ActiveCampaign Goals: Full Tutorial (With Examples)

In this tutorial, you'll learn how you can use goals inside ActiveCampaign. I'll explain what they are, what you can use them for, plus 4 cool use cases.
📩 Get the recourses I mentioned:
- ActiveCampaign Cheat Sheet: maxvan.co/qaol
- Example Automation: maxvan.co/f3q9
🎥 Get my in-depth ActiveCampaign course:
- maxvan.co/mastery
🔗 My favorite tools (affiliate links):
- ActiveCampaign: maxvan.co/acti...
- Deadline Funnel: maxvan.co/dead...
- RightMessage: maxvan.co/righ...
- Integromat: maxvan.co/inte...
- ThriveCart: maxvan.co/thri...
🧰 All the tools I use:
- maxvan.co/toolbox
🤗 Liked this video? Give it a thumbs up & consider subscribing for more tutorials:
- maxvan.co/subs...

[@DaniLong]

Thank you for this video. This is so much cleaner, more elegant than if/else for my email course. Soooooo much better. [Send email lesson, wait 24 hours to send next lesson; but if goal of is met, send next lesson right away] for each lesson. I was wracking my brain all weekend over the if/else logic. This is so much better!

[@maxvcollenburg]

Hey Dani! Happy to hear that it helped so much 😄

[@denisem9968]

Max! Thank you so much for AC videos! they have helped me a lot!!! When I need something on AC, I come first here in your channel. Please make another one about how to understand all kinds of reports and how to make decisions based on diferent results, for example on each of the best automations. Thank you again.

[@maxvcollenburg]

Hey Denise! Happy to hear that the videos helped you so much 😄 And that's a great idea! I'll write it down 🤗

[@shamanmanouvha]

Excellent demo. Great examples. Thank you!

[@maxvcollenburg]

Glad you like it!

[@joelhughes2571]

Hi Max, thanks for that video - very interesting. I think historically I've always stuck to IF conditional logic but I can see now how goals can help

[@maxvcollenburg]

Happy to hear that it gave some new insights!

[@ilkerbeybiz]

bedankt voor je uitleg!

[@maxvcollenburg]

Graag gedaan 🙃

[@RuudSchoen]

Thank you Max. Great content!

[@maxvcollenburg]

Glad you like it Ruud! 🤗

[@AttorneyonaJourney]

Thank you for this great tutorial!

[@maxvcollenburg]

Glad you like it! 🙌

[@KemeticCenteredLiving]

Thank you for the activecampaign tutorial on goals. It was really helpful with understanding how goals work.

[@maxvcollenburg]

Glad it was helpful!

[@ScenicFinancial]

So Helpful, Thank you!

[@maxvcollenburg]

Heyhey! Happy to hear 😄

[@katrinafung9072]

Thanks for these ActiveCampaign walkthroughs! They're awesome! I'd love to see more videos on building more complex automations on ActiveCampaign :)

[@maxvcollenburg]

Hey Katrina! Thanks for the kind words! 😄 I created a video about some of my favorite automations here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/h5iqhIKYrct2odE Any other automation you would like to see? Let me know! 🙃

[@katrinafung9072]

​@@maxvcollenburg Ooh yeah that was a good video too, thanks! I always love to see examples of automations and take inspiration from there and see how I can apply it with my systems. Nothing comes to mind in particular, but I just built a pretty complex automation for personalized reminders and follow ups when a sales call is booked. Basically, a slightly different kind of process depending on the type of call booked or the date it's set for. Mostly using the if/else, go to action, and goals (eg. became client or canceled event). It was pretty fun but it became a really big automation, if you know what I mean haha. I was going to use conditional formatting and just have one email, but unfortunately, there wasn't a condition that compared a custom date field with "current date". Anyways, maybe an automation for an evergreen sales funnel with a deadline? I remember one of your videos where you had a custom countdown timer depending on when they joined the automation but I didn't completely understand that set up or how you got the custom countdown timer. I think this would be interesting to see, thank you for everything!

[@WillGibbons]

Super helpful! Subbed!

[@maxvcollenburg]

Glad it helped! 🙌

[@onlinemitplan9763]

thanks. very helpful!

[@maxvcollenburg]

Glad it was helpful! 😄

[@iampaulirvine]

Great video dude, I've been using if/else through automations and it's a pain in the arse. Now I understand how goals work, I'll be switching over :) Incidentally, I'm a very logical dude and saw the AC automations as a flow chart kind of scenario, never realised that a GOAL set way down that automation could be hit at any time regardless of where the prospect was in their automation journey. Thanks again man!

[@maxvcollenburg]

Hey Paul! Happy to hear this tutorial helped! 😄

[@danielmelgarejo6441]

Yo your videos are amazing. You really have helped me a lot. All the best!

[@maxvcollenburg]

Thanks Daniel! Happy to hear they helped you 😄

[@reynachew4774]

Thanks!

[@maxvcollenburg]

You're welcome!

[@mayalombarts]

Thank you Max! I was wondering if we can use Goals as well to let a client choose to receive the next email right away (and so skip the step of 'wait for 1 day')? I want to create a 5-day email course and I saw in other people's sequences that they have a button saying 'click here if you want to receive the next lesson right away'. How can we do this in ActiveCampaign?

[@RubsLifestyle]

Dude! Thanks for this video!! Appreciate it a lot!

[@maxvcollenburg]

Happy to hear you like it! 😄

[@strategie-video]

Another great tutorial Max. What if you have more than 5 emails in your automation and want to use goals for opened emails? You can add only 5 conditions to a goal...

[@maxvcollenburg]

Hey Olivier! Yes, that's a bit of a annoying limitation 😅 I usually just add a second goal if there's really no way to reduce the amount of conditions another way.

[@senrabaydan]

Hey Max! Thanks so much for this tutorial. I was able to build out a client’s sales automation pretty much using your tutorials here. By the way, I opted in to one of your freebies and ended up on your website where I saw a really cool survey feature - I’d really love to know what you used for that. Was that a plugin? Anyway, thanks again and keep up the great work!

[@maxvcollenburg]

Hey @Senrabaydan! Happy to hear that! 😄 I'm using RightMessage for forms & surveys on my website. The cool thing is that you can personalize your website (and emails) based on what people answered. Crazyyy cool. I wrote a full review with all the possibilities here: www.maxvancollenburg.com/rightmessage-review/

[@senrabaydan]

Max van Collenburg This made me so happy! Thank you so much!!! And yes, it’s crazy cool 😃

[@maxvcollenburg]

Haha, happy to hear! 🤗

[@TreySizemore]

@@maxvcollenburg I didn't realize you could tie RightMessage to Activecampaign. Do you have any trainings on this? Thanks!

[@robbertag808]

Max... Can I also add an action that makes sure (after 23 hours) to send the contact an FB messenger message... ? Or how can I do this... I want to send them the PDF file through activecampaign, but if they didn't open it in 23 hours... we want to send them a message on FB messenger like, check your spam, you already received the PDF file...

[@maxvcollenburg]

Hey Robbert! I suggest watching this tutorial, I'll explain how you can do that in there; kzbin.info/www/bejne/r6PPp51_qsZpsLs

[@TaraWagner]

It seems like Goals and If/Then are virtually the same thing or do the same things just in different ways. Do you have a video explaining the differences and when you'd use one vs the other?

[@maxvcollenburg]

Hey Tara! That's I great idea, I'll write it down. They are indeed pretty similar, but there are some important differences. With goals for example, you can see rapports to track how many people go through that goal.

[@AlenoOliveira]

Hey Max! Wie gehts´s or Hoe gaat het? Hier is(t) Aleno. =D Dutch name, but living in Germany? Great video, my friend. It took me a looong time to figure this out. Already subscribed to your email list and I'll send you an email. Very good branding too. Nice and sophisticated.

[@maxvcollenburg]

Hey Aleno! Correct! Dutchie living in Germany! 🙃 Happy to hear you like my content so much! Thanks for the kind words 🙌

[@thehonestinvestors]

Does this feature work across different automations or only within the automation where it was setup?

[@maxvcollenburg]

Only in the automation it was setup 🤗 But you can also create a goal in an automation, with a condition that triggers when something happens in another automation. Hope that helps!

[@alisonkconsulting]

Such a useful video! Question: if the 'not interested' goal to end the automation was set up to trigger once a certain tag was appended to a contact (they click the 'not interested' link, for example, and were tagged 'Not Interested'), then do you need to set up the other goal trigger of 'clicked this url' and denote EVERY email that link appears in? I have a usecase where there are a lot of emails in the drip. If the goal is trigged based on a tag, why does it also have to be set up to trigger based on a url clicked? seems like a lot of extra work. Thank you!

[@maxvcollenburg]

Hey Alison! Do what's easiest for you! 😄 I personally don't use tags that way, but I can see how that could be handy with a lot of emails 🙃

[@alisonkconsulting]

@@maxvcollenburg thanks Max! Always appreciate how engaged you are with your audience!

[@drumgrandpa]

Hey Max. Great video. Your links for copying the funnel and cheat sheet do not work. Help?

[@maxvcollenburg]

Heyhey! Over here they seem to work. What kind of error are you getting?

[@drumgrandpa]

@@maxvcollenburg I tried to import the sequence and AC couldnt do it

[@maxvcollenburg]

@@drumgrandpa weird! I'll take a look at that.

[@johnm100]

Thanks Max, this video is wonderful and gave me some new ideas! It is clever how you are using goals for conditional logic during follow-up emails...but wouldn't this really mess up your goals analytics? For example: If I have a weekly email built into a 2 year automation...that's 104 goals right there. I would have thought goals would be best used for conversions and important milestones. I admittedly am not currently using goals but would like to. What are your thoughts?

[@maxvcollenburg]

Hey John! I think it really depends on how you want to use them; to measure the effectiveness of a certain step in your automation, or just to have people jump to a specific point in your automation. If you just want to use them to have people jump to a specific point, I wouldn't worry about goal analytics. But if you want to use them to measure the effectiveness of your automation, 104 goals might not be the way to go. Instead, you could maybe look better at the open rate of each email (if it's an evergreen newsletter or something). I hope that makes sense 🙃 Just do what works best for you 😄

[@johnm100]

@@maxvcollenburg Thanks again Max. You make complete sense. I have been really enjoying activecampaign but in some respects I almost wish AC was more "opinionated" in their software.. It's so wide open that it's easy to miss out on best practices and create some difficult to fix stuff in the future. Thanks again Max.

[@maxvcollenburg]

​@@johnm100 yes, I get that! There's just sooo much possible, and you can do everything in tons of different ways. So the trick is really to figure out a system that works well for you 🙃

[@dannysmith112]

in your example automation at 4:33 to which list does that go to. can you determine this. all i see in the beginning of your automation is at a set time. does that go to all lists or can you predetermine which list?

[@maxvcollenburg]

Hey Adam! That's totally up to you, you can add anyone to the automation you like. Simply go to contacts » advanced search » and select all the lists/segments you want to add to the promotion 🙃 For myself, if I would do a promotion for my ActiveCampaign course for example, I would add people to the automation that are on my Main List and that expressed to have an interest in ActiveCampaign who didn't bought the product yet. Hope that helps! If not, let me know 😋

[@dannysmith112]

@@maxvcollenburg thanks max, totally helps

[@maxvcollenburg]

@@dannysmith112 great! 🤗

[@LizziDCP]

Great tutorial Max! I was wondering if it was possible to use Goals for moving people within an email challenge? My thoughts: If someone joins a live challenge late (We are on Day 3, and then they join) could I use Goals to move them to the appropriate Day?

[@maxvcollenburg]

Hey Lizzi! Yes, you could also use goals for that! Right underneath the wait action for that day, you could add a goal with these conditions; current month is October AND current day of the month is 14 AND current time is on or after 10am So that way, if someone comes into the automation, they'll jump right to that goal if it's on or after 10am on the 14th of October. Hope that helps! 🤗

[@LizziDCP]

@@maxvcollenburg this helps immensely! I didn't realize goals could be used this way!! Thank you so much

[@PswACC]

Video Quality 360p, video unwatchable.

[@maxvcollenburg]

The video is uploaded in 1080p. Maybe try on a different internet connection?