Welcome to the world of ecommerce – a world to bring your best ideas to life and your products to the masses. But with so much competition and innovation, it can be hard to keep up the pace and ace your game.
Marketing software tools can become your best ally in the marketing race. But selecting the one tool for your operations and marketing campaigns can be overwhelming and time-consuming.
We are here to help you compare two of the most popular ecommerce platforms, ActiveCampaign and Shopify. Whether you’re looking for an intuitive user interface, reliable customer service, or a wide range of features and integrations, this guide will provide an in-depth comparison of the two platforms so you can make the best choice for your online business. So let’s get started, shall we?
What is ActiveCampaign?
ActiveCampaign is an ecommerce email marketing and customer relationship management (CRM) platform that helps ecommerce businesses to use their resources wisely by automating customer communications and other fundamental business processes like email marketing campaigns, SMS marketing, abandoned cart email automation, segmentation features, and other advanced features.
Businesses of all sizes can benefit from the robust features of the platform. Its automation engine helps users create efficient and friendly customer journeys in a few minutes. ActiveCampaign also provides detailed customer insights for business owners to understand how customers respond to their email marketing and other marketing campaigns.
ActiveCampaign is a robust and easy-to-use platform that can streamline and simplify the marketing campaigns and the sales processes of your ecommerce business for maximum profit.
List of Popular Features
ActiveCampaign marketing automation features include:
- Email marketing automation.
- Email templates
- Customer relation management (CRM)
- Contact Management Software.
- AB Testing
- API
- Activity Dashboard
- Activity Tracking
- Alerts/Notifications
- Email marketing auto-Responders
What is Shopify?
Shopify is an ecommerce business platform that helps businesses create, manage, and scale their ecommerce store.
It provides comprehensible tools to help businesses manage their product listings, customers, orders, and online store.
Popular features of Shopify include a user-friendly interface, secure payment processing, customizable themes, and 24/7 customer support. Shopify also allows businesses to sell their products on multiple platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and Amazon.
List of Popular Features
- 70+ pre-designed themes for your storefront.
- Free 256-bit SSL certificate for your security.
- Email editor.
- Integrations for dropshipping.
- Supports best SEO practices.
- Automated emails.
- Comprehensive inventory management.
- Hosting with unlimited bandwidth
ActiveCampaign vs Shopify: Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
ActiveCampaign
The built-in CRM system of the email marketing platform helps online businesses manage customer relationships and track sales.
Use ActiveCampaing solution for an ecommerce business to track customer interactions, automate communications, and customize their sales workflow to improve your campaigns and revenue.
ActiveCampaign marketing automation software is an effective solution that helps businesses create meaningful customer relationships and maximize conversions.
Shopify
Shopify CRM provides customer segmentation features, automated emails, sales reporting, customer data export, customer profiles, and more.
With the customer segmentation feature, Shopify CRM allows businesses to categorize customers based on criteria like purchase history and product preferences, helping them target the right customers with the right messages.
Use automated emails to reach out to customers based on specific activities for instance, set up an automatic reminder to avoid cart abandonment or set a welcome every time new customers purchase a product.
It is a simple and cost-effective strategy to improve your relations with loyal customers and boost customer engagement.
The CRM system allows you to export customer data to an external customer management system, enabling business owners to transfer their customer data to other platforms and use the data for campaigns, analytics, and more.
ActiveCampaign vs Shopify: Landing page Builder
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign builder makes the process of creating landing pages simple and fast. Its multiple features and pre-built templates help create landing pages that look, feel, and convert your custom audiences.
Maintain the uniformity of your online presence by customizing the elements of your landing page with the drag-and-drop editor. Users can move, rearrange and edit the elements to craft their desired layout. Add text, images, and videos to your site and use custom HTML and CSS to further customize your site to your brand.
The landing page builder provides customizable, integrated forms, a feature that makes it easy to segment and target customers to improve your sales.
Shopify
Shopify helps businesses build landing pages with ease. With Shopify, you can create and customize the look of your site, from the layout to the fonts, colors, and images everything is customizable.
Furthermore, its drag-and-drop builder helps you create everything in a breeze. Embed video, use custom HTML and CSS, add forms, and more element for the ultimate customization experience.
Shopify provides detailed analytics to track your page’s performance and understand how your page affects your sales. Using Shopify, you can create the perfect landing page to get more leads and boost your sales.
ActiveCampaign vs Shopify: Analytics
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign offers reporting and analytics tools for users to gain valuable insights into their customer data. The platform provides users with comprehensive reporting and analytics that can be accessed from the dashboard or downloaded as a CSV.
The reporting and analytics features available in ActiveCampaign include:
- Automation reports: To track the performance of customer journeys and see which ones are performing well and which need improvement.
- Email reports: They display open rates, click-through rates, and other data related to email campaigns.
- List reports: This report provides a detailed breakdown of customer data from campaigns, tags, and other triggers.
- Activity reports: This report provides an overview of how customers are interacting with the platform, including sign-ups, clicks, and visits.
- Segmentation reports: To see how customer segments are performing and make updates as needed.
- Campaign reports: Provides an overview of the effectiveness of campaigns, including the number of emails sent and the percentage of clicks and opens.
These reporting and analytics features allow ecommerce businesses to get a better understanding of their customers and optimize their campaigns and customer journeys for maximum success.
Shopify
Shopify’s analytics and reports give you the means to review your store’s recent activity, get insight into your visitors, analyze your online store speed, and analyze your store’s transactions.
All Shopify users can access the analytics page and key financial reports. Having an online store gives you live access. Subscribing to the Basic Shopify plan or a higher tier you can access more reports.
For example, let’s say you start with the Basic Shopify plan in January and then upgrade to the Shopify plan in April. The upgrade gives you access to the sales reports, customer reports, behavior, and marketing reports, including the relevant data since January.
The dashboard and the reports cover the common reporting and analysis needs of most store owners. For a customized experience export the data to a spreadsheet program or use third-party apps for your analytics.
ActiveCampaign vs Shopify: Third-Party Integrations
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign has a range of integrations that include popular services like Zapier, Mailchimp, and Shopify. These integrations allow users to automatically sync data between ActiveCampaign and their external services. For example, a user can connect ActiveCampaign with a payment gateway to ensure that payments are properly tracked and recorded
Another type of integration offered by ActiveCampaign is the ability to integrate with web forms, such as Gravity Forms or Contact Form 7 to collect customer data on their website and store it in ActiveCampaign. This data can help you create targeted campaigns and segment customers better.
ActiveCampaign has an API that allows developers to build their custom integrations. This API enables developers to access and use ActiveCampaign data and functions in their applications.
Shopify
Shopify allows direct integration with multiple third-party tools like google Sheets, salesforce, intuit QuickBooks, wave, ClickFunnels, slack many more useful apps.
Shopify integrates with Actionetics, ActiveCampaign, Convertkit, MailChimp, and HTML forms.
Other remarkable integrations are Zapier+Webhooks, membership software, checkout software, analytics, webinar software, texting software, calendar tools, custom Integrations, and many more integrations.
ActiveCampaign vs Shopify: Pricing Plans
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign’s pricing plans offer multiple options to accommodate different budgets and needs.
The Lite plan starts at $15/month and includes up to three users, 500 contacts, automation, and basic reporting.
The Plus plan starts at $70/month and includes up to 25 users, unlimited contacts, automation, and advanced reporting.
The Professional plan starts at $159/month and includes up to 50 users, advanced segmentation, A/B testing, and predictive content.
The Enterprise plan is custom-priced and offers access to features such as custom user roles, custom automation, and dedicated account management.
Shopify
Shopify has four pricing options, a free 14-day trial, and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
The Basic Shopify Plan entitles you to sell unlimited products with a 2% transaction fee charge of $26 per month.
With the Shopify Plan, you can have all the basic plan features plus new features like customized gift cards, abandoned cart recovery, and only a 1% transaction fee of $71 per month.
Advanced Shopify Plan: the price goes from $266 to $2,000 monthly, depending on the customization. The transaction fee is 0.5% transaction.
You can benefit from the 10% annual plan discount, biennial plans get a 20% discount, and Shopify light it’s only $9 per month with the annual subscription.
FAQs
What Are the Pros and Cons of using ActiveCampaign?
Pros
- ActiveCampaign can help reach and engage your customers efficiently and cost-effectively.
- The robust CRM system helps you build relationships with your customers, create targeted campaigns, and monitor results.
- The segmentation tool helps you personalize content, target specific audiences, and track the success of your campaigns.
- SMS marketing
Cons
- Contact volume expensive
- No phone customer support for Lite or Plus plans
- Limited hours of customer support
What are the pros and cons of using Shopify?
Pros
- Shopify is an easy-to-use platform with customization options to set up an online store in a breeze.
- It is highly scalable, meaning that your online store can grow with your business.
- Shopify is a secure platform, they take the protection of your customer data seriously.
- The ecommerce platform integrates with popular third-party tools, including payment processors, email marketing tools, and more.
Cons
- Depending on your budget, Shopify can be expensive, though it has a range of subscription plans that have varying levels of features and costs.
- Shopify charges a transaction fee for each order processed through the platform, which can add up if you process a lot of orders.
How to select a Marketing Automation Platform?
To ensure the best decision for your online business, you must consider the following factors:
- Your budget.
- Your ecommerce business goals and objectives
- Your existing tech stack and existing data sources.
- Your target audience and what features they need and value.
- The features, integrations, and services the platform offers.
Once you have identified the features and services you need, you can start researching for email marketing platforms to see which one best matches your needs. Pay attention to user reviews, customer service ratings, and available integrations.
Finally, check if the platform is user-friendly and offers resources to help you get started. The right marketing automation platform should help you streamline your marketing activities and maximize your ROI, so choose carefully.
Final Thoughts
ActiveCampaign and Shopify are both powerful tools for marketing automation and email marketing, but there are some clear distinctions between them.
ActiveCampaign is an all-in-one marketing automation platform that offers features like email marketing, automated campaigns, and segmentation. It also includes features to help businesses create and manage their website, such as website forms, landing pages, and click-through rates.
On the other hand, Shopify is an ecommerce platform that allows businesses to quickly and easily set up an ecommerce store. It offers features like product management, checkout, payment processing, and shipping. It also integrates with numerous third-party apps, such as accounting and marketing tools, to help businesses manage their operations.
ActiveCampaign is best suited for businesses that need to build an online presence and need marketing automation, while Shopify is better for businesses focused on selling products online.
