In this video, you will find a comprehensive comparison of two WordPress-based email marketing and automation tools: Fluent CRM and Funnel Kit.
Chris covers the specifics of each platform’s integration, data flow, lead generation, and usability, highlighting their unique strengths and limitations, managing custom fields, form integrations, and utilizing WordPress as a database for email contacts. Whether you’re navigating form mapping or automation challenges, this video provides valuable tips and comparisons to help you choose the best tool for your e-commerce or content marketing needs.
Here’s the cleaned up transcript for you to follow along:
Introduction
Welcome to this video walkthrough of two WordPress-based email marketing and automation solutions called Funnel Kit and Fluent CRM. If you are not familiar with these tools, go watch some videos, go Google YouTube, Fluent CRM, Funnel Kit. They both have a ton of videos and influencers that make videos about them, as well as respective Facebook groups.
Comparison Focus
What I want to do is compare the two through the lens of integration, data flow, and access organization to take action. I want to know how these platforms perform in terms of capturing lead generation, how to capture that data, and what it looks like when the data is in the platform. This will help us understand how it’s organized both manually and automatically. Then we can see what kind of actions that organization enables us to take. I want to know if I put this in my stack, how it can work in sync with other tools I’m using.
Newness of Solutions
It’s important to note that these WordPress-based solutions for email marketing and automation are still fairly new. Many WordPress developers and digital marketers may not be familiar with Fluent CRM or Funnel Kit. There’s a prevailing belief that the only platforms suitable for effective email sending and automation are ActiveCampaign, MailChimp, ConvertKit, and others.
Platform Overview
I just want to show you how these two platforms perform, particularly regarding data management. I believe you’ll be pleasantly surprised, as I was.
Here we have two platforms: Funnel Kit and Fluent CRM. I will walk through some settings to see how various things are handled in each platform.
Dashboard Comparison
Let’s look at the dashboard. This is Fluent CRM’s dashboard, which is quite plain. It gives us our active contact count, number of campaigns, emails sent through automations or sequences, tags, email templates, quick links, and some view of subscriber growth. Nothing too fancy, but effective.
On the other hand, Funnel Kit provides a lot more on its dashboard, including an overview of contacts, emails sent, SMS, top-performing broadcasts, a contact stream, and flow, along with top automations. This gives more important information just by logging in.
Data Collection and Organization
Next, I want to go through each platform step by step in the most important areas. Let’s dive into automation, but first, we need to prepare by looking at how we collect data and how it’s stored in these platforms.
Contacts Management
Let’s pull up the contacts in Fluent CRM and Funnel Kit side by side. I have more test contacts in Funnel Kit than in Fluent CRM, but you get the point. In both platforms, we can view email, name, list, tags, and status.
In Funnel Kit, you can also sort the contacts and add new columns. Both platforms allow similar capabilities in displaying data.
Tags
Now let’s check the tags. In Funnel Kit, adding a tag is straightforward; you just input the name. In Fluent CRM, you need to create a tag with a title, slug, and an internal subtitle, which serves as a description. I prefer this approach because having detailed documentation is essential.
Custom Fields
Now, we need to discuss custom fields since this is where we store our data. In Fluent CRM, custom fields can be found under settings. You can select the type and add a field grouping.
In Funnel Kit, creating custom fields is also intuitive. You can select the field type and create it easily. The main thing to consider here is the usability of dropdowns, radio buttons, and checkboxes for integrations. I usually recommend sticking to text inputs and date fields to avoid integration issues later.
Lists and Database Interaction
Both platforms treat WordPress as a database. You can have contacts in the database that can receive emails without being on a specific list. Each platform has a way to mark someone as subscribed or unsubscribed with respect to the WordPress database. Unsubscribing from a list does not remove them from the database, which is a key differentiator. Unlike other platforms where you must be on a list to receive emails, here, you can still send emails as long as the contact is in the WordPress database.
Overview of Contact Tracking and Engagement
We’re not going to go and let you see who’s clicked that link retroactively, which I think is a huge oversight. Funnel Kit gets this right. It provides last login, last open, last sent, and last clicked data. If I check “last open,” it’s straightforward.
In Fluent CRM, we had quite a few completed, active, canceled, and waiting contact activities. It’s really up to you how you want to combine this data to find the exact contact you want. For the most part, everything we’ve seen would handle probably 80 to 90 percent of users’ needs, leaning more towards Fluent CRM because of events.
Funnel Kit Features and E-Commerce Functionality
Funnel Kit stands out on the e-commerce side. It allows you to track actions such as someone visiting the checkout page or filling out a form. It even has abandoned cart functionality built in. Funnel Kit starts to separate itself by allowing you to implement down sales and track whether a customer has purchased a down sale or not.
This segmentation piece highlights why you’d use Funnel Kit for e-commerce. Their funnel platform integrates seamlessly with their email marketing platform, making it extremely powerful for managing products.
Comparison of Funnel Kit and Fluent CRM
I can’t rank one platform higher than the other because it depends on how you learn and decide to use each platform. I appreciated that Funnel Kit allows retroactive tracking of who clicked a smart link. In terms of collecting information, Funnel Kit has a very modern and clean interface, with engagement metrics clearly displayed.
User Interface and Automation Management
In Funnel Kit, you can collapse fields for a cleaner view. When viewing automations, I love the functionality that allows adding people to automations easily. You can see every email sent and track whether it was opened or clicked, which is powerful for contact records.
When we compare this with Fluent CRM, the contact record shows total emails sent, opened, and clicked. While it provides all necessary information, the UI could benefit from a CSS update to enhance usability. Fluent CRM also displays tags and allows adding contacts to lists easily.
Automation Features and Limitations
In Fluent CRM, the emails tab displays every email sent, including from campaigns and automations. When adding to automation, there are certain supported automation events that you must be mindful of. This is an important detail to consider when managing contacts.
Both platforms currently lack the ability to start an automation without a trigger. While it’s not a deal breaker, it’s a common practice I use in ActiveCampaign where I add contacts from another automation.
Email Management and Audience Targeting
In the email section, I haven’t created an email broadcast yet, but I can easily create one. There’s an option to include unverified contacts, and I can select specific audiences to target. I named one audience “scare people” based on the color they selected, which adds a touch of humor to the process.
I can further refine the audience by excluding specific contacts, allowing for granular targeting capabilities, which is essential as the audience grows.
Data Input and Field Updates
So now I’m like, how do I get the data in there? And there’s no extra options. After a while, what I found out is that it was an update action. I’m showing you all this because this is using the data that we collected, right? It was messaging, automations, update fields. When you update fields, I can then say, “Hey, which best describes you?” Now, this kind of reminds me of how High Level handles their field updates.
I can go and say, map that to wherever the field was that I selected. I don’t want to go there. It is “What color best describes you?” I hit copy and paste it right in there. So that is how if you’re using external form software, you’ve got to do it in the actual automation that’s triggered by the form submission.
I know it’s a little different. You saw them use Fluent Forms; you did it right there on the form. If you’re using a native webinar or a Funnel Kit opt-in form, I could map it, but if you’re using something external, like Gravity Forms or some other tool, you’ll have to do it this way. It is there, by the way; you just have to do it this way.
Action Differentiation
One thing that I don’t like is that there’s no quick differentiation between actions like update fields and send email. It would be nice if this was a blue envelope so I could see, at a glance, “Oh, red is update.”
Look at this rocket for some reason; it’s a form, but there’s no differentiation in those actions. Here are your delays. I can delay for a day until a specific time or until a specific day of the week. I can also delay until a custom field, and there it is. Those are your delays.
Conditional Logic and Branching
Now we have our condition: Is yellow? We have our yes and no, but we don’t have multiple branches; it’s just a yes or no. You can see how this is very much harder. I have to select and just want to update the field based on the color they selected, like purple, orange, indigo, or yellow.
This is what it looks like; I have to do all this if-else, and it’s kind of weird looking. There are times where this would swap, like the “no” will go over here. The no isn’t always on the left; it just depends on if I add another branch. If I were to delete something, like maybe I delete this, you’ll see that things can swap.
It is practically impossible to track this stuff and the flow, so I am against the way that Funnel Kit is doing this. However, you can view the contact journey through here or the contact record. Both of them do not display like ActiveCampaign, which is like an overlay. It just gives you a list of what actions they took and the timestamp.
Step Management and Automation Structure
Let me just give you all, if I hit this plus button for conditions, we can do a jump, we can do a goal, and we can exit. If I go here and do a jump, I can configure this to any of these steps. You have to keep track of it, but I’ll just do “add tags” and hit save. There’s no additional string or line; you just know that it’s going there.
You’re going to have to know what step 18 is, and there it is. If I rename it, I don’t know if I can, but you can’t rename it. So you’re stuck with trying to figure this out. For Funnel Kit, things have to be linear. When we go into a sequence, a new user comes in, and it’s not until they’re finished with that that they’ll go here.
Limitations and Builder Functionality
By the way, there is no drag and drop in either of these. I’m trying to find it. If you look at conditions, I can add another one and say, “custom field score is not empty.” If yes, they’ll go through and then come through here. I can end it there. If yes, they can take some action and then it ends.
I want to show you how to move stuff around here because you will have some limitations in both of these builders. I can move it up or down, but I cannot move it out. If I duplicate it, there’s no way to get it down to this box. If you want to run multiple actions, you’ll have to rebuild this manually.
Functionalities of Fluent CRM
These platforms allow you to do the basic things. People’s basic needs, once met, produce results. They just need emails to go out every two to three days, tag, capture some information, and store that on the contact record.
What I want to mention before we close out is we talked about trigger links. When I go to a contact here, I think Funnel Kit gets this right. Look at this; trigger links all display here on the contact record. Once someone clicks them, you can segment off of that.
Final Remarks
In conclusion, there are cases where I would recommend Funnel Kit and FluentCRM, but it depends on your specific needs and marketing complexity. For those within the WordPress ecosystem, especially e-commerce users, Funnel Kit is a strong option, provided you avoid the more complex branching features. If your focus is content marketing, FluentCRM is a great fit, particularly if you’re selling courses through WordPress. Just remember, with both platforms, you are responsible for managing your email server, which is an important consideration compared to all-in-one solutions like ActiveCampaign or MailChimp. Overall, these tools can simplify your processes and enhance your marketing efforts, so choose based on your business model and be sure to automate responsibly. If you have any questions or suggestions for tools to review, feel free to drop them in the comments. Thank you for tuning in!
