We Review Some of The Best Value & Powerful Marketing Automation Solutions
FluentCRM vs. GroundHogg vs. ActiveCampaign Which is the best CRM?
Are you torn between FluentCRM, GroundHogg, and ActiveCampaign? This video/article is here to help! We look closer at these popular CRMs by evaluating their core f
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The Show’s Main Transcript
[00:00:01.550] – Jonathan Denwood
Welcome back, folks, to the Membership Machine Show. This is episode 93. In this episode, we will review Fluency RM, Groundhog, and Active Campaign. Which one is best? Which one would probably suit your particular needs? I’ve got my regular co-host, Harun, with me. It should be a great show. We’ve got a lot of insights. Harun, would you like to introduce yourself to the new listeners and viewers quickly?
[00:01:09.690] – Haroon Q. Raja
Sure thing. Hi, everyone. I’m Harun, a technology solutions architect who’s been working in the tech industry for around two and a half decades and with WordPress for around one and a half decades or more. I’ve used pretty much every complex tool out there for WordPress to build many very advanced sites. That puts me in a position to help you pick the best tools for your business and use case.
[00:01:41.040] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s fantastic. Before we go into the meat and potatoes of this great show, I’ve got a message from our major sponsor. We will be back in a few moments, folks. Three, two, one. We’re coming back, folks. Also, I want to point out we’ve got a great list of the best WordPress plugins and services. Plus, we have a great, affordable course that will show you how to build a WordPress membership website from the beginning to the end using the best combination of the leading WordPress plugins, such as Lifter LMS and Cadence WP. You get a discount code for this great course that will take 50% off. You can get all these goodies by going over to wp-tonic. Com/deals, wp-tonic. Com/deals. What more could you ask for? That’s what I’m thinking. Harun, let’s go straight into it. So we’re looking at Fluent CRM, Groundhog, or Active Campaign. So, let’s just do a broad introduction. Two of these are WordPress-based plugins. The second one is one of the leading SaaS platforms, Software as a Service. So, were you doing a rapid intro to a client about the quick about each one? What would you initially say to a client about these three solutions?
[00:03:25.610] – Haroon Q. Raja
In my client discovery phase, if we were choosing the right PRM for the client’s use case. The first step in determining the right fit for them would be whether they are managing their entire self-hosted technical infrastructure. If it’s not being properly managed, if they think they’re just going to put it on a cheap Bluehost or GoDaddy-like account and then call it a day and expect it to run on autopilot, Then I wouldn’t recommend it for any of the self-hosted options, be it these two WordPress ones or be it any other self-hosted option, like even a non-WordPress marketing automation system like Motic, I wouldn’t recommend those. But if they either have the technical expertise in-house or an agency or a consultant on board who takes care of all of their technical infrastructure and fully manages it, including their hosting and plugin stack, then a self-hosted option would be better. However, for other cases, something like an active campaign would suit their use case better. That’s how I’ve helped determine which one is better for their use case, first and foremost. To give an intro to the audience of how they work differently, with something like Fluent CRM or Groundhog, the plugin installs on your website and utilizes your web hosting resources. You get a better deal because there are no limitations on the number of contacts, no restriction on the number of emails you can send, and no limitation on the number of users you can have.
[00:05:05.150] – Haroon Q. Raja
However, your hosting account would incur higher resource usage. There’s that. But still, you’re generally getting a better deal. As for active campaigns, one of the biggest names in software as a service is where you don’t have to worry about managing the technical infrastructure. You pay them, and they handle the technical infrastructure for you. They give you fully ready software to build your campaigns, connect your third-party services, and manage your automation, funnels, and whatnot.
[00:05:35.650] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I think one of the things I do agree with you is that if you’re going to utilize these WordPress tools, you have to be prepared to learn how they work. If you’re going to do it yourself, you’re going to have to do a bit of a dive. Or you could hire an agency, WP-Tonic or Haru, to look after it for you. You’ll have to do a bit of a dive with Active Campaign to use it unless somebody’s using it for you. So, there is a difference between the overlaps, but you’ll have to dive into either solution. I think one of the fundamental differences is that WordPress native solutions, either Fluent, CRM, or Groundhog, aren’t going to send emails out. They provide the interface and the logic, but they don’t send out the email. Even if they offer to send out an email, most of your hosting providers won’t be able to use Fluent CRM or Groundhog with your native hosting email-sending service. There are a lot of better hosting providers like WPEngine or WPTonic Well, not WP tonic because we do.
[00:07:18.420] – Jonathan Denwood
But many of the better quality ones don’t offer any email-sending service for your inbox or your marketing email. They don’t provide anything. You will have to provide a third-party service that sends out the email. One of the leading ones is Sendgrid. There are a couple of others. If you’ve got a significant volume, you can look at Amazon Web Services and their email-sending engine. But I would only recommend that if you’re sending out many emails, you will have to hire either WP-Tonic or Haroon for that particular circumstance. After all, there are a lot of hoops to jump through.
[00:08:15.160] – Haroon Q. Raja
It’s just for the initial setup, yeah.
[00:08:17.730] – Jonathan Denwood
It’s only worth going through those loops because you are sending out many emails. I say a lot. Where do you put the boundary of a lot? Where would you fix that lot boundary?
[00:08:38.160] – Haroon Q. Raja
So again, that’s something that we decide on a case-to-case basis for every client, because for some clients, saving every bit at the start to put that amount towards other tools and services is important. If they’re bootstrapped, they’re just getting started, then every saving because things add up. Then maybe even if they don’t have a huge volume, getting an SCS configuration done once and for all makes sense for them because of the difference in savings, because the difference could be more like 10X or even higher. Because SCS offers as low as 10,000 emails for $1. I don’t think anyone in the industry can compete against that. But for a majority of clients, something like a $10 or $20 a month plan with the Brevo, which used to be Sand and Blue, or something like Mill Gun or Sendred. I personally feel, but it’s arbitrary, and Haru might disagree, and a lot of people, I personally don’t think it’s even worth looking at Amazon if you’re not sending more than 50,000 emails per month, between the 50 to 100,000 mark, it starts probably worth the effort to look at it.
[00:10:13.300] – Jonathan Denwood
If you’re below, this is very arbitrary. I’m not saying I’m right or wrong, but it’s how I try and make some sense of it all, is if it’s below 50, you’re probably best to utilize Sendgrid or one of the other services that Haruna has mentioned as your email sending engine. That’s how I try and explain it.
[00:10:41.850] – Haroon Q. Raja
I’d add something here. Another factor that I also keep into account when choosing a provider is SMS sending as well, because Amazon also has their excellent SNS. Ses is their simple email service, and SNS is their simple notification service, and part of SNS, one of their components is text messaging, SMS messaging. If both are going to be involved, then Amazon, AWS, with these two services is generally something that I go for. Plus with me, since I’ve done so many account onboard things of Amazon SCS, it’s frictionless for me. But then depending… I’m sure Jonathan also has plenty of expertise.
[00:11:26.440] – Jonathan Denwood
I’ve done it, but if I was going to get a client, I would ask you to do it because I’ve lost enough hair as it is, and I don’t need to lose anymore. I just haven’t done it for a long time, but I have set it up as a- One of the biggest frictions in that is for new accounts, for new client accounts, they very rarely approve them to use a CSN, SNS out of the sandbox, which is testing mode.
[00:11:53.450] – Haroon Q. Raja
You have to go through hoops and you have to talk to them, very strategically present a very strong case. Even then, they often reject you based on their assessment that, according to them, you might not be sending emails according to their TOS.
[00:12:10.450] – Jonathan Denwood
Their TOS- You got to know how to fill in the online form so you don’t get pushback. I just want to point out something. If you are looking to send SMS or text messaging campaigns with email, and you’re not in this 50,000 to 100,000 that I’m talking about. I personally would say, look at Omnicend. They’re a sponsor of the podcast, but they do, they’ve got enormous experience in e-commerce, and they do offer a good plan that combines email with SMS messaging. And if you’re not in this arbitrary area that I’ve stated, I think you’re better off. But Haroon and a lot of other people might disagree with me, and I’ve got no problem with it. It’s just my honest position on it.
[00:13:13.290] – Haroon Q. Raja
I don’t disagree in that. I’m not calling your opinion incorrect in this regard. It’s just that you can’t go wrong with Omnisand either. It’s like the different positions, they’re all correct.
[00:13:26.410] – Jonathan Denwood
They’re a pretty good platform, aren’t they? It’s a mature platform. And their sponsorship is most welcome. They’ve been a great sponsor of the show. I think that’s the main area that causes confusion, because these native WordPress solutions will not actually physically send out the email. You’ve got to buy the interface and the logic, but then you’ve got to buy the engine That sends them out.
[00:14:01.540] – Haroon Q. Raja
The email sending service. Yes.
[00:14:04.820] – Jonathan Denwood
I call it engine because I think it’s a bit easier to explain it to a client. With active campaign, you don’t have those two elements because the two elements are combined. But there’s a price to be paid for that, and that is the actual physical price compared to what… And I’ve… Active Campaign, I wouldn’t say that their pricing in any shape or form is misleading, but their opening gamut is set at a low level. I think it starts at around 500 contacts or people in your database, or it could be 500 emails.
[00:14:57.030] – Haroon Q. Raja
Active Campaign?
[00:14:58.050] – Jonathan Denwood
I think it’s contacts that they It starts at 1,000. It starts at 1,000, yeah. I’ve chosen the 2,500 bracket because I think between 1,000 and 2,500, you’re covering almost 90% of users. If you take that price, it starts at $39, but you are going to probably want to use the medium product. That’s the one that they promote, which is their plus. And for 2,500, That’s $95.
[00:15:49.160] – Haroon Q. Raja
And then I got the- I’m not mad here.
[00:15:50.810] – Jonathan Denwood
And then I got the next one, which is the Pro, and that’s $149. I think I’m using, if you to pay monthly, and that’s at 2,500 contacts. But I thought that was a more honest place to have the discussion. What do you feel about what I’ve done here? Do you think? Or would you have started at the thousand? I just think if you just put it to 2,500, you’re covering, like I say, 90% of users. Can you follow my logic, Arun?
[00:16:29.590] – Haroon Q. Raja
I For a vast majority of small local businesses, especially small to maybe medium-sized local businesses, 2,500 would be a very reasonable starting point. A thousand would be way too little, and 5,000 could be something they reach six months down the line, so they may not require to start off with that. I wanted to clarify that what Jonathan mentioned here were monthly prices, because when we discuss the pricing of the other two, those are annual. There’s a huge difference. These are monthly pricing plans. Yes, the starter for $2,500 at $39 a month, I For any serious business, that’s jump change. Even 95 a month plus plan should be jump change. But you are severely limited in the number of contacts and that’s something… I personally don’t prefer to be built according to the number of contacts I have in a system. But then when you consider that this includes the number of emails that goes out, it could balance out on your- That’s you.
[00:17:53.020] – Jonathan Denwood
Excuse me.
[00:17:55.800] – Haroon Q. Raja
In your use case, it might balance out. But to me, I want to Just pay the price of the tool as the rental of the tool, and then pay as I go based on the resource usage in terms of the emails that go out rather than arbitrary plan changes based on number of users I have in the system.
[00:18:15.440] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I see where you come. When it comes to active compaing, do you actually know they’ve got their starter plan, which is 39, but then they’ve got the middle plan, which they push, which starts at 95, at 2,500? Is Is there a big difference in functionality between the starter and the plus? Do you actually know? Is there anything that’s really missing or is it arbitrary extras that they’re providing at the plus level?
[00:18:45.380] – Haroon Q. Raja
There are quite some key feature differences. For example, in automations, where you add triggers and actions to automate different processes, chains of emails or business logic, In the starter plan, you’re only allowed up to five actions in every automation. You cannot have an automation with even six actions. But for plus, pro, and enterprise, actions in every automation are unlimited.
[00:19:12.400] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, that was the main thing that I observed because they really do restrict you on the starter plan with the actual optimizations to, I thought, a very arbitrary level. I really think you You’re going to be looking at the plus very quickly, which is $95. Would you agree with that?
[00:19:36.350] – Haroon Q. Raja
Yeah. And also the starter plan limits you in terms of their web forms as well. They could be just utilized within active campaigns ecosystem. I think you… External embedding is… Because it’s standard and inline only. I’m not 100% sure what they mean by standard here, but inline is like in utilization in your active campaign ecosystem, primarily.
[00:20:06.180] – Jonathan Denwood
Now, with Fluent CRM or Groundhog, if you’re using it… I don’t know about the other two that Haru mentioned, But if you use Sendgrid as your engine, your email sending engine, I think it’s about you can send out 100,000 email for around slightly under $20 a month at Sendgrid. They do offer a free plan, but it’s really very restrictive and it’s not worth it. But the next plan up, you can send out 100,000 email And now then with Fluent CRM, they do offer special discount deals, but I’m going with their normal level plans that are not on special offer. With Fluent CRM, and these are yearly price plans, then Fluent starts for one website for $129. I think that’s very attractive. And Groundhog, they’ve got a slightly more complicated pricing plan. Their Basic starts at $240, and they’ve got Basic, Plus, and Pro. Do Can you explain, are there any fundamental… What are the fundamental differences that you get with Groundhog between, let’s say, their basic, that starts at 240, and their Plus, which is 480. That’s a sizable jump. That’s almost double. That is double in price. What’s the main difference is in Groundhog between their Basic and their Plus, Haru?
[00:22:02.180] – Haroon Q. Raja
The overall difference between all of their plans is the add-ons that are included in each. If you just need a drag and drop email editor that you can connect with your SMTP-based sending service, not API-based, SMTP-based sending service of your choice, and countdown timers, form styling, superlinks, which are tracking links, and some funnel steps and support. That’s their core plan, the basic plan.
[00:22:37.130] – Jonathan Denwood
But if you need- That’s something I want to point out, Harun. I think that’s one of the fundamental differences between Groundhog and Fluent CRM approach. Fluent doesn’t offer a lot of additional add-on services, where Groundhog has a whole library, a very extensive library of add-on services that you might find attractive or you might not find attractive, where Fluent CRM really concentrates on the core of either building a newsletter or sending out marketing optimization. And to fairness, Groundhog does that equally as well. But it also offers this enormous library of add-ons which you might find attractive or you might not. Am I on the right track there, Harry?
[00:23:41.220] – Haroon Q. Raja
Yes. You’re right. And in my professional I have a real experience of implementing them for clients, I have often found, even for small business clients and even for individual professional consultants, like public speakers and all, I’ve found running We’re going to feature limitations when using Fluent CRM on occasions, where switching over to Groundhog pretty much eliminated all of those limitations because I am an agency partner of Groundhog, implementation partner from the very start, and I have access to the agency plan where I get access to every single feature of theirs for my clients. I was able to resolve that limitation within one day of switching to Groundhog, because now I’m going to come major feature differences, like what you get with Plus and Pro compared to just a basic plan.
[00:24:36.120] – Jonathan Denwood
With Plus- I personally, I’ll leave that a little bit later on. Okay. Because we got another five minutes before we go for our break. But one thing I would like to cover before we don’t go for a break, because I think the intro has been quite extensive and taken up a fair bit of time, but I think it’s been really useful, is what do you see as some of the major strengths and weaknesses of the actual interfaces that they provide? Because I think that’s another key area. So let’s start with Fluent.
[00:25:20.070] – Haroon Q. Raja
Actually, I’ll start with Active.
[00:25:23.820] – Jonathan Denwood
All right, yeah. Go on then. What do you see as its great strengths and weaknesses when it comes to the actual interface? Interface?
[00:25:30.950] – Haroon Q. Raja
I don’t, frankly, see lots of strengths when it comes to its actual interface. Well, it is very SaaS-like. It’s like big SaaS applications. If you’re familiar with them, if you’ve used them in the past, you’d feel more at home in their end case.
[00:25:47.660] – Jonathan Denwood
I think, listeners and viewers, I think what Harun is trying to say there is it’s a very powerful tool aimed at the marketing professional, but it’s not got a friendly, fuzzy feel to it. It’s got the feel of a professional-level marketing tool.
[00:26:12.290] – Haroon Q. Raja
I wouldn’t necessarily say you I don’t use the term professional level here. That doesn’t mean I’m saying they’re unprofessional. It’s more of, from my perspective, coming from self-hosted solutions where I have full control over things I don’t feel as at home over there. It feels more corporate and more bloated with everything but the kitchen sink thrown in. That’s the feel. But hey, for some organizations, that might be a good thing. For some consultants who are coming from a background of primarily SaaS tools, that might be a good thing. It’s a bit subjective.
[00:26:43.110] – Jonathan Denwood
If you’re coming from some sales force or some corporate level marketing platform or HubSpot, yeah. And you’ve managed to get yourself out of their yearly contract by cutting your right-hand off and escaping the entrapment of HubSpot because they are the worst of the worst, folks. And you’re not prepared to go to WordPress. You’re still enamored by the world of SaaS. You’re going to be very at home with active campaign. Would you agree with my sarcasm there, Harry?
[00:27:28.290] – Haroon Q. Raja
Spot on. And their funnel builder. Where are you going to actually spend a lot of your time building automations? That, unfortunately, it can get really messy, really fast because you start off at a point, and then it branches, and it branches, and it branches, and it branches, and it branches, until there’s no tomorrow. And there’s a little in the way of restricting someone from making it way too complex for their own good.
[00:27:59.320] – Jonathan Denwood
Now, when it comes to Fluent, they have adapted the interface to some extent of active campaign. But do you think it’s a little bit easier to use? Oh, yes. But they have adapted the interface in some ways of Active Campaign. Why is it a little bit easier to use?
[00:28:25.260] – Haroon Q. Raja
It feels a bit more modern and less slow, less clunky, because in Active Campaign, if you’ve got a really big, complex funnel, the overall UX, the overall zooming and scrolling and all, and then getting into the nitty-gritty of every particular action can get really clunky really fast. Fluent CRM, again, one of the reasons why I pretty much always prefer Groundhog over them is their funnel building is more inspired by active campaign than a more innovative manner. But that said, it feels like, especially on good hosting, it feels It feels snappier and a good computer as well, because all the client-side components are going to be loaded and running on your computer. So it feels snappier, it feels less unruly.
[00:29:12.270] – Jonathan Denwood
When it comes to Groundhog, am I correct in saying that? I don’t know if they’ve changed their interface, but when I was looking at it, they utilize what I call a waterfall interface where it steps step by step. They’re not utilizing a diagram-based interface, which I describe to active, campaign, and fluent. But it’s great to hear that you think fluent has actually done a better job. And I actually- Slightly. I actually prefer the Groundhog step by step interface. But I think, especially if you’re dealing with simple to moderately complex set-ups, I think that step-by-step interface breaks down to some extent when you’re dealing with more complicated. But you could argue that’s actually a good feature because people have a tendency to build over complicated marketing. They go potty. They just go absolutely beserk in building. Actually, it not coping that well with ridiculously complicated set-ups, I see as a blessing in some ways. How do you respond to that?
[00:30:38.960] – Haroon Q. Raja
Well, that’s true as well. But that’s not to say that it limits you. It just helps you build in a way that modularises everything. Because instead of having everything in one flowchart with every single branch on the same screen to manage, you could have five or six different funnels. And in the primary funnel where clients land, where your potential leads or customers land. Over there, the first set of automations can run, and within there, you can apply tags. Then in the new funnel, that could be triggered by a tag being applied from an old funnel. Once they perform a certain step, they don’t need to remain in the same funnel. They can be moved over to a new funnel. You can manage 6, 7, 8, 10, 20 different funnels, each in its own modular way, rather than putting everything in one giant flowchart that is a headache to manage. It doesn’t limit you. I’ve built extremely complex automations in Groundhog utilizing a dozen funnels coming from active campaign where it was being done in one funnel that was a nightmare to manage. You don’t get limited, but you get a more modular, more organized approach.
[00:31:46.230] – Jonathan Denwood
It’s quite funny, folks, really, because a lot of people criticize and still do criticize Groundhog for that actual interface, but I actually see it as one of its strengths. I’m critical about some other aspects of Groundhog, but I’m not critical of that, actually. And that’s where it gets most of its criticism, but I don’t see it as a weakness. I actually totally understand why- I’d like to add one thing here.
[00:32:20.970] – Haroon Q. Raja
Those of us who’ve been around, sticking around with Ground Dog for a while, we actually protested when they came up with the idea of changing the system to a more active campaign like one, because this is one of the core reasons for sticking with it. And over time, people who were previously critical of it after using it, they’ve also seen the value. And now they swear by this.
[00:32:42.790] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I actually see it as a good thing, but I am critical about some other aspects of it, which I… But I do prefer… I’m in a different position than Harun. I actually prefer CRM. But Especially because if you combine it with fluent forms and fluent booking, I think you’ve got a very powerful combination there, which gives the core elements that the end users that I’m working with is utilizing. But it’s not black and white here, folks. It’s a gray solution. I think we’re in a good place, folks, to go for our middle break. We’ll be back with some other great information about these great solutions. We will be back in a few moments, folks. Three, two, one. We’re coming back, folks. We’ve had a feast, a feast of Fluent CRM, Groundhog, and Active Campaign. I think we’ve kept it reasonably interesting, or Haruun has tried to keep it reasonably interesting. But before we go into the Second half, I just want to point out we’ve got a great resource for you folks. If you’re looking to build your membership community website on WordPress, we’ve got a Facebook group that is a great community of WordPress developers, plus people like you trying to build a membership website on WordPress.
[00:34:23.560] – Jonathan Denwood
It’s the Membership Machine Facebook group. It’s totally free. Go over and have a look at it. I’m posting new content on it almost every day, and it’s a great resource if you’re looking to get some free advice or support. So let’s move on. So we covered user interest and strengths, and I think that was very useful. What about how it works with other services? Because this is where I criticize Groundhog a little bit, because Because they’ve tried to have everything in-house. They’ve tried to provide an add-on service. In some ways, I think it’s a philosophy more than anything, Haroon, where I think one of the strengths of Fluent is they haven’t attempted to build everything in-house. They’ve just made sure that it works well with other leading third-party tools. And there is no right or wrong in how you do this, but it’s just a different philosophy. And then when it comes to active campaign, maybe we can talk about how well that works with WordPress. Let’s start off. Would you agree with what I’ve just said about Flirent compared to Groundhog and their different philosophies? Would you agree with that statement that I came out with?
[00:35:56.330] – Haroon Q. Raja
Not necessarily. This is one of the rare situations where we don’t agree on something in terms of a philosophical manner rather than something that’s just an opinion. Because based on my experience with both tools, I see that Groundhog does provide integrations with lots and lots of leading tools in the WordPress ecosystem rather than building those features within it. The few, very few features countable on fingertips of one hand that it has built on on its own that are generally third-party services with which you integrate would be a sales pipeline. But I think a sales pipeline is an important part of a CRM and marketing automation solution in the first place. I personally think sales pipeline does belong in there. There’s another one which is a booking calendar. So event booking calendar, that’s something in which one could very reasonably argue that, Hey, let’s leave it to a third-party plugin or tool that specializes in it. Let’s just build an integration rather than having it in-house. And in terms of forms, Groundhog does offer very basic forms, like pretty much every CRM out there does. But it has excellent integrations with pretty much every WordPress form plugin out there, just the way Fluent CRM has excellent integrations, not just with their own form plugin, but also third-party plugins.
[00:37:21.130] – Haroon Q. Raja
So I don’t see a big difference in the two philosophies over here.
[00:37:26.930] – Jonathan Denwood
I think I didn’t explain myself very coherent. That’s not a surprise if you’ve been listening to this show, folks. But when it comes to facts, I totally agree with what you just said. I want to quantify what I’ve just said. I think in practical terms, what you’ve stated is the truth. But I think it’s a more subtle difference. I think for very understandable reason, Since 2000, Groundhog has built more of a… Attempted to build more of a SaaS platform in WordPress. And they’ve added all these third-party add-ons and services to make the Groundhog more sticky, more appealing, and more useful to its target audience. I I think with Fluent CRM, they’ve taken the more classical WordPress route, where they’re not attempting to have such a sas feeling tooling model than what Groundhog. I think that comes from the attitudes of the founders. I think the founder of Groundhog comes from a more SaaS corporate background founder of keep and confusion soft, as I call it. He comes from that background where the founder of Fluent comes from a WordPress agency plugin background.
[00:39:19.460] – Haroon Q. Raja
Plugin shop background, yeah. Because they’ve got a range of excellent plugins.
[00:39:21.530] – Jonathan Denwood
They have a range of excellent- Very two different philosophies when it comes to this. What would you say? I’ve just Do you feel I’m wrong or do you think I’ve got some truth in what I’ve just said?
[00:39:38.330] – Haroon Q. Raja
In terms of difference of the background where they’re coming from, you’re spot on. But in terms of getting more of a SaaS feel in ground Groundhog, I’ve never felt that way. I felt very similarly about both of these in terms of their philosophy of being WordPress plugins where they have a massive integration set with most of the other tools. They play a ball with other plugins in the ecosystem rather than trying to build every feature in-house so that you don’t have to use third-party plugins. They all play very nicely. Even though they’re competitors, Groundhog is an excellent integration with fluid forms as well.
[00:40:15.650] – Jonathan Denwood
When it comes to active campaign, I don’t even know if they provide a native WordPress plugin. I would imagine they do. I would imagine it doesn’t work that well. Am I correct in saying that if you really want Active Campaign to work in a usable, functional way with your WordPress site, you’re going to have to buy another plugin, which is WP Fusion. Would you agree with that? If you really want your WordPress website to work with Active Campaign, you’re going to have to buy WP Fusion, or would you disagree with that?
[00:41:00.700] – Haroon Q. Raja
It depends on the use case. In a lot of more advanced, even intermediate to advanced use cases, spot on. Absolutely right. Because their plugin just gives you forms to capture leads from your site, gives you some user tracking on the site, and integration with the ActiveCampaign’s chat feature. But other than that, advanced segmentation Any automation triggers based on native user actions like someone buys a product, someone signs up for a membership, someone completes a lesson in a course and all. For all of that, segmenting contacts based on that, on advanced sites with e-commerce, advanced sites with learning management systems, advanced sites with memberships. For that, you’re going to definitely need the excellent WP Fusion, which is built for connecting WordPress with tools like Active Campaign and other third-party SaaS, CRM, and marketing automation tools.
[00:42:06.190] – Jonathan Denwood
So yeah, you’re right. I don’t know. I want to check if I’m right about this because I have some knowledge of these systems. Obviously, hopefully I’ve shown that to you, listeners and viewers, but Haru is working with these systems on a day-to-day basis. I’m not. I used to, but I don’t now. But I I still keep myself educated about them to some extent because I have to advise clients to a certain degree. Am I correct in saying, of these external SaaS marketing, optimization platforms that with WP Fusion, what it offers with Active Campaign, its integration with Active Campaign is one of the most best integrations compared to some of the other SaaS platforms. Would I be right about that?
[00:43:09.030] – Haroon Q. Raja
You would be right. In fact, they do have this chart where they even score their integrations with third-party platforms, and among them, active campaign scores one of the highest.
[00:43:24.780] – Jonathan Denwood
The reason why we’re saying that, if you really see it, I would say this, folks, I don’t know if Haru will agree with me. If unless you’re only using active campaign in a lower level way, and then I would question, is it really worthwhile utilizing active campaign? If you’re using it for a medium to high level, which I think the value proposition that active campaign gives becomes more logical. If you really want it to work with your WordPress website, you’re really going to have to buy WP Fusion, and it works really well. Your WordPress website with whatever form plugin, with WP Fusion. And that’s around tagging rather than using a list metaphor. When most people are getting into marketing optimization. They find the metaphor of having users in specific lists easier to grasp. But as your experience and your requirements increases. There are very strong limitations about utilizing lists as a sorting metaphor, and tagging becomes much more powerful and flexible. But it takes a little while for you to grasp what tagging is about compared to lists which are more easier to grasp initially. Would you agree with what I’ve just said, Heron?
[00:45:21.670] – Haroon Q. Raja
I completely agree. And after working with these systems for several years now, I don’t even I don’t use lists anymore. I just use tags because, hey, functionally, you want to send an email to a segment. A tag is there as a segment. So list becomes redundant to me. Having both lists and tags even becomes redundant to me. So, yeah, list Tagging is, I find, the most efficient, the more no frills way of working with the segmentation.
[00:45:54.230] – Jonathan Denwood
I don’t know with Groundhog, but I know with CRM, they enable you to do lists and tagging, and they will even allow you to… I think I’m correct about this. I would have to double check, mate. Probably Harun knows this. You can mix the two up. I would strongly advise you not to do that because that’s the worst of any world. Oh, yes. But if you’re starting out, it’s probably you’re going to be easier that you start with list metaphor if you’re fluent. But I would try and get yourself educated. And then if you’re happy to go the tagging route, don’t combine the list with tagging. Either you’re going to stay with the list and then you can convert it to tag in and then just use tagging. Don’t mix the two up together. I don’t know if Flouent, I mean, Groundhog allows you to mix lists and tagging together.
[00:47:01.590] – Haroon Q. Raja
Groundhog doesn’t offer lists at all in the first place.
[00:47:04.750] – Jonathan Denwood
It doesn’t offer. So you don’t have that problem.
[00:47:07.120] – Haroon Q. Raja
That’s one thing where I disagree with the fluence philosophy. Why offer a redundant segmentation system in form of lists and tags when just having one serves the purpose perfectly? In a way, I totally agree.
[00:47:28.260] – Jonathan Denwood
Sorry, go on.
[00:47:30.240] – Haroon Q. Raja
Whenever I have clients using Fluent CRM, I tell them to forget that the system has a list functionality and just stick with tags from day one, and it works wonderfully for them. Less confusion. They just ignore the list feature altogether.
[00:47:46.390] – Jonathan Denwood
Yes, please. I’m not disagreeing with you. The only thing I would say is at the beginning of what I said, if you’re new to marketing automation and you don’t want to hire somebody to help you, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you’ve got no experience in this area. Based on my experience of dealing with those type of individuals, they just find dealing with the list metaphor much easier to grasp. But there is a… It’s a bit like a bicycle. Do you want to put stabilizers on it? It will increase you learning. But some people say, Don’t bother, just learn how to ride a bike and fall off a little more often when you’re learning. But it’s not worth the hassles of putting the stabilizers on. Other people would totally disagree because they say they don’t want their three-year-old child falling off their bike. They just want to put the stabilizers on. You’re going…
[00:48:57.080] – Haroon Q. Raja
Sorry, go ahead. The way I tell them is I tell them that tags are lists, so then in their head, they ask me, Why are lists still there? I tell them, Lists are still there for backward.
[00:49:09.220] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s why you’re a consultant, and I’m not, because you explain better than me. I don’t make it.
[00:49:17.560] – Haroon Q. Raja
They’re like, Oh, okay, so tags are lists. Okay, fine. We’ll stick with tags.
[00:49:22.770] – Jonathan Denwood
Now, when it comes to active campaign, do they have a mixture of lists of tags, or is it just tags with active They do have a mixture of both hands, well, unfortunately. It’s true because just take it for me, folks. Do not mix the two. Either you’re going to stay with lists, but you’re going to, especially in the world of active campaign, you’re going to… Because a lot of the more advanced functionality is dependent in using the tagging metaphor rather than the list. Am I correct about that? Because When I was more actively involved in helping customers, they hit that wall with active campaign quite quickly. Would you agree?
[00:50:15.210] – Haroon Q. Raja
I agree. I’d like to add a few key pieces of information here. There’s also another concept of dynamic lists or dynamic tags that exist in multiple tools. When you set up segment and you need to send something to that segment, keep the distinction in mind. There are static tags in lists, and then there are dynamic tags or lists. So Fluent CRM had both ideas from day one. Groundhog recently implemented the second one. They previously just had static tags. So here’s the difference. Let’s say a particular tag has 1,000 people tagged in it today, and you schedule a broadcast email for the next week. By next week, only the 1,000 that were present at the time of you scheduling the broadcast would receive it. Maybe over the course of the next week, due to automations, 50 have been removed from that tag, and then A hundred have been added. Those will not be accounted for when it comes to sending to a static segmentation, be it a static list or a static tag. But when it comes to sending to dynamic tags, it will account for their segmentation at the point in time when it gets sent.
[00:51:34.680] – Haroon Q. Raja
If you schedule a broadcast right now to a particular tag for after the week when it gets sent, at the point in time when it gets sent, if there are a hundred If it has 1,000 people tagged, it will get sent to 100 people. If it has a 1,000 people tagged, it will get sent to those 1,000 people. This distinction can be quite important depending on what you’re trying to do. Because someone might have performed an operation on the site, When they’ve finished the course, and they no longer need to receive that email, then you would prefer to use dynamic tags.
[00:52:09.050] – Jonathan Denwood
Now, when it comes… You’ve got the free product, Mail light, which has a very generous, and then you got something I wouldn’t recommend, like constant contact. I have no idea why people use that, or Mailchimp. I wouldn’t recommend Mailchimp now. I think they’ve fallen behind. But then you got something like active campaign, and then you’ve got Send Blue, but I think it’s renamed now. I forgot what the rename is. Breville.
[00:52:50.560] – Haroon Q. Raja
Yeah, Breville now. Breville.
[00:52:55.150] – Jonathan Denwood
I think there’s easier to use Breville or Omicent. There’s 2-3. I think active campaign only makes sense if you’re looking for a medium to upper-level marketing optimization system. And for whatever reason, your governor or your IT manager, whatever I won’t consider utilizing WordPress compared to by getting into the clutsches, and I really mean the clutsches of the HubSpot sales team. I think, or even worse, the sales force, sales team. Getting into the clutsches of those two particular sales teams I think active campaign makes a lot of sense. But if you’re allowed more freedom, I think either Flune or Groundhog makes a lot more logic than active campaign. Would you agree with what I’ve just said? Agreed.
[00:54:24.540] – Haroon Q. Raja
I 100% agree. I want to add something else based on my experience when choosing between Fluent and Groundhog. With this particular client, we have a funnel setup where every week, from their internal system, we need to import contacts that come in a CSV file. When I import them into Groundhog, these small things may matter to people in the long run because that particular feature can be a deal breaker, as was with this particular client. When we import that CSV into our system for our funnel setup in Groundhog, we need to know when each of those new contacts in their in-house system was created. The entire timestamp of their created date comes in that CSV in the export. But when importing that into Groundhog, Groundhog lets us map a particular field in a CSV to the date-created field in the CRM. But with Fluent CRM, when you’re importing contacts, they will be imported into their system based on the timestamp of the time you’re importing them. You cannot give them a different created date time based on the external system from which they’re coming, which might be a deal breaker in specific automation.
[00:55:52.990] – Haroon Q. Raja
Because I do that import once a week for that client, the people who were added six days ago need to be imported accordingly in Groundhog to have an accurate timeline of when they’re joined. I cannot do that with Fluent CRM. They don’t have that mapping feature. These are the things that you need to consider as well. Also, for some clients, proper and fully native SMS sending in the CRM might be an absolute requirement rather than connecting with a third-party SMS service. The sending service would be third-party, but the core feature of utilizing a sending service is to manage SMS campaigns and send out SMS campaigns that need to be a part of the core CRM. In that case, Fluent CRM has also been a deal breaker for me.
[00:56:48.050] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, you won’t get out with Fluent, no. However, the same thing applies to SaaS systems. That’s why you have to do homework or hire somebody to advise you because what Haroon has just outlined about some of the differences between the native systems are there with the SaaS-based systems. There are things about active campaign that drives clients crazy. I want to point out that it’s not an attack on active campaigns because their support is pretty good compared to some of the other SaaS-based platforms I’ve had to deal with, but it doesn’t compare with… I think one of the strengths of Fluent, based on my experience, is they’re very proactive in responding. Based on my experience, Groundhog can be either fantastic or relatively poor. And your experience with Groundhog can vary. You might disagree with my statement because your experience doesn’t match mine. But I don’t think what I’ve just said is outrageous because a few people have said that. Where with the fluent, I think most people have had a pretty good experience with them.
[00:58:19.510] – Jonathan Denwood
But many people would disagree with me there, but I’m not saying that out of spite. It’s based on what I’ve observed and what others have said.
[00:58:33.960] – Haroon Q. Raja
In my personal experience, I’ve always received excellent support from Groundhog. But in my observation, I’ve seen more people happy with the fluency arm support than with Groundhog support. My personal experience doesn’t align with it, but hey, that’s my personal experience. I have also to consider the experience of a community as a whole. In my observation, the community has had a better experience with Fluent CRM support.
[00:59:04.050] – Jonathan Denwood
And with both to defend Groundhog and Fluent, if something is regularly flagged up, there is a chance that it will be coded into the main application. You’re never going to find that with an active campaign. You might be waiting years upon years. And I’ve known people screaming for some functionality, and they’ve constantly been going on. And four years later, it will never appear in an active campaign.
[00:59:40.700] – Haroon Q. Raja
For an organization of that scale, individual customers are mere statistics. Even if their billing is in thousands of dollars a month, one particular customer is like one statistic on their balance sheet. However, for smaller companies like WP Manage, Ninja, makers of Fluent CRM, or Groundhog, a user matters a lot more. A particular one-user account makes much more of a difference compared to giant corporations like active campaigns. Yeah.
[01:00:13.330] – Jonathan Denwood
All right. So, Harun, where can people learn more about you and chat with you? What’s the best way for people to get hold of you?
[01:00:25.650] – Haroon Q. Raja
They can visit my website, hqraja. My initial name is H, and my middle name is H. Sorry, hqraja. com. And over there, they can fill out the form to contact me.
[01:00:40.810] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, you’ll find all the links to all the products we’ve discussed, plus the links to Haru, on the WP-Tonic episode page for this particular podcast or video. You’ll find all the content links and additional info there. It usually goes up on the same day as when the podcast goes up. Sometimes, I lax in that, and it goes up a day after, but it will be up generally around the same week as the podcast goes up. So don’t worry; go to the WP-Tonic website and find all the show notes there. We will return next week with either guest Harun or Kirek, my other regular co-host. We will be covering something that you will find helpful to make your journey in membership or community more accessible and more insightful. We will be back soon, folks. Bye.
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