Both platforms let you trigger actions after form submissions, such as adding to lists, tags, or deals and integrating with automation workflows.