Last Updated: 09 Jul 2026
ActiveCampaign Tutorial for Beginners (2026): How to Use Every Feature
Learn how to use ActiveCampaign step by step with this beginner-friendly ActiveCampaign tutorial. From setup to automation, I’ll show you everything you need to get started.
I remember the first time I logged into ActiveCampaign.
I had heard it was the most powerful email automation tool in the market. I had read the reviews. I had watched the demo videos. I was ready.
Then I opened the dashboard and just stared at it.
Not because it was ugly or broken. Because there was so much going on that I did not know where to start. Campaigns, automations, contacts, deals, forms, reports, integrations — all sitting in the left sidebar, all waiting for me to figure them out.
If that is where you are right now — you are in the right place.
This guide covers every single feature inside ActiveCampaign, step by step, in plain language. No jargon. No assumed knowledge. By the time you finish reading, you will know exactly what every section does, how to use it, and what order to do things in.
Let us start from the very beginning.
Step 1: Sign Up and Set Up Your Account
Go to ActiveCampaign.com and click the Start Free Trial button. You get 14 days free with no credit card required. During the trial you can send up to 100 emails and test everything covered in this guide.
When you sign up, use your business email address — not Gmail or a personal email. ActiveCampaign connects your sending reputation to your domain. Starting with your business email from day one protects your deliverability from the beginning.
After signup you will be taken to your dashboard. The first thing you will see is a setup checklist on the left side of the screen. Do not skip it. ActiveCampaign built this checklist to walk you through the most important configuration steps in the right order. Following it saves you from having to undo mistakes later.
The three things to do before anything else:
First — add your business name, website, and physical address. Go to Settings (the gear icon at the bottom left) and fill in the Account Information fields. Your physical address is not optional — it is legally required in every marketing email you send under CAN-SPAM, GDPR, and most other email laws.
Second — upload your logo. Go to Settings, then Branding. Upload your logo here and it will appear in your email templates automatically. This takes 60 seconds and saves you from adding it manually to every email you build.
Third — set up email authentication. This is the most important technical step in the entire setup process and most beginners skip it. Do not skip it.
Step 2: Set Up Email Authentication (Do This Before You Send Anything)
Email authentication is what tells Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail, and every other inbox provider that your emails are legitimate. Without it, your emails are more likely to land in spam — even if your content is perfect.
ActiveCampaign uses three authentication methods: SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. These are settings you add to your domain’s DNS records. It sounds technical but it is a simple copy-paste process.
Here is how to do it:
Go to Settings, then Advanced. Click on Email Authentication. ActiveCampaign will show you the exact DNS records you need to add to your domain.
You then go to wherever you manage your domain — GoDaddy, Cloudflare, Namecheap, or wherever you bought it — and add those records. ActiveCampaign shows you exactly what to add and where. Most domain providers have a simple DNS management page where you paste the records in.
Once you add them, come back to ActiveCampaign and click Verify. It can take up to 24 hours for DNS changes to fully propagate, so do not panic if it says unverified immediately.
After verification, every email you send will carry your domain’s authentication stamp — which tells inbox providers it is really coming from you. Open rates go up. Spam rates go down. This one step is worth more than any subject line optimization trick you will ever read about.
Step 3: Create Your First List
Before you can do anything else — import contacts, send campaigns, build automations — you need at least one list.
In ActiveCampaign, a list is the foundation everything else is built on. Think of it as the main container for your subscribers.
To create a list:
Click on Contacts in the left sidebar. Then click Lists. Then click the Create a List button in the top right corner.
You will be asked for:
List Name — keep it simple and descriptive. “Main Newsletter List” or “Customers” works fine. Avoid vague names like “List 1.”
List URL — your website URL.
Reminder message — a short note explaining how people got on your list. Something like “You subscribed through the form on our website.” This appears at the bottom of every email and helps reduce spam complaints.
Click Create List and you are done. Most businesses start with one main list and use tags to organise different subscriber groups inside it — which we will cover in the contacts section.
Step 4: Import Your Contacts
If you already have a subscriber list from another platform — Mailchimp, MailerLite, Kit, or a spreadsheet — this is how you bring them into ActiveCampaign.
To import contacts:
Click Contacts in the left sidebar. Then click Import in the top menu. Then click Import from File.
Before you import, prepare your CSV file. Open it in a spreadsheet tool like Excel or Google Sheets. Make sure the first row has column headers — things like First Name, Last Name, Email, Phone. Remove any completely empty rows or columns. Save as a CSV file.
Back in ActiveCampaign, upload the file. The platform will show you a column mapping screen — this is where you match your spreadsheet columns to ActiveCampaign fields. Match Email to Email, First Name to First Name, and so on. If you have custom data like a city or a job title, you can create a custom field for it during this step.
At the bottom of the import screen, you will see an option to add contacts to a list and add tags. Add them to the list you just created. Add a tag like “Imported” or “Previous Platform” so you know where these contacts came from.
Click Import and ActiveCampaign processes your file. Depending on the size of your list, this takes a few seconds to a few minutes.
One important note: Only import contacts who have already given you permission to email them. Do not import purchased lists. ActiveCampaign reviews new accounts carefully and importing non-consented contacts is one of the fastest ways to get your account suspended.
Step 5: Understand Contacts, Tags, and Custom Fields
This is the section most beginners rush past — and it is the section that determines whether your automation will feel smart or clunky six months from now. Take five minutes to understand these three things properly.
Contacts
Every person in your ActiveCampaign account is a contact. Each contact has a profile page showing their email address, name, the lists they belong to, the tags they have, every email they received, every link they clicked, every page they visited on your site, and every automation they have gone through.
To see a contact’s profile, click Contacts, search for the email address, and click on the name.
Tags
Tags are labels you apply to contacts to describe who they are or what they have done. A contact can have as many tags as you want.
Examples of useful tags:
- Lead, Customer, VIP
- Webinar Attended, Free Trial Started
- Interested in Product A, Downloaded Guide B
- Unengaged 90 Days
Tags are what make automation personal. Instead of sending the same email to everyone, you send specific emails to contacts with specific tags. A contact tagged “Purchased Product A” gets a different follow-up than a contact tagged “Lead — Product A.”
To add a tag manually, go to a contact’s profile and click the Tag field. Type the tag and press enter.
Tags can also be added automatically through forms, automations, and imported CSV files — which is where the real power is.
Custom Fields
Custom fields let you store information about contacts beyond what ActiveCampaign gives you by default. By default you get name, email, and phone. If you also want to store company name, job title, city, birthday, subscription plan, or anything else specific to your business — you create a custom field for it.
To create a custom field, go to Contacts, then Fields, then Add Field. Choose the field type (text, number, date, dropdown) and give it a name. Once created, it appears on every contact’s profile and can be used in email personalisation and automation conditions.
Step 6: Build Your First Form
A form is what people fill out on your website to join your list. ActiveCampaign has four types of forms. Each one works differently and suits a different placement.
Inline forms — embed directly into a web page. You see them inside blog posts, on About pages, or at the bottom of articles.
Floating bar forms — appear as a thin banner across the top or bottom of your website. They stay visible as the visitor scrolls.
Floating box forms — appear as a small box in the corner of the screen, usually in the bottom right.
Modal pop-up forms — appear as an overlay on top of the page content. They get attention fast. They can also annoy visitors if timed poorly.
To create a form:
Click Website in the left sidebar. Then click Forms. Then click Create a Form.
Give the form a name. Select the form type. Click Create.
You will be taken to the form builder. This is a drag-and-drop editor where you add fields, change the styling, and write the button text.
By default the form has an Email field. Most forms do not need more than an email and a first name field. The fewer fields you ask for, the more people will fill it out.
On the right side of the builder you will see Options. This is where you set what happens after someone submits:
Actions — which list they get added to, which tags get applied, which automation gets triggered. Set this now. Choose your main list. Add a tag like “Opt-in Form” so you know how this contact found you.
Confirmation — whether you use single opt-in (they are added immediately) or double opt-in (they get a confirmation email first and are only added after they click the link). Double opt-in creates a smaller but cleaner, more engaged list. Single opt-in grows your list faster but with more risk of fake or mistyped emails.
Once the form looks the way you want, click Integrate on the top right. ActiveCampaign gives you a code snippet to paste into your website. If you use WordPress, there is a dedicated ActiveCampaign plugin that makes this a copy-paste without touching any code.
Step 7: Create Your First Email Campaign
A campaign in ActiveCampaign is a one-time email send — a newsletter, a promotion, an announcement, anything you want to send to your list on a specific date or time.
This is different from automation emails, which go out automatically based on triggers. Campaigns are manual sends.
To create a campaign:
Click Campaigns in the left sidebar. Then click Create a Campaign in the top right.
You will see several campaign types. Here is what each one does:
Standard — a one-time email sent to a list or segment on a date and time you choose. This is what most people mean when they say “send a newsletter.”
Automated — not really a standalone campaign. This creates an email that lives inside an automation. You do not need to create these here — the automation builder handles them.
Auto Responder — sends automatically when someone joins a specific list. Good for a simple instant welcome email if you are not using the full automation builder yet.
Split Testing — sends two or more versions of the same email to different portions of your list. The winner — based on opens or clicks — automatically goes to the rest. Use this to test subject lines, sender names, or email content.
RSS Triggered — sends automatically whenever your blog publishes a new post. Pulls the post content from your RSS feed. Good for bloggers who want to email their list every time they publish without doing it manually.
Date Based — sends on a specific date relative to a contact’s data. Birthday emails are the classic example — send an email on the contact’s birthday using the date stored in a custom field.
For your first campaign, click Standard. Give it a name (this is internal only — your subscribers never see it). Click Next.
Step 8: Build Your Email
After choosing Standard campaign, you choose who receives it. Select your list. If you want to send to a specific segment — only contacts with a certain tag, or only contacts from a certain country — you can add segment conditions here.
Click Next and you get to the email setup screen.
Fill in:
From Name — your name or your business name. This is what appears in the inbox as the sender.
From Email — your authenticated business email address.
Reply-to Email — where replies go. Can be the same as the from email or a different address like support@yourdomain.com.
Subject Line — the most important line in the whole email. Keep it under 50 characters. Make it specific. Curiosity and clarity both work — vague teaser lines work sometimes, but a clear subject that tells the reader exactly what is inside works consistently.
Preview text — the grey text that appears next to the subject line in the inbox. Most people write nothing here, which means the inbox shows the first line of the email instead. Write a preview text that complements the subject line and adds context.
Click Next to get to the email editor.
Inside the email editor:
You will see a list of templates. Pick one that fits your content type or start from a blank template. You can also use the AI email builder — click the AI option and describe the email you want to send in plain language. ActiveCampaign generates a complete draft in about 30 seconds. Edit it to match your voice.
The editor works in blocks. You drag blocks from the right panel and drop them into the email. Text blocks, image blocks, button blocks, divider blocks, social link blocks — each one is a separate section you can move, duplicate, or delete.
Personalisation tokens are the double-curly-bracket codes that pull contact data into your email automatically. The most common ones:
- {{contact.first_name}} — inserts the contact’s first name
- {{contact.email}} — inserts their email address
- {{contact.fields.custom_field_name}} — inserts whatever is stored in a custom field
Use the first name token in your opening line. “Hi {{contact.first_name}},” makes every email feel personal even when you are sending to 10,000 people.
When the email is written, click Preview to see what it looks like on desktop and mobile. Always check the mobile view. More than half of your subscribers are reading on a phone.
Click Send Test Email to send a copy to yourself. Read it in your inbox — not in the preview — to see exactly what your subscribers will see.
Step 9: Send or Schedule the Campaign
Once the email is ready, click Next to get to the confirmation screen. This is the final checkpoint before sending.
Review the from name, subject line, list, and recipient count. If anything looks wrong — go back and fix it now.
You have two options:
Send Now — the email goes out immediately to everyone on the list.
Schedule — you pick a date and time for the email to send. This is almost always the better choice. Scheduling to a time when your audience is most likely to be checking email — typically Tuesday to Thursday mornings — typically produces better open rates than sending at random times.
There is also a Predictive Sending option on Professional plans. If you turn this on, ActiveCampaign does not send to everyone at the same time. It sends each individual contact’s email at the time they are statistically most likely to open it based on their past behaviour. This is one of ActiveCampaign’s most powerful deliverability features.
Click Schedule or Send. Your campaign is live.
Step 10: Build Your First Automation
This is the feature that makes ActiveCampaign worth the subscription price. Everything you have set up so far — lists, tags, forms, campaigns — all feeds into the automation builder. This is where it comes together.
An automation is a sequence of steps that runs automatically based on a trigger. You build it once. It runs on its own forever.
To create an automation:
Click Automations in the left sidebar. Then click Create an Automation.
You will be asked how you want to start:
Start from scratch — you build everything yourself.
Use a recipe — you choose from 900+ pre-built automation templates and customise them. If this is your first automation, use a recipe. Search for “Welcome Series” and select it. ActiveCampaign builds the structure and you fill in the content.
Use the AI builder — you describe your automation in plain language and ActiveCampaign generates the full workflow. Type something like “When someone subscribes to my list, send them a welcome email immediately, wait 2 days, then send a follow-up with my most popular blog post, wait 3 more days, then send an email asking if they have any questions.” ActiveCampaign builds that entire sequence in seconds.
Understanding the automation builder:
The builder is a visual canvas. You add steps by clicking the plus button between existing steps. Each step is one of three types:
Triggers — what starts the automation. Examples:
- Subscribes to a list
- Submits a form
- Clicks a link in an email
- Visits a specific page on your website
- A tag is added
- A custom field changes
- A deal stage changes
Actions — what happens at each step. Examples:
- Send an email
- Wait a set amount of time
- Add or remove a tag
- Update a contact’s custom field
- Add to or remove from a list
- Create a deal in the CRM
- Send an internal notification to a team member
- Subscribe to or unsubscribe from another automation
Conditions and branching — this is what makes ActiveCampaign’s automation genuinely powerful. Instead of a straight line where every contact goes through the same steps, you can create branches based on what contacts do.
For example: After sending an email, add an “If/Else” condition. If the contact clicked the link — send them the next email in the sequence. If they did not click — send them a different email with a different angle on the same topic. Two contacts entering the same automation can have completely different experiences based on their behaviour.
Building a simple welcome sequence from scratch:
Click Create Automation. Start from scratch. Set the trigger to “Subscribes to a list” and choose your main list.
Add an action: Send an email. Write a welcome email — introduce yourself, tell them what to expect, and deliver whatever you promised them when they signed up (a free guide, a discount code, a checklist).
Add a Wait step: Wait 2 days.
Add another Send email step: Send a follow-up that goes deeper into who you are or your best content.
Add a Wait step: Wait 3 days.
Add another Send email step: Send a third email with a soft call to action — invite them to follow you on social media, check out a popular article, or consider a low-cost product.
Add an End step at the bottom.
Give the automation a name in the top left — something clear like “Welcome Series — New Subscribers.” Click the toggle to set the automation to Active.
That is it. Every new subscriber who joins your list now automatically receives this sequence with no manual work from you.
Step 11: Use Conditions and Goals in Automations
Once you are comfortable with basic automations, these two features unlock a much more powerful level of personalisation.
If/Else Conditions
An If/Else condition checks whether a contact meets a certain criteria at that moment in the automation and sends them down different paths based on the answer.
To add one, click the plus button in the automation builder and select Conditions and Workflow, then If/Else.
Set your condition. Examples:
- Has the contact opened the last email? Yes — continue. No — send a different email.
- Does the contact have the tag “Purchased”? Yes — skip to a customer sequence. No — continue the sales sequence.
- Is the contact’s location United Kingdom? Yes — send the UK pricing email. No — send the US pricing email.
The contact goes down the Yes path or the No path based on whether the condition is true for them at that moment.
Goals
A goal is a destination step inside an automation. When a contact reaches the goal condition — regardless of where they are in the sequence — they jump immediately to that step.
Example: You have a five-email sales sequence. On email three, the contact buys the product. Without a goal, they would continue receiving emails four and five — which are still trying to sell them something they already bought. With a goal set to “Has purchased product” — the moment they buy, they skip the remaining sales emails and jump to a thank you or onboarding sequence instead.
To add a goal, click the plus button and select Conditions and Workflow, then Goal. Set the condition that defines the goal. Set whether you want contacts to reach it from anywhere in the automation (Anywhere) or only from that specific point in the sequence (Above).
Goals make your automation intelligent. They prevent awkward situations where someone receives the wrong message because the automation did not know they already converted.
Step 12: Understand Segments
A segment is a filtered view of your contacts. Unlike a list — which is a permanent container a contact belongs to — a segment is a dynamic group that updates automatically as contacts meet or stop meeting the conditions you set.
To create a segment:
Click Contacts in the left sidebar. Click Segments. Click Create a Segment.
Build your conditions using the segment builder. You can combine as many conditions as you need with AND or OR logic.
Examples:
- Contacts who have tag “Lead” AND opened at least one email in the last 30 days
- Contacts who are on the “Customers” list AND have not clicked any link in the last 60 days
- Contacts who have a custom field “Plan” set to “Pro” AND have not been tagged “Renewal Sent”
Once saved, the segment appears in your segments list. You can use segments to send targeted campaigns to specific groups without creating separate lists. You can also use them as conditions inside automations.
The AI Suggested Segments feature — available on Plus and above — lets you describe a segment in plain language. Type “contacts who have not opened an email in three months” and ActiveCampaign builds the segment conditions for you.
Step 13: Set Up Lead Scoring
Lead scoring is a system that assigns points to contacts based on what they do. The more points a contact has, the more engaged they are — and the more likely they are to buy.
This is available on Plus plans and above.
To set up lead scoring:
Click Contacts in the left sidebar. Click Lead Scoring. Click Add a New Score.
Give your score a name — something like “Engagement Score.”
Now add scoring rules. Each rule adds or subtracts points when a contact does something. Examples:
- Opens an email: +2 points
- Clicks a link in an email: +5 points
- Visits your pricing page: +10 points
- Fills out a contact form: +15 points
- Has not opened an email in 60 days: -5 points
- Unsubscribes from a list: -50 points
You can also set scores to decay over time — so a contact who was very active six months ago but has gone quiet does not keep a high score forever.
Once scoring is set up, every contact’s score updates automatically as they interact with your emails and website. You can then use the score in automation conditions. When a contact reaches a score of 50, for example, an automation can fire that sends them a personalised offer or notifies a sales rep to reach out.
Step 14: Use Site Tracking
Site tracking lets ActiveCampaign watch what pages your contacts visit on your website. Once tracking is set up, you can trigger automations based on page visits, add tags based on what sections of your site someone browses, and add points to their lead score when they visit high-intent pages like your pricing or demo page.
To set up site tracking:
Click Website in the left sidebar. Click Site Tracking. You will see a small JavaScript code snippet.
Copy that snippet and paste it into your website’s HTML — just before the closing </head> tag. If you use WordPress, you can add it through your theme settings or a plugin like Insert Headers and Footers. If you use Shopify, it goes in your theme’s layout file.
Once the code is on your site, ActiveCampaign starts logging page visits for any contact who has clicked a link in one of your emails. The tracking works by recognising the contact from a cookie placed when they clicked the link.
You can then go to a contact’s profile and see every page they have visited. You can also use page visit triggers and conditions in automations. For example: If a contact visits /pricing three or more times, add tag “High Purchase Intent” and notify a sales rep.
Step 15: Build Landing Pages
Landing pages are standalone web pages designed to get someone to take one specific action — usually signing up for your list or downloading something.
ActiveCampaign’s landing page builder is available on Plus plans and above.
To create a landing page:
Click Website in the left sidebar. Click Landing Pages. Click Create a Landing Page.
Choose a template or start from scratch. The landing page editor works similarly to the email editor — drag-and-drop blocks you arrange and customise.
Key elements every landing page needs:
Headline — the first thing visitors see. Make it clear what they are getting. “Get the Free Guide to Starting Your Email List” is clearer than “Sign Up Today.”
Subheadline — one or two sentences expanding on the headline. What problem does this solve?
Form — the actual signup form. Connect it to an ActiveCampaign form you have already created. When someone fills it out, they are added to your list and can trigger an automation.
Benefit points — three to five bullet points explaining why this is valuable. Focus on outcomes, not features.
Call to action button — the button that submits the form. Write something specific on it: “Send Me the Guide” or “Start My Free Trial” performs better than a generic “Submit.”
Once the page is built, click Publish. ActiveCampaign gives you a URL you can share directly or connect to a custom domain.
You can also enable A/B testing on landing pages — build two versions and split your traffic between them to see which one converts more visitors into subscribers.
Step 16: Use the CRM (Deals)
The CRM inside ActiveCampaign — called Deals — is available on Plus plans and above. It lets you track potential customers through a sales pipeline alongside your email marketing.
To access the CRM:
Click Deals in the left sidebar. If this is your first time, you will be prompted to set up a pipeline.
Pipelines and stages:
A pipeline is your sales process. A stage is a step inside that process. A simple pipeline might look like:
New Lead → Contacted → Proposal Sent → Negotiation → Won / Lost
Each deal moves through these stages as the sales conversation progresses.
Creating a deal:
Click Add Deal. Fill in the contact’s name, the deal title, the value of the deal, the pipeline it belongs to, and which stage it starts in.
You can also create deals automatically through automations. When a contact fills out a form, submits a request, or reaches a certain lead score — an automation can create a deal for them automatically and notify the right sales rep.
Working with deals:
Each deal has a card in the pipeline view. Drag it from stage to stage as the conversation progresses. Inside the deal card you can log notes, schedule tasks, attach files, and see every email the contact has received and every link they clicked. When a sales rep calls a contact, they have the full picture of that contact’s email engagement before saying hello.
Connecting deals to automations:
This is where the CRM integration becomes genuinely powerful. Deal stage changes can trigger automations. Move a deal to “Proposal Sent” and an automation automatically sends a follow-up email three days later asking if they have any questions. Move a deal to “Won” and an automation sends the welcome-to-customer sequence. Move it to “Lost” and an automation triggers a re-engagement campaign six weeks later.
Step 17: Send SMS Messages
SMS marketing is available as an add-on on Plus plans and above. It lets you send text messages to contacts as part of your automation sequences.
To activate SMS:
Go to Settings, then SMS. Enter your business information and verify your phone number. ActiveCampaign uses a third-party SMS provider (Twilio) behind the scenes. You pay for SMS credits on top of your base plan.
To add an SMS step to an automation:
Inside the automation builder, click the plus button and select Send an SMS. Write your message. Keep it under 160 characters to avoid it being split into multiple messages. Include a clear call to action and a way to opt out — something like “Reply STOP to unsubscribe.”
SMS works best for time-sensitive messages — flash sale alerts, appointment reminders, abandoned cart nudges, or event reminders. It does not replace email. It supplements it for high-priority moments where you need someone’s attention immediately.
Step 18: Use Conditional Content in Emails
Conditional content lets you show different sections of an email to different contacts based on their data. One email, multiple versions of the content depending on who is reading it.
This is available on Plus plans and above.
How to use conditional content:
Inside the email editor, select any content block — a text block, an image block, a button. On the right panel you will see a Conditional Content option. Click it.
Set your condition. For example:
- Show this block only to contacts who have the tag “Customer”
- Show this block only to contacts whose custom field “Plan” is “Pro”
- Show this block only to contacts whose lead score is above 50
You can create a “else” version of the block that shows to everyone who does not meet the condition. So your customers see a “Thank you for being a customer” section and your leads see a “Here is why our customers love us” section — all in the same email send.
This is one of the most practical personalisation features in ActiveCampaign. Instead of managing two separate campaigns for two different audiences, you send one campaign that adapts itself to whoever opens it.
Step 19: Check Your Reports
Reports tell you whether what you are doing is working. ActiveCampaign has several reporting sections and each one tells you something different.
Campaign Reports
Click Reports in the left sidebar. Then click Campaign Reports.
For each campaign you have sent, you can see:
- Open rate — what percentage of recipients opened the email
- Click rate — what percentage clicked at least one link
- Unsubscribe rate — what percentage opted out
- Bounce rate — what percentage of emails could not be delivered
- Replies — how many people replied directly to the email
- Click map — a visual overlay on your email showing exactly which links got clicked and how many times
A good benchmark: 20 to 30 percent open rate is healthy for most industries. Below 15 percent suggests deliverability or subject line issues. Click rates of 2 to 5 percent are typical. Unsubscribe rates above 0.5 percent per email suggest your content or targeting needs work.
Automation Reports
Click Automation Reports. Choose an automation from the list.
You can see how many contacts entered the automation, how many are currently in each step, and how many completed the sequence. If a lot of contacts are dropping off at a specific step — that step is the problem. Either the email is not compelling or the wait time is too long.
Contact Reports
Click on any individual contact and scroll through their profile. You can see their full engagement history — every email they received, every email they opened, every link they clicked, every page they visited, every automation they went through, every tag they have, every deal they are part of.
This contact-level view is one of ActiveCampaign’s most useful features for understanding how individual people are engaging with your marketing.
Deals Reports
Click Reports, then Deals. See how many deals are in each stage, the total value of your pipeline, win and loss rates, and how long deals are spending in each stage before moving forward or dying.
Step 20: Connect Other Tools With Integrations
ActiveCampaign connects to over 900 apps. Here is how to connect the most common ones.
To add an integration:
Click Settings in the left sidebar. Click Integrations. Search for the app you want to connect. Click the app and follow the connection steps — usually you just log into the other app and authorise the connection.
The most useful integrations for beginners:
Shopify or WooCommerce — connects your online store to ActiveCampaign. When someone purchases, they are automatically tagged as a customer. When someone abandons their cart, you can trigger an abandoned cart automation. Purchase history syncs to each contact’s profile.
WordPress — the ActiveCampaign WordPress plugin lets your forms appear natively on your site and enables site tracking without touching any code.
Stripe or PayPal — connects payments to your contact records. A completed payment can trigger an automation that delivers a product, starts an onboarding sequence, or tags the contact as a customer.
Calendly — when someone books a meeting, they are added to your ActiveCampaign list automatically with relevant tags. Great for service businesses or SaaS companies booking demos.
Zapier or Make — if the app you want to connect is not natively supported, Zapier and Make are automation bridges that can connect almost anything to ActiveCampaign. They work by watching for events in one app and triggering actions in another.
Step 21: Use the AI Features
ActiveCampaign has added several AI features under the brand name Active Intelligence. Here is what each one does and which plan unlocks it.
AI Campaign Builder (all plans)
Click Create a Campaign. Choose the AI option. Describe the email you want to send in plain language — the topic, the audience, the goal. ActiveCampaign generates a complete email including subject line, body copy, and a structure. Edit it to match your voice and send.
AI Automation Builder (all plans)
Click Create an Automation. Choose the AI option. Describe your automation in plain language. The more specific your description, the better the output. A prompt like “When someone fills out my demo request form, send a confirmation email immediately, wait one day, send an email with three customer case studies, wait two days, then notify my sales rep if they have not replied” produces a fully structured automation you just need to fill in with your actual email content.
AI Brand Kit (all plans)
Go to Settings, then Branding. Enter your website URL. ActiveCampaign scans your site and imports your brand colours, fonts, and logo. Once set up, these apply automatically to every email template and landing page you create.
AI Writing Assistant (all plans)
Inside the email editor, select any text block. You will see an AI writing option. Use it to generate email copy, rewrite an existing section in a different tone, make a paragraph shorter, or expand a bullet point into a full paragraph.
AI Suggested Segments (Plus and above)
Go to Contacts, then Segments. Use the AI suggestion option. Describe the audience you want — “contacts who have shown interest in my paid plan but have not purchased” — and ActiveCampaign builds the segment conditions.
Predictive Sending (Professional and above)
Enable this on any campaign or automation email. Instead of sending at the time you specify, ActiveCampaign sends each contact’s email at the time they are statistically most likely to open it. You see meaningfully higher open rates without changing a single word of your email.
Win Probability (Professional and above)
In the Deals CRM, each deal gets an AI-generated probability score showing the likelihood of closing. The score updates as the deal progresses, emails are sent, and contacts engage. Helps sales reps prioritise which deals to focus on.
The Order You Should Do All of This
If you just read that whole guide and are wondering where to start — here is the exact order:
Day one:
- Sign up for the 14-day trial
- Add your business information and logo
- Set up email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)
- Create your first list
- Import your existing contacts if you have them
Day two: 2. Set up site tracking on your website 3. Create your first opt-in form and add it to your site 4. Build your welcome automation using a recipe or the AI builder 5. Send yourself a test to make sure everything works
Day three onwards: 5. Write and schedule your first campaign 6. Set up lead scoring 7. Build your first CRM pipeline if you have a sales process 8. Connect your most important integrations (store, payment processor, booking tool) 9. Check your reports after your first campaign sends and adjust
Do not try to do everything on day one. The platform is deep. The businesses that get the most out of ActiveCampaign are the ones who build one thing, make it work, then add the next layer. Welcome sequence first. Then lead scoring. Then CRM. Then SMS. One layer at a time.
The Mistakes Beginners Make Most Often
I have seen the same mistakes show up again and again from people starting out on ActiveCampaign. Here are the ones worth avoiding from the start.
Using the Starter plan for real marketing. The five-action automation cap makes it nearly useless for any real sequence. Budget for Plus from day one.
Importing contacts who did not opt in. ActiveCampaign reviews new accounts. Importing purchased lists or contacts who never agreed to hear from you will get your account suspended fast.
Naming automations vaguely. “Automation 1” and “New Workflow” tell you nothing when you have 20 automations running. Name them clearly from the start — “Welcome Series — New Lead,” “Abandoned Cart — Shopify,” “Re-engagement — 90 Day Inactive.”
Skipping email authentication. Your emails will end up in spam folders. This one step takes 10 minutes and affects every single email you will ever send.
Never cleaning the list. Every six months, run a re-engagement automation. Contacts who have not opened an email in 90 days get a “Are you still interested?” email. Those who do not respond get unsubscribed. A smaller, engaged list always outperforms a large, cold one.
Not using tags from day one. Go back and tag every imported contact with something meaningful right now. You cannot use tags you never created.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take to learn ActiveCampaign?
Most beginners feel comfortable with campaigns and basic automations within two weeks. Advanced features like lead scoring, conditional content, and CRM automations take another two to four weeks of regular use to feel natural. The learning curve is real — but the capability you unlock on the other side of it is worth the investment.
Do I need a website to use ActiveCampaign?
No. You can use ActiveCampaign’s built-in landing pages and forms to build a list without a separate website. That said, having a website makes the site tracking feature significantly more powerful.
What is the difference between a list and a segment in ActiveCampaign?
A list is a permanent container. A contact is added to a list and stays there until you remove them. A segment is a dynamic filter — it shows you the contacts who meet certain conditions right now. Those contacts can change as their data changes.
Can I use ActiveCampaign with Shopify?
Yes. The native Shopify integration syncs purchase history, cart data, and browsing behaviour to contact profiles. You can trigger automations based on purchases, abandoned carts, and specific products viewed.
How do I stop paying for unsubscribed contacts?
For accounts created after November 2025, ActiveCampaign charges for all contacts including unsubscribed ones. To remove them from your billable count, go to Contacts, filter by “Unsubscribed,” select all, and archive them. Archived contacts are stored for one year before deletion and do not count toward your billing limit.
Is there a free plan?
No. ActiveCampaign offers a 14-day free trial with no credit card required. There is no permanent free tier. The closest free alternatives are MailerLite (1,000 subscribers free) or Kit (10,000 subscribers free).
