ActiveCampaign Affiliate Program Review

If you’ve been looking for a different way of monetizing your website traffic and you tend to blog about marketing tools, in general, you’ve ended up in the perfect place. For today’s article, we’ve put together a review of the ActiveCampaign affiliate program. 

We’re giving you all of the information you might need before joining it, such as whether or not it is a high-earning solution, how you can get paid, and what alternatives there are to this email marketing affiliate program. 

ActiveCampaign Affiliate Marketing

What is ActiveCampaign?

ActiveCampaign has been around for approximately 20 years now and during that time, the brand has experienced a significant increase in popularity and number of users. 

In essence, it is a consulting firm, but it created a software that enables individuals, whether marketers or just website owners, to handle their email list and communicate with their subscribers — and also do outreach marketing.

 

The services now offered by the company range from anything like email marketing to sales automation, marketing automation, as well as a CRM that’s quite nifty particularly for startups. 

Probably one of the biggest selling points of ActiveCampaign is the fact that the software has a myriad of integrations with lots of separate apps, whether that be WooCommerce, Stripe, Shopify, PayPal, WordPress, and pretty much anything else you might need. 

What services can you promote to your audience as an ActiveCampaign affiliate?

There are roughly two types of plans that people can pick right from the company’s own website and they combine several different features. For example, the first is called Marketing & CRM and comes with features such as email, sales automation, as well as various types of marketing. 

The second type is called Transactional Email and it involves things like API and SMTP for the users’ applications or websites. 

Depending on whichever of these plan types people opt for, your earnings can vary a lot (but we will go into more detail on this in one of the sections below). For the Marketing & CRM services, the cheapest plan is billed at $29 per month while the most expensive one costs $149 per month and is called Enterprise. 

If you take the time to have a look at all of the functions included, we might go as far as to say that you may end up being impressed. For example, the marketing suite includes absolutely everything from site messages to SMS marketing, Facebook custom audience, a drag & drop email builder, as well as automation and unlimited sending. 

So, if you’re lucky enough to have an audience mostly composed of people who want to build their own business or are startup owners already, this software is definitely going to look attractive to them. 

The Transactional Email model involves Postmark, a service designed specifically for the purpose. But what does this mean? Well, sending out as many as 10,000 emails costs the user just $10 per month. 

How to become an ActiveCampaign affiliate

Perhaps the biggest drawback when it comes to the ActiveCampaign email marketing affiliate program is that you need to be a user of the platform yourself in order to be able to apply. 

This can be a significant drawback for someone who might already be using a different email service or who might just not be willing to pay for a whole year’s subscription. 

On the other hand, though, this makes it super easy for ActiveCampaign affiliate managers to separate the wheat from the chaff. When people pay for a product, their business is likely to be more serious, which means that the brand’s ads or affiliate links are not going to end up on as many shady websites as they could if they would allow everyone to join the program. 

Once you log in, you’ll immediately gain access to a variety of marketing tools that you can use to promote ActiveCampaign’s services on your website or blog. You will also be able to access the ActiveCampaign Affiliate Portal, where you can find all the info you need to take your performance to a whole new level and also understand your stats and reporting. 

ActiveCampaign affiliate payout and commissions

Here is what everyone reading this article is actually interested in. The most important benefit you should consider when trying to decide whether this program is for you or not is the recurring commission. 

ActiveCampaign pays you a 20% commission on all purchases made through your ActiveCampaign affiliate links. 

And perhaps uniquely when compared to some of the other recurring affiliate programs we have analyzed in the past, it does not involve a lower recurring commission, either. Each time someone renews their subscription, you will be paid the same rate. 

But wait, there’s more! 

There are actually tiers to this affiliate program, which means that if you improve your performance, you will actually be able to benefit from better commissions. For example, if you refer to around $500 in renewed subscriptions every month or at least $100 for new accounts in the past three months, your rate will become 25%.

A Platinum tier also exists and while it does involve a 30% commission for every referral, you have to have amassed either $2,000 in renewing subscriptions or at least $500 for new accounts also in the past three months. 

In any case, the good thing about this program is that you do not have to be restricted to the same rate for the future of your activity. 

Another detail that we need to note here is that the cookie lasts for 90 days, which isn’t bad given the fact that most of the other programs that we have looked at previously have a 30-day tracking cookie. 

In terms of payout, there is a minimum threshold, but that is to be expected with most of the other affiliate marketing programs out there right now ($100). From what we have gathered, ActiveCampaign uses a Net60 model, which means that after your commissions are approved, you will need to wait for two months before you can actually withdraw the money. 

On top of everything, it seems that the only payment method that the company uses at the time we’re writing this post is PayPal. This can be both an advantage and a drawback since PayPal does have a history of closing accounts, especially recently, and this payment system also has some pretty hefty fees. 

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ActiveCampaign Affiliate Marketing Policy

We strongly advise that you take some time to read the rules and regulations of this affiliate program and the reason for that is that you might inadvertently go against some of them and end up being booted out of it. 

Some of the things that we have to note in this section is that you need to have the same PayPal address as the email one that you provided when you created your ActiveCampaign account. You can’t change it later on, either. This is just a method for the brand to ensure that there aren’t several people using the same account. 

As is the case with any other program, as an affiliate ActiveCampaign, you will not be allowed to distribute your links on any shady websites or engage in spammy practices. 

While we couldn’t come across this rule, we would like to note that most of the other brands in the same niche that now manage affiliate programs will not be crazy about you using PPC ads in which you mention their names. Instead of that, we suggest promoting your content where you recommend ActiveCampaign services. 

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Pros and cons of the ActiveCampaign affiliate program

As is the case with any other affiliate marketing service you might be interested in, there are both benefits and downsides to using this one to grow your side income or passive income. 

In terms of pros, the commission rate is quite decent and the fact that ActiveCampaign affiliate market bonuses do exist definitely sweetens up everything. The 90-day tracking cookie is another detail worth writing home about. 

Unlike others, the brand’s program does not restrict you in terms of your referral’s location or even your own. That means that you could be based in the Philippines or Thailand and market to people in the United States and you will still be paid for every purchase made through your affiliate links. 

On the other hand, you literally can’t use any other payment method besides PayPal, which can be a drawback for some people, especially those that no longer have an account with this company. 

Finally, the most significant con that you need to consider is that you actually have to be an ActiveCampaign user before being able to tap into all of the affiliate marketing benefits. There used to be a 14-day trial but we no longer found it to be available right now (do check the website just to be on the safe side of things). 

What if being an ActiveCampaign is not the right option for you?

As you can imagine, there are lots of other email marketing services out there, and the truth is that many of them also have affiliate programs. Moreover, not all of them require you to be a user, which means that you might be able to promote these software products without spending a single cent. 

Here are a few alternatives to the ActiveCampaign affiliate program if you don’t think that this one is a good choice for you. 

GetResponse

We talked about this one in many of our previous posts and the reason for that is the fact that it is rather different. You actually get to pick the earning model with GetResponse. You can either make $100 for every sale referred or you can opt for the recurring model and make 33% out of the purchases throughout the lifetime of your referral’s subscriptions (and respective renewals). 

To make things even better, the managers at GetResponse included a 120-day cookie duration with this one, so it’s considerably better compared to what you get as an ActiveCampaign affiliate. You can also withdraw your earnings when you’ve made $50 in commissions. 

Finally, this one also shines in terms of payment methods since the brand can pay you through ACH, bank transfers, or cheques (the last ones are available only for the United States). 

MailerLite

The MailerLite affiliate program is a pretty good alternative in the sense that the base commission is higher, at 30% out of every purchase made through your affiliate links. The minimum payout threshold is just $50 compared to the $100 that ActiveCampaign asks for. 

Unfortunately, they use the same unique payment method as ActiveCampaign, meaning PayPal. The cookie is also shorter since it lasts for two months. 

ConvertKit

The best thing about this one is that anyone can join the program, regardless of whether they have been using ConvertKit for some time or not. Even though the tracking cookie lasts for two months instead of three, which is what ActiveCampaign offers to its associates, the base commission is higher – 30%. 

From what we gathered, the affiliate dashboard is very easy to work with and there’s even a nifty commission calculator that you can use to try and estimate the income you can make with this program. 

Read more: Thrive Themes affiliate program

Sendinblue

This one stands out from the crowd because the brand not only pays for people who actually get the subscription, but also for those who opt for the free trial. You get around $6 in commissions each time someone gets the free trial, but paid accounts can make you up to $120. 

Like ActiveCampaign’s affiliate program, this one has a tracking cookie that lasts for 90 days. 

ClickFunnels

We wrote a separate review of this affiliate program, so we suggest that you take the time to look for it and give it a read. As its name suggests, this one is not merely used to manage your email list, but also for creating very detailed funnels where you also acquire new customers. 

As a ClickFunnels affiliate, your most basic commission rate is 20% (so very similar to what ActiveCampaign has to offer). The top tier, which involves you recommending 40 active users to the site in the past thirty days is superior, though, since it allows you to make 40% out of every purchase made through your links. 

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Craig Campbell
I am a Glasgow based SEO expert who has been doing SEO for 22 years. In this time I have gained extensive knowledge in the subject of SEO and have build up a wealth of experience in SEO and other digital marketing services.

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Craig Campbell

I am a Glasgow based SEO expert who has been doing SEO for 22 years.

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