As a Clickfunnels user, you get to choose if you want to use Actionetics or a separate email automation platform that will work hand-in-hand with Clickfunnels.
The real interest here is by Clickfunnels $97/month customers who wonder if it’s worth paying more to have access to Actionetics.
So, is Actionetics worth paying $297/month for, and can it replace my current email service?
You’re about to find our brutally honest Actionetics review.
Here’s what you’ll learn in this article:
- What Actionetics is
- What Clickfunnels pricing plan you need to have access to it
- The strengths and weaknesses of using Actionetics
- A brief tutorial on using its main features
- Actionetics pricing questions
- Alternatives
- And more!
Let’s start.
Table of Contents
What is Actionetics?
Actionetics is an email marketing platform that comes with $297/month Clickfunnels Platinum plan. Unfortunately, it’s not available for the standard $97/month plan.
The Clickfunnels Actionetics software works like other email service providers.
Here’s an overview of what Actionetics can do and what it offers:
- Store your email list contacts
- Offers the ability to create email broadcasts and autoresponder emails
- Advanced tags and email list segmentation
- Lead scores (their score system) for people on your list
- And more as you’ll soon see.
That said, using Actionetics means you’re stuck in the Clickfunnel’s ecosystem of marketing tools, and it requires you to sign up with an SMTP service, which isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.
For instance, if you have a WordPress website, you won’t be able to use popular list building software like OptinMonster, Thrive Leads, or ConvertBox. It’s only capable of working with the sales funnels you build on Clickfunnels.
We’ll cover both the advantages and disadvantages as we continue.
The Actionetics Features
Let’s start with the core features this email marketing software offers.
Unlimited Contacts
Unlike most email service providers, where you pay more as your email lists grow, Actionetics takes a different approach by providing an unlimited number of contacts.
For example, with traditional email services like AWeber, your cost for up to 500 email subscribers would be $19/month. But, if you grow your list to over 10,000 subs, it’ll cost $149/month (and it continues to go up from there).
Further examples include Constant Contact, $195/month for 10k subs, and Ontraport at $297/month for 10k email subs.
This email expense can add up quickly if you’re scaling up your email list campaigns!
So if you are planning to move your business over to Clickfunnels, you don’t have to worry about an increasing pricing structure, and you can import contacts easily.
Email Segmentation and Smart Lists
Like most email marketing providers, Actionetics lets you organize your email lists with automation triggers that are based on rules. In Actionetics, this is called their Smart Lists feature.
To use a Smart List, you just need to enable it when you create your first email list and configure the rules. You can set as many rules as you want for your email lists.
Here are a few common triggers you might consider using in your business:
- Email Step Rules – lets you match a contact who has opened, never opened, never clicked, or clicked and email.
- Contact Rules – lets you match contacts by Action Score, name, zip code, and more.
- Funnel Rules – you can match a contact who visited an exact funnel step in your funnel.
- Product Rules – match contacts who have purchased your product and those who’ve haven’t yet.
- Social Rules – match contacts based on their activity levels on multiple social media platforms
Using these rules makes segmenting lists quick and easy.
To get an idea of how these rules would work with funnels, here are a few examples and recommendations on how to use Smart Lists:
- Use Contact Rules and Action Score to separate your most engaged contacts in one list and lesser engaged contacts in another list.
- Create a “buyer’s list” of customers who’ve already purchased your products by using Product Rules.
- Create a followup email campaign to contact profiles who’ve yet to purchase your product using Product Rules.
As you can see, there are plenty of automation actions you can set up if you’re someone who sells products or services. However, if you’re an affiliate promoting different affiliate programs, you’re left with few rule groups to work with.
Action Funnels
Just an FYI, “Action Funnels,” are now known as Follow-Up Funnels in your Clickfunnels dashboard. It’s the new and improved Action Funnel.
Anyhoo, Follow-Up Funnels is another form of automation that works hand-in-hand with sales funnels (or any type of funnel). They’re a series of logical steps where you can send an email to a lead (or customer), or perform a certain action.
Follow-Up Funnels are great for people who want to integrate with third-party apps like Shopify, Facebook messenger, SMS for text messages (using Twilio), Desktop messenger, and internal action funnel steps.
Here are a few examples of how an Action Funnel would work:
- Send text messages to your customer before your webinar starts.
- Communicate product sale information with Shopify that passes along customer details (i.e., name, shipping address, email addresses, phone number, etc.) to the Shopify platform for product fulfillment.
- Send an email to your customer X-days after purchase, asking them for user experience feedback and/or a review on a given platform.
Email Deliverability & No Restrictions
Earlier I mentioned that Actionetics requires you to integrate with an SMTP service. Some people might see this as a negative, but there are some positives when it comes to deliverability.
Here are a couple of advantages about using an SMTP provider
- Avoid Email Deliverability Issues – Some email services use a shared SMTP for all its users. If any of the email service customers are spamming on their platform, it could lead to fewer emails hitting your subscribers’ inbox.
- Affiliate Link Restrictions – Some email marketing services don’t let you promote affiliate links when you send emails (Mailchimp and ActiveCampaign don’t let you do this).
If the issue of restrictions detailed above are a dealbreaker for you, then Actionetics may be a fit and an advantage for you.
Where Actionetics Falls Short
Now, let’s talk about Actionetics and where I think it falls short when compared to other services.
Lack of Custom Fields
Aside from your standard name, email, address, message, etc. input fields that Actionetics comes with, you don’ get much else.
If you need custom fields for your email marketing, take a look at our alternatives section towards the end of this review.
It Ties You Down to Clickfunnels
Actively using Actionetics as your email service is one thing, but if you ever decide that a different email platform can serve your business needs better, say because of pricing issues, there will be a transition process.
You’re not 100% tied down to Actionetics, as you can always switch to their Standard plan and integrate Clickfunnels with your preferred email marketing tool.
You can easily export all your contacts from your CF account. Their support team will be able to help you adjust your plan, export your list, and with your new integration if you decide to go this route.
It’s Expensive for Businesses Just Starting Out
As you saw above, Clickfunnels tries to keep marketers tied down to their all-in-one platform to make more money as a SaaS company.
The audience that Clickfunnels attracts ranges from beginner to advanced, and for the beginner crowd, $297/month is a high business expense.
If you’re a beginner and you’re not doing any email marketing or if you are and have a small list, wow, Actionetics is a significant expense.
You’re better off going with an email marketing solution that costs you less every month. See our Actionetics alternatives list at the end if you prefer a third-party tool (ConvertKit now offers a free plan for up to 1,000 contacts).
Removing Contacts Is Tedious
This is a pet-peeve of mine, so keep that in mind, but in their contacts area, you can’t quickly delete people on your list! It’s a multi-step process (including type-to-confirm forms), and you can’t bulk delete. We’ll cover more about the contacts section next.
A Quick Actionetics Tutorial
Now that you’re a bit more familiar with Actionetics let me give you an insider look.
Below, we’re going to cover what you’re able to manage on the Actionetics/Follow-Up Funnels menu: Contacts, Email Lists, Broadcasts, and Follow Up Funnels.
Email Contacts
In your contacts page list, you’ll see all the people that Clickfunnels has collected for you, including your email subscribers at a glance.
If Clickfunnels is able to provide a profile image, it’ll show up through the filterable table, as seen below.
By clicking on a contact name, you open up the contact’s profile:
Here you’ll be able to see contact details along, including Action Score, memberships, and if and when purchases took place.
Email Lists
The email lists settings will let you organize your lists better with custom group tags and more.
This is also where you’ll be able to create a new list with the option of enabling the Smart List feature, I mentioned earlier.
If you choose to use the Smart List feature, just remember to plan your rule group carefully as you won’t be able to update this setting once the list is created. You’d need to create a new email list to update, which can be tedious.
Broadcast Emails
An email broadcast, as may know, is a one-off email you can send to your list(s) at any date and time and are not part of traditional email automation (i.e., an autoresponder sequence).
With some brief logistical setup, you’ll eventually arrive at the email messenger. Here, you’ll be able to name your email subject line, your pre-header text, and choose an email template.
Additionally, you’ll be able to choose if your email reaches contacts that’ve been unengaged in the past 31 days (you can configure this and more).
Next, you’ll have to choose an Actionetics email template. There are currently 12 email templates you can choose from.
Note: if you want to use plain emails, unfortunately, it’s not an option at this time, however, you can clean up the templates with the editor.
When you’ve chosen your template, you’ll be able to access the Actionetics email editor. What’s cool about the email editor is that you don’t have to be tech-savvy to use it as it works very similarly to the CF sales funnel tool page builder.
Once you’ve crafted your email broadcast, you can save and send test emails before clicking the live send broadcast button.
Action Funnels
Follow-Up Funnels (aka. Action Funnels) are very important to online sales processes and are the funnel actions that occur in the “backend” of an overall business sales funnel.
To set one up, you’ll click the Create Action Funnel button and configure your Action Funnel name, assign a group tag, and the lists that are going to be part of the new Action Funnel.
Next, in the Action Funnels setup process, you’ll need to choose to have your first Action Funnel Step Send an Email or Do an Action.
Sending emails with Action Steps works just like broadcast marketing messages work.
But, to do an action, you have to integrate with one of the apps on the market shown here:
With action steps (step 1, step 2, etc.), you can create and trigger emails and actions to your criteria.
When your series of steps is set up and running, you’ll be able to see the data of any of the steps (just like traditional autoresponders).
Actionetics Pricing
Actionetics is part of the Clickfunnels Etison Suite plan, which costs $297/month.
And there are additional costs to using Actionetics because it requires you to use your own 3rd party SMTP server to send emails. The good news is that they provide a lot of SMTP integrations.
A couple of popular options Clickfunnels users utilize are Sendgrid and Mandrill. Sendgrid offers a free plan, but it only lets you send out 100 emails per day. You can lift that restriction by signing up for their Essentials package subscription, starting at $14.95/month.
Unlike other email marketing tools, it’s not a standalone software, so comparing it to other alternative providers is challenging.
There is currently no direct discounts for Clickfunnels Actionetics that comes from using Clickfunnels, and it’s Etison Suite (now known as the Platinum plan).
However, Clickfunnels has come out with one of their best offers in years called Funnel Builder Secrets, which saves you money on the Platinum plan by more than $500+ per year.
Additionally, you get all of Clickfunnel’s sales funnel training and Funnel Scripts when you pay annually for Clickfunnels. Make sure to check out this offer if you’re considering using Clickfunnels and all its tools for your online business.
Actionetics Pros and Cons
PROS
- Unlimited contact list no matter how many subscribers you amount to
- Offers dynamic list automation feature called Smart Lists
- Lead score system to gauge the engagement of your email subscribers called Action Score
- You can share Follow-Up Funnels (aka. Action Funnels)
- Requires users to integrate with their own SMTP servers (for better delivery results)
- You can test it free for 14-days with a Clickfunnels free trial
- You know the purchase history of name in your email list
CONS
- No visual automation feature (a standard in today’s email marketing companies)
- Lacks complex automations that other platforms offer
- It’s expensive for new business owners with a small list
- Extra step for SMTP services configuration before you can create your first Follow Up Funnel
- It keeps you in the Clickfunnels ecosystem
Final Verdict
So, should you use Clickfunnels Actionetics for your email marketing platform?
If you’re confident that Clickfunnels is going to be your go-to online marketing tool and you’re all about what Russell Brunson and the Clickfunnels team has created, then yes, I recommend you use Actionetics.
It’s got a small learning curve to it, but it does its job and is the oh-so-important “invisible funnel” that comes after lead or customer has gone down your first funnel.
In this case, get started with Clickfunnels Actionetics now by starting a free trial!
Should it replace your current email service?
If you’re already a Clickfunnels Actionetics user, because you’re on the Clickfunnels Platinum account, then this depends on the size of your current email list and whether or not you’re utilizing Clickfunnel’s other program Backpack, the affiliate marketing management tool, that comes with the $297/month plan.
For example, If your email list is currently under 1,000 email subscribers, and you’re not using the Backpack, you might be better off switching to the Clickfunnels $97/month plan so you can build funnels for your business and save money by switching to a third-party email platform.
If this is you, see the alternative solutions below.
Alternatives
I personally love using a 3rd party service for email marketing communications. They focus on making a better product than companies who try to be everything to everyone.
My recommended email automation tools for internet entrepreneurs are:
- ConvertKit
- ActiveCampaign
- GetResponse
These three email platforms offer amazing visual automation builders and provide simplicity with their email automation services that currently, Actionetics users can only dream of.
ConvertKit
This email marketing automation platform is one of my favorites for bloggers and creators of all sorts. They’re simple to use, don’t require you to pay an SMTP service, and they’re affiliate marketing-friendly (they allow you to include affiliate links in your emails).
If you’re an affiliate marketer, make sure to read our ConvertKit review article as it’s one of the better platforms for affiliates (they offer a free plan).
ActiveCampaign
This 3rd party email tool is a beast for business owners who run businesses that sell a product or service. Unfortunately, they’re not affiliate friendly, which is why I recommend it to entrepreneurs who sell their own products/services.
ActiveCampaign is slowly becoming the gold standard email provider. I personally recommend ActiveCampaign to the clients I work with. Learn more in our ActiveCampaign review.
GetResponse
This company has stood the test of time and came before the two tools above and is still one of the best email auto-responders in the industry. They had a visual marketing automation tool in their platform years ahead of everyone else.
And their email delivery has always been superb. I still use it for smaller business clients and affiliate marketing.
These email services are great alternatives to Clickfunnels Actionetics. They’ll save you money in the long-run price-wise, especially if you’re just starting your business and don’t have a massive email list yet.
You may be better off getting the standard $97/month Clickfunnels account and pairing it with one of the email providers above.
FAQs
How Do You Use Actionetics?
Great question! Our article mainly focuses on Actionetic’s features, pros, and cons. For a guide on how to get started using Actionetics, I recommend reading Clickfunnel’s guide here.
What is Actionetics MD?
Actionetics MD is the ultra-advanced version of Actionetics and is only available for private beta users for now. Advanced features include text messaging, a Facebook messenger bot, and a funnel messenger. It’s currently off the market.
How much is Actionetics?
Actionetics is not sold by itself. You need to get the Clickfunnels Platinum, which costs $297 per month, to have access to it.
