Setting Up a New ActiveCampaign Account

Note: This is a process-in-progress and will be expanded on soon, but for now this will at least provide you with a checklist of all the steps needed to create & set up a new customer’s ActiveCampaign account

As part of the onboarding process with a new customer, please do the following steps between the kickoff call and the marketing launch date.

This replaces the former process for setting up a new Mailchimp account, but the core tasks (create email template, lead gen automation, and forms, upload contacts) remain the same. The breakdown of assignments for who is responsible for each of those tasks also remains the same.

  1. Create New ActiveCampaign Account
    1. Reach out to Kevin Shroat and request a new ActiveCampaign account be created. Provide the following:
      – customer’s business name
      – URL
      – email address for sends
    2. Meagan will provide the new account URL (e.g. customername.activehosted.com) and will ensure that the csm-team@ and content-team@ emails will both be on the account as users, accessible via Keeper login.
    3. Important: Wait to upload the customer’s contact list! The new account will be a trial account for the first 14 days, enabling us to get things set up before paying, but we can’t upload contacts until we’re ready to start billing.
      – As always, run new customer lists through TheChecker prior to importing them to ActiveCampaign.
    4. Want help from ActiveCampaign’s dedicated Migration team? They’ll migrate lists, templates, forms, and automation for free as part of our service! They’ll just need the login credentials for our client’s former email platform and specifics on what to migrate. Fill out the form here to submit a request once the domain is set up. Link: https://www.activecampaign.com/migrate/request/
  2. Add Address to Account
    1. In ActiveCampaign, go to Settings > Address
    2. Click “Add an Address” and add the customer’s business name and address.
  3. Enable Tracking
    1. In ActiveCampaign, go to Settings > Tracking
    2. Turn on the toggle under “Site Tracking”
    3. In the “Whitelist and Install Code” section, copy your customer’s homepage URL and paste it into the “Add Website URL” box. Leave “Include all website pages” checked and click “Add”.
  4. Create a List
    1. Go to Lists > Add a List.
    2. Name the list something simple (customer’s name is fine)
    3. Put in the customer’s website for the URL.
    4. In List Description, paste in the following: “You are receiving this email because you previously signed up or have made a reservation with us.”
  5. Create an Email Template
    1. Go to Campaigns > Manage Templates and click “Create a Template”
    2. Use the email editor to style out a basic template that matches the customer’s branding.
    3. Incorporate their logo into the header, match the colors, fonts, and button styles used on their new website (or website mockup) as best as possible.
    4. In the top, horizontal styling menu, next to “Links,” select the color you want hyperlinks to show as. It is suggested that you match the color of your heading text, since in most cases you will be linking your headings and you don’t want them to turn blue (the default color).
    5. Once the template is styled, mouse over each section type (body copy, header, and button), click the gear icon, and click “Save to Content Library. Name them basic things like “button template” or “body copy template” so you can easily insert new sections with the correct styling. These can be accessed via Insert > Saved in the right-hand menu of the email editor.
    6. Hit “Save & exit” in the top right once you are happy with your template.
  6. Create Forms
    1. Go to Site (globe icon) > Forms > Create a Form. You’ll be making a basic newsletter signup form, as well as one form per lead gen campaign.
      1. Select the Master Contact List Option (however it’s labeled for your customer)
      2. Title your first form “Newsletter Signup”
      3. Ensure the Form Style is selected as “Inline.”
      4. The only field needed is Email Address.
      5. Change the button text to “Subscribe,” “Join Our Newsletter,” or something else more engaging than “Submit”.
      6. Under the Style tab, style the form’s button to match the website (e.g. background color, square vs rounded corners, etc.)
      7. At the bottom of the Style tab, make sure “AC Branding” is turned off to remove the ActiveCampaign logo.
      8. On the Options tab, set the “On Submit” action to “Show Thank You”.
      9. Under “Form Action” click “Add an Action,” select “Subscribe to List,” and select the list you previously created.
      10. IMPORTANT: Once you select a list, an “Options” box will display with “Opt-in Confirmation” turned on by default. You MUST set this to “Off”. 
      11. Click the blue “Integrate” button in the top right once you’re done and then click “Save and Exit” (you’ll manage the integration later via the WordPress plugin)
    2. Click “Create a From” again
      1. Select the Master Contact List Option (however it’s labeled for your customer)
      2. Title this form “Vacation Guide” (or “Itinerary” or whatever lead gen campaign you’ll be using).
      3. The form fields should include Email Address, First Name, and Last Name.
      4. Change the button text to “Get the Guide,” “Request Your Itinerary” or something else more engaging than “Submit”.
      5. Under the Style tab, style the form’s button to match the website (e.g. background color, square vs rounded corners, etc.)
      6. At the bottom of the Style tab, make sure “AC Branding” is turned off to remove the ActiveCampaign logo.
      7. On the Options tab, set the “On Submit” action to “Open URL”. Set the URL to the URL of the Thank-You page you have created / will be creating for the lead gen campaign.
      8. Under “Form Action” click “Add an Action,” select “Subscribe to List,” and select the list you previously created.
      9. IMPORTANT: Once you select a list, an “Options” box will display with “Opt-in Confirmation” turned on by default. You MUST set this to “Off”. 
      10. Click the blue “Integrate” button in the top right once you’re done and then click “Save and Exit” (you’ll manage the integration later via the WordPress plugin)
  7. Create the Lead Gen Automation
    1. Go to Automations and click “Create an Automation”
    2. Select “Start from Scratch” (we will eventually have a template you can import! but not yet…)
    3. On the “Add a Start Trigger” screen, select “Submits a Form” and select the Vacation Guide / Lead Gen form from the dropdown. Leave “Runs’ set to “Once” and click “Add Start”
    4. On the “Add a New Action” screen, select Contacts > Add a Tag and type in “Vacation Guide” in the “Tags to be Added” box (or “Itinerary or whatever your lead gen campaign is) and click “Save”
    5. Name the automation “Vacation Guide” (or “Itinerary or whatever lead gen campaign you’re using) > Save
    6. Click the plus sign under the “Add tag: Vacation Guide” step in the workflow. Click Sending Options > Send an Email
    7. Click the “Create an Email” link in the box that pops up.
    8. Make the initial vacation guide email (providing them with the link to the guide and the password), using the template you created previously. Make sure to set the header and preheader and to enable Google Analytics.
    9. Click the plus sign after the first email, select “Conditions and Workflow” and select “Wait”. Set the wait condition to “Wait for a specific period of time” and set it to 2 days.
    10. Click the plus sign below the Wait section, click “Sending Options” and select “Send an email”.
    11. Repeat steps h through j until you’ve added every email in the automation sequence.
    12. Click the plus sign after the final email, click “Conditions and Workflow” and select “End this automation”
    13. Once the automation is fully set up and reviewed, click “Active” in the top right corner to turn it on.
  8. Updating Forms & Plugin on the Website
    1. Activate the ActiveCampaign plugin on the customer website and link it to the customer’s ActiveCampaign account by adding the API URL and Key (under Settings > Developer), then hit “Update” to link the two, toggle the Site Tracking switch to “On” and save. – (CSM team)
    2. Once the ActiveCampaign plugin is set up, in WordPress, go to Settings > ActiveCampaign to view the forms you created and get the embed code. Copy the embed code for each form and paste it on the appropriate page.
    3. Confirm the styling of the forms looks good on the site using the Preview option before you Update and save the page.
    4. Before saving the page, use the Preview option to TEST THE FORMS. Confirm that the newsletter form triggers a Thank You message and that the Vacation Guide / Lead Gen form takes you to the appropriate thank-you page and that you get the first automated email shortly thereafter (should be within 10 minutes of filling out the form).
  9. Send a Test Email
    1. Before ever sending out an actual eblast, you need to send a test email out to internal contacts.
    2. Create a new list in your customer’s ActiveCampaign account titled “Test List” and add Megan, Kevin, the CSM, and the CC as subscribers to the test list.
    3. Create a new email campaign using the main template. The email content doesn’t really matter as it’s just for testing purposes.
      Send the test email to just the internal test list.
    4. Confirm receipt by all 4 contacts (Meagan, Kevin, CSM, and CC). Make sure emails have correct From address, no formatting issues, etc. Only after completing this step can you send an eblast to actual contacts.
  10. Upload Contacts
    1. Go to Contacts, click “Import” and import the cleaned (via TheChecker) contact list from the customer.
    2. You may need to add custom fields for the contacts depending on what fields are included in the file, such as City, State, Zip, Birthday, Past Guest, etc.
    3. Import the contacts as subscribers to the main list.
    4. If you have been given a list of unsubscribed contacts, you can import that as well (separately) and set the contacts’ statuses to “Unsubscribed” after you select the list to add them to.
  11. Update Billing
    1. After importing the contacts, you will likely get a message about having surpassed your contact limit, since you’re on a trial account. At this point, notify your manager and the Director of Innovation, who will update the billing information on the account and pay for the annual plan.
    2. Once the payment is made, you will be able to start sending eblasts out!
    3. IF you ever upload a lot of new contacts and get a message about having moved to a new billing tier, you will need to immediately notify the Director of Innovation in order for the account to be upgraded to the next billing tier. This is not automatic and you will not be able to send from the account after surpassing the contact limit until billing is manually updated.
    4. If, for any reason, the Director of Innovation is unavailable, you can reach out directly to ActiveCampaign via their support email, help@activecampaign.com.

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