ActiveCampaign vs MailChimp 2024: Which Tool Is Best For You?

ActiveCampaign vs MailChimp Email Marketing Tools

Customization and Design:

MailChimp offers more modern designs than ActiveCampaign, but the catch is you’ll have to upgrade to the Standard plan or higher to use them.

This means that small businesses on lower-tiered plans are left with somewhat outdated and generic templates.

However, you can customize the 14 available layouts with your own colors and images.

ActiveCampaign has a whopping 250 nicely designed and mobile-friendly templates across all plans.

They offer greater flexibility, with the ability to add the following content blocks into your templates:

• Text.
• Products.
• Promo codes.
• Images.
• Social buttons.

These content blocks allow you to create more compelling campaigns. Plus, you can even import your own templates if you want!

An added advantage is that if you’re on ActiveCampaign’s Plus plan (or higher), you’ll get free customized email designs.

Overall, ActiveCampaign offers more design options and flexibility regardless of the plan, whereas there are more limitations within MailChimp.

Winner = ActiveCampaign

Read more: Klaviyo vs MailChimp.

Automation:

MailChimp offers powerful email automation capabilities, but they don’t stand a chance against the extensive features of ActiveCampaign.

ActiveCampaign allows you to build sophisticated workflows by combining triggers and conditions for emails, lead scoring, segmentation, and more.

You can even export a list of subscribers who have clicked on specific links for remarketing purposes!

Additionally, simply create and automate SMS campaigns to target a wider audience and integrate your campaigns with the built-in CRM to automate your sales process, too (more on this soon!)

On the other hand, MailChimp provides basic trigger automation options for things like opened emails, abandoned cart campaigns, or purchase confirmations.

However, MailChimp lacks flexibility in setting automation triggers to follow different paths.

And while they also offer SMS marketing, you’ll have to use a third-party tool for automation integration.

Both tools offer A/B testing capabilities, but MailChimp’s split tests are limited to the number of contacts.

ActiveCampaign surpasses MailChimp with its Automations Map feature, which visualizes and tracks how your automation workflows are connected (available on higher plans only).

This dynamic feature can help you maximize the use of automation!

Winner = ActiveCampaign

Find out more about automation on MailChimp here.

Forms:

If you’re after a range of form types, you’ll be impressed by ActiveCampaign’s selection.

You can choose from 4 form types:

• Inline
• Floating bar.
• Floating box.
• Modal (pop-up).

The form editor is visually intuitive and user-friendly, making it easy to add new fields.  And your forms can even be embedded, linked to, or directly added to WordPress or Facebook!

Additionally, ActiveCampaign provides options to associate forms with lists, tags, and even deals.

MailChimp also allows you to create embedded or pop-up forms, but the process is more complex. And not all forms in MailChimp appear to be mobile-responsive, adding to the complexity.

While the form builder in MailChimp is intuitive, it requires using a different editor for embedded forms and yet another one for pop-up forms.

The reason? It’s unclear. I know, it doesn’t make any sense.

So, with that said, ActiveCampaign’s more straightforward approach makes it much easier to understand and navigate the form setup process.

Winner = ActiveCampaign

Read more: Top 5 FREE Landing Page Builders For Small Business.

Segmentation:

When it comes to sending emails to your contact list, ensuring they end up in the right inbox is crucial.

This is where segmentation comes into play.

Both MailChimp and ActiveCampaign offer several email segmentation features to enhance the targeting of your campaigns.

I’ll start with ActiveCampaign.

Simply segment your audience by using lists, segments, and custom fields so you can create broader or more focused email marketing campaigns.

• Lists: Based on the intended message type (announcements, promotions, networking, etc).
• Tags: More targeted than lists. These are used for specific campaigns.
• Custom fields: Information about particular contacts you can gather from forms (names, birthdays, phone numbers, etc.)

The one-condition segmentation process is similar for both platforms.

However, MailChimp faces some restrictions when it comes to creating multiple-condition segments.

Its listing options are also limited in comparison. With MailChimp, you can only include an email contact in one list for an email campaign.

Including the same contact twice in a campaign would result in a duplicate charge (MailChimp charges per subscriber).

ActiveCampaign lets you run the same campaigns with different lists, even if they include similar contacts.

Winner = ActiveCampaign

Read more: ClickFunnels vs ConvertKit.

CRM:

While MailChimp claims you can use its platform as a CRM, it doesn’t provide a dedicated CRM tool.

You’ll get access to comprehensive contact data, revenue reports, and eCommerce integrations, but it doesn’t compare to the purpose-built CRM offered by ActiveCampaign!

ActiveCampaign’s CRM excels in managing deals and opportunities, seamlessly linking marketing activities with sales processes.

The CRM allows you to:

• Create pipelines.
• Generate deal records.
• Assign deal owners.
• And automate sales communications and processes!

In my opinion, this functionality and customization level sets ActiveCampaign apart from many other email marketing solutions out there!

But it’s worth mentioning that to use ActiveCampaign’s CRM, you’ll have to opt for their Sales plan or Bundle plan.

Regardless, the ability to combine your CRM and email marketing is indeed impressive in my eyes!

Winner = ActiveCampaign

Read more: 7 Best CRM Software For Small Business.