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How to send your campaign emails through Active Campaign
How to send your campaign emails through Active Campaign

Sending out campaign e-mails from Active Campaign. How to do this?

Fivos Stergiannis avatar
Written by Fivos Stergiannis
Updated over 3 years ago

Step 1: Enable the integration with Active Campaign and choose the campaign participants' list.


Note: We suggest you create a new list to segment the participants of your campaign.


You will need two things to complete the integration: the ActiveCampaign URL and the ActiveCampaign API Key.


These can be found in your account on the Settings page under the "Developer" tab. Each user in your ActiveCampaign account has its own unique API key.


Step 2: You will notice that except for e-mails, some additional data are passing from Viral Loops to ActiveCampaign, as contact custom fields.


The tricky part: If the user needs the Custom Fields that are added by Viral Loops to be visible in the contact view, then they have to edit them in their ActiveCampaign Dashboard → Forms → Manage Fields:


You have to click edit for each of the custom fields - advanced options - available in lists - select the list you send your campaign participants to.



Extra fields

If the campaign has extra fields in the form, these will be sent to ActiveCampaign too. If the field is "My awesome input", the field in ActiveCampaign (and Mailchimp also) will have the same name, and a bit transformed tag:


Name Tag

My awesome input MY_AWESOME


Important: Keep the tag to max 10 characters and make sure it doesn't contain any spaces.



Custom fields:


Use these custom fields in ActiveCampaign to personalize your e-mails, newsletters and integrate the referral campaign in them.


Personalization Tag

Name

Description

REFCODE

Referral Code

The referral code of the contact.

REFSOURCE

Referral Source

The referral source of the contact.

REFEMAIL

Referrer E-mail

The e-mail of the contact's referrer.

REFFNAME

Referrer First Name

The first name of the contact's referrer.

REFLNAME

Referrer Last Name

The last name of the contact's referrer.

REFERRALS

Total Referrals

The number of referrals of the contact.

SHAREURL

Share URL

The sharing URL of the contact.

CHECKREF

Check Referrals URL

The URL where the contacts can check their referrals.

XREFERRALS

X Referrals

The number of referrals away from the next milestone.



You can use these custom fields to trigger e-mails, make the e-mails more personalized, and include campaign information for each participant separately, e.g., include the unique referral link in each e-mail.


Trigger e-mails based on custom fields:


You want to send out the Welcome e-mail or Milestone e-mails from your ActiveCampaign account? All you have to do is use the ActiveCampaign's automation tool and create the e-mail sequence you want based on your participant's behavior.


ActiveCampaign uniquely offers more than 20 start triggers that you can use to determine how contacts will enter your automation.


Let's take a look at how you can trigger the Welcome e-mail and the Milestone e-mails:


Welcome e-mail:


The start trigger you should use is the "Subscribes to a list," You select the list you send your campaign participants.



Milestone e-mails (let's say the first Milestone):


The "start trigger" you should use is the "Field Changes." Then, at the dropdown menu of "Fields," select "Contact fields" and pick the custom field "Total Referrals."


From = Any value

To = A specific value = (the number of referrals required for the first Milestone, e.g., 2




Insert custom fields within e-mails:


ActiveCampaign generates personalization tags for every custom field you create. This includes custom contact fields.


In addition, your account comes with a list of standard personalization tags. Each of these tags can be inserted into your communications.


When a personalization tag is used in a campaign or automation e-mail, the value of that tag will automatically be inserted once the communication is sent to a contact. When the contact opens the communication, they will see the value for that tag and not the tag itself.


For example, if you wanted to address contacts by their first name in an e-mail, you would insert the following personalization tag:

%FIRSTNAME%


An easier way to insert a personalization tag is to use the “personalize” button when you edit the text of your e-mail. Click this button and select the personalization tag you want to use:


If you want just to type them, use the name of the personalization tag starting and ending with the percentage symbol %.

Your referral code is %REFCODE%

Your referral code is: Ohs328g

note: this is something you should not use on each own

Your unique referral link is %SHAREURL%

Your unique referral code is: unique referral code

You have %REFERRALS% referrals till now.

You have 1 referrals till now.

You can check your progress here: %CHECKREF%

note: you can have this personalization tag within a button on your e-mail.

You can check your progress here: link of your campaign

You need %XREFERRALS% to reach the next Milestone

You need 2 referrals to reach the next Milestone

Using these instructions, you can customize your ActiveCampaigns e-mails and create the e-mail flow/automation you want.


Be creative and remember, Viral Loops is part of your product. Blend it in and make the most out of it!


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