I migrated to ActiveCampaign, now what?

Once you have completed the switch from another service to ActiveCampaign, it’s important to review the information in your account before you start using it. Doing so will help you become more familiar with your new software, allow you to verify that all information was successfully transferred, and confirm that the information contained in your account is correct.

In this article, we’ll cover each item in your account that you should review and provide you with additional resources to help you understand your account and its features better.

• Review the number of contacts migrated 
  You can access the Contacts overview page by clicking “Contacts” located in the left menu. The total number of contacts will be displayed on the top left of your account. This default view will show all contacts with any status type, however, you can also filter by Active, Unconfirmed, Unsubscribed, and Bounced.
  
  Related articles:
  Overview of contacts
  Contact statuses
  Organize your contacts
  
  
• Confirm tags migrated
  All tags that were migrated will appear in the Tag Manager. To access the Tag Manager, click "Contacts" then “Tags." Here you will see the total number of tags at the top. Under that number, you will see all of your tags displayed. We will also show you how many contacts have been assigned that tag, and how many automations are using that tag.
  
  Related articles:
  Tagging best practices
  Use tags to keep your contacts organized
  Avoid a tagging crisis
  
  
• Review your exclusions list
  An exclusion list is a list of email addresses that are prevented from receiving campaigns and automation emails from you. This list can be accessed by clicking "Contacts" then "List Exclusions." You can use this feature to maintain a list of “bad” email addresses that include contacts who unsubscribed, bounced, or issued a spam complaint on your previous email marketing platform. Maintaining a list of these email addresses can help you avoid the mistake of sending emails to individuals who bounced, unsubscribed, or marked your email as spam, all of which can harm your deliverability and sender health.
  
  Related article:
  Exclusion list

• Review the appearance all campaigns migrated
  Mainly, you’ll want to be sure that the appearance of your emails is consistent with how they appeared on your previous platform. You can view each campaign by clicking “Campaigns” in the left menu then clicking “Continue” for each campaign.
  
  Related articles:
  Creating and sending a campaign
  Using the email designer to format a campaign
  Use labels to organize your campaigns
  
  
• Make sure that all campaigns use the ActiveCampaign unsubscribe link
  If you are importing HTML code from another email marketing platform, make sure to replace your old unsubscribe link with the ActiveCampaign unsubscribe link. Using the ActiveCampaign unsubscribe link will give contacts the option to remove themselves from your email list in ActiveCampaign. You can easily do this for any custom HTML email by clicking the "Insert" button that appears in the HTML campaign builder, then clicking "Personalized Content." From the "Add a Personalization" modal, click "Message Content" then click "Unsubscribe Link."
  
  Related article:
  Why are unsubscribe links required in my campaigns and automation emails?
  
  
• Confirm that the correct list and segment has been assigned to your campaigns
  To make sure that the correct list and segment (if applicable) has been assigned to a campaign, go to the Campaigns overview page and click the “Continue” button for a campaign. From there, click the “List” tab located at the top of the page. The list that is checked is the list selected for the campaign send. More than one list can be selected, and contacts that appear on more than one list will not receive duplicate emails.
  
  In addition, if any segments are being used, they will be listed here. If you wish to send a campaign to a segment, you can create one directly from this page by clicking the “Create New” button and following the prompts from there.
  
  Related article:
  Create and save segments
  
  
• Test your campaigns
  Testing your campaigns is very important; it allows you to see what your contacts will see when they receive your communication and helps you verify that links are redirecting to the correct webpages. You can also use testing to verify that personalization and conditional content are rendering correctly.
  
  Related articles:
  Testing your campaign
  Personalization tags
  Conditional content
  Link actions

• Review the appearance of your templates
  Similar to reviewing campaigns, you’ll want to make sure that the appearance of your templates is consistent with what you had on your previous platform. You can view each template by clicking “Campaigns” from the left menu. Then click “Campaign templates” which will bring you to the Templates page. Hover your mouse over a template then click “Preview” to quickly review it. This view will not allow you to make any edits. If you wish to make edits, go back to the templates page and hover your mouse over the template. Then click “Edit.”
  
  Related articles:
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  How to save a campaign as a template
  
  
• Test your templates
  Testing your templates helps you see how the design will render in both desktop and mobile and will allow you to test links to make sure they are redirecting correctly. To test your template, go to the templates page in your account and hover your mouse over the template. Then click “Edit.” From there, click the gear icon that appears on the right. From here you can send a test email using the “Send Test Email” feature, perform an email client preview by clicking “Email Client Preview,” or view how the email looks on desktop and mobile by clicking “Desktop Preview.”
  
  Note: This test will not render personalization or conditional content. To test personalization and conditional content, you’ll need to create a campaign that uses your template and send it to a test list.

• Confirm that automations have been configured correctly 
  To access your automations, click “Automations” in the left menu. To view an individual automation, click “Edit” for any automation. Once you have an automation open, click into each trigger and action to make sure they are correct.
  
  Related articles:
  Automation builder explained
  Automation triggers
  Difference between Runs Once and Runs Multiple times when configuring an automation start trigger
  Automation actions
  
  
• Make sure that all automation emails use the ActiveCampaign unsubscribe link
  If you are importing HTML code from another email marketing platform, make sure to replace your old unsubscribe link with the ActiveCampaign unsubscribe link. Using the ActiveCampaign unsubscribe link will give contacts the option to remove themselves from your email list in ActiveCampaign. You can easily do this for any custom HTML email by clicking the "Insert" button that appears in the HTML campaign builder, then clicking "Personalized Content." From the "Add a Personalization" modal, click "Message Content" then click "Unsubscribe Link."
  
  Related article:
  Why are unsubscribe links required in my campaigns and automation emails?
  
  
• Test your automations
  Testing your automation is very important and allows you to see if your automation is working correctly. The best way to test your automation is to add test contacts to it. You’ll also need to make sure that you have access to the email addresses for each of your test contacts so that you can verify that emails are being delivered and are rendering correctly.
  
  Related article:
  How to skip wait steps when testing an automation
  
  
• Make automations active
  After you have tested your automation and confirmed that everything has been configured correctly, you can activate your automation. By making your automation active, actual contacts can now be added to it and proceed through your workflow. To make an automation active from the Automations overview page, click the down caret for the automation and click “Make Active.” To make an automation active from the automation builder, simply click “Active” located on the top right of the screen.
  
  Related articles:
  How to make automations active
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• Confirm that list names are correct
  To view your lists, click "Contacts" then “Lists.” All lists will be displayed on the Lists overview page. If you need to make any changes to the list name, click the down caret for that list. Then click “Edit.” A modal pop up will appear where you can type in a new name. You can also view/edit the website associated with this list and edit the subscription reminder message.
  
  Related articles:
  Beginner’s guide to lists
  How to change a list name
  When should I use multiple lists?
  Lists vs. tags
  
  
• Confirm that number of active contacts is correct for each list
  The Lists overview page will show how many active contacts are in each list. To view the contacts on a specific list, click the list name. To view an individual contact in that list, click the contact’s name.
  
  Related articles:
  How to edit a single contact
  How to add and remove contacts from a list
  
  
• Confirm that custom fields are correct
  To view all custom fields and their associated personalization tags, click "Contacts" then “Fields.” To edit a field, hover your mouse over the field you wish to edit and click the pencil icon.
  
  Related articles:
  Custom Contact Field Overview 
  How do I edit a custom contact field?
  How do I add a default value to a personalization tag?
  
  
• Review your segments
  Segments are saved on the Segments Overview page. You will want to check each segment to ensure that the segment conditions are correct and that the correct contacts are being displayed.
  
  Related articles:
  Get started with segments in ActiveCampaign
  Create and save segments
  Manage saved segments

• Make sure the form names are correct
  To access your forms, click “Website” in the left menu. The Forms overview page will list all forms. To change a form name, click edit for that form, then type the new name into the name field at the top of the page.
  
  
• Make sure forms are configured correctly
  By that, we mean making sure that the correct form actions are being used, that the double opt-in is enabled (if using), and that the submit message is correct.
  
  Related articles:
  How to create a form
  Enabling double opt-in for a form
  Enabling single opt-in for a form
  How to change the message that appears when a contact submits your form
  How to send contacts to your website when they submit your form
  
  
• Preview the form to confirm appearance and that correct fields are being used
  To preview a form, navigate to the Forms overview page and click "Edit" for your form. On the form builder, you can see which fields will be displayed in your form. You can add additional fields to your form by dragging and dropping them from the right side menu. To preview the form and test it, click “Integrate” then click “Link.” Copy and paste the form link into your browser and submit a test contact to it.
  
  Related articles:
  Form fields
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  How to add CAPTCHA to a form
  How to make fields required in a form
  
  
• Review the opt-in confirmation email
  If your form has double opt-in enabled, we recommend reviewing the opt-in confirmation email to make sure that the messaging is correct.
  
  Related articles:
  How to edit an opt-in confirmation email
  
  
• Add forms to your web assets
  There are lots of different options for displaying a form. For example, you can embed the form code onto your website, use a Wordpress plugin, or add it to your Facebook page.
  
  Related articles:
  Guide to adding forms to your website
  How to embed a form on your website
  How to add a form to a Facebook page
  Wordpress plugin

Site tracking allows you to track a contact’s page visit. You can use this information to create segments, trigger an automation, adjust a contact or deal score and more.

Related articles:
Overview of site tracking
Learn how to set up site tracking
Guide to site tracking