If you’re an ActiveCampaign user, or looking to evaluate the ActiveCampaign platform, here’s some exciting news. In the past couple of months, the marketing automation platform has rolled out new features designed to make ActiveCampaign easier to use.
Some of the changes are pretty big, while others are limited to certain features within the app. The changes include:
1. A redesigned navigation / interface
2. A new Automations Overview page
3. Changes to how permissions work within automations
Whether you’re new to ActiveCampaign or you’ve been using the platform for years, I recommend you take a few minutes to get familiar with the new features.
Related content:
Check out our ActiveCampaign Landing Pages review
our full ActiveCampaign Review and
our ActiveCampaign pricing guide
Change #1: ActiveCampaign Navigation Redesign
The most important change (and the one that will impact the most users), has to do with the “navigation hierarchy” of the app. The best way to illustrate is to show the interface, so here’s what I’m talking about:
Before the update, the navigation bar in ActiveCampaign looked like this:
The old ActiveCampaign navigation layout.
In the old version, the primary navigation bar was at the top of the screen (red horizontal box above), with app features contained in dropdown submenus (red vertical box above).
The design was straightforward enough, but according to ActiveCampaign, it was difficult to find and access certain features. In an effort to create a better user experience, ActiveCampaign has released a new interface.
Inside Active campaign, navigation now looks like this:
As you can see, the redesign moves the primary navigation from the top to a new vertical bar on the left side of the platform. The change is designed to improve usability in two ways:
- By giving you more screen space to work
- By making it easier to find key features
As of now, the new navigation is still optional, and ActiveCampaign has no set timeline for making it mandatory.
But they’ve made clear that going forward, new features will only be added to this new version of the navigation.
Overall, I like the change and think it succeeds in making ActiveCampaign easier to navigate. If you’re using the old nav layout, I recommend at least giving the new version a try. I think you’ll find it more efficient and intuitive.
Change #2: Redesigned ActiveCampaign Automations Overview
The next big change has to do with the Automations Overview page.
If you’re an ActiveCampaign user, you’re no doubt familiar with Automations Overview – it’s where you go to access automations, one of the key features of ActiveCampaign.
In the old version of Automations Overview, the ability to sort automations was pretty limited. But with the new automations overview, you have multiple ways to organize them.
I think this is especially handy, because once you’ve set up several automations in ActiveCampaign, you want to be able to quickly find and access them.
For example, you can now sort your automations by status (including Any, Active, and Inactive):
And you can also sort by label:
You can now sort your ActiveCampaign automations by label.
Labels are great if you have several pages of campaigns you’re trying to keep organized. For example, if you’re an agency working with multiple clients, using shorthand labels can make navigating a lot easier.
And finally, ActiveCampaign has added a third drop down that lets you organize by last edited, highest activity, oldest, newest, and by name:
Sorting automations drop down menu.
In addition to the new drop-down menus, the Automations Overview now displays important information about your ActiveCampaign email automations.
Automation details connected, contacts and campaigns.
By hovering over the Automation Stats icons, you get key details about each automation. For example, the connected automations icon (yellow icon with a white triangle) displays all connected automations:
While hovering over contacts (blue icon with two white arrows) shows the number of contacts currently in an automation:
And hovering over the campaigns icon (gray icon with a white envelope) shows the name of the campaigns in the automation, and their open rate:
By clicking on individual campaigns, you can go directly to that campaign report.
Similarly, hovering over the automation goal icon (the gold icon with a white trophy) shows you the name of each goal and its completion rate. Clicking on a specific goal takes you to its report.
Another nice addition is the ability to view the start triggers for your automations in the overview page. You can simply click “Show Start Triggers” in the upper right hand corner (underneath the search bar) and the start triggers are displayed.
The shortcuts are now live for all ActiveCampaign accounts, and they make using the Automations Overview page quite a bit more efficient, once you get used to it.
And if you want more information about organizing your automations in ActiveCampaign, click here.
Change #3: Individual Automation Permissions
And finally, ActiveCampaign has changed the way to manage permissions within automations.
Before the change, permissions were all or nothing: you could either edit all automations in your account, or you could edit none.
Now, admins can grant permissions on a per-automation basis. So if a user needs to make changes to a single automation, the admin can grant permission to that one campaign, while restricting access to others.
This gives admins more control over who can do what in their ActiveCampaign account. If you manage your company’s ActiveCampaign account, it will be a relief to know not everybody can access all the accounts. This new permissions feature is currently live.
What do you think about the new features? Are you an AC user, or considering trying out the platform? Let me know in the comments below.
About the author: Brad Wages is a conversion copywriter and email marketing specialist. He helps SaaS and tech businesses acquire and activate more users with persuasive messaging. You can connect with him on LinkedIn.
