After growing frustrated with their existing marketing automation provider due to limitations with analytics and functionality, Sked Social made the switch to Ortto and gained insights that led to growth.

Making the switch from ActiveCampaign to Ortto

To Mark Ankucic, Sked Social’s Head of Marketing, the decision to move from ActiveCampaign to Ortto was an easy one.

“I saw two things: One is the genesis in Australia, I love it homegrown. The second thing was the B2B SaaS-specific capabilities and the thinking and methodology within the program. So when I first used the platform, I saw that I could create really cool journeys, edit directly in the platform, and perform really good AB testing,” he shared.  

One of the things that had been frustrating Mark in his current process was that he had to use a third-party tool that was integrated with ActiveCampaign to import designs and run "horrible, ineffective tests.”

After struggling with the lack of capabilities, “I found Ortto, a tool that allows me to do everything I need to do with email quickly. I don't have to use any external tools,” Ankucic continued.  

Setting up a newsletter and generating user feedback with ease

After migrating to Ortto, setting up their monthly newsletter was high on Mark’s priority list. Their first newsletter saw, “open rates rise significantly,” shared Ankucic.

Sked Social saw a 127% increase in their newsletter email open rates once they changed email automation providers. The benefits didn’t stop there.

Because of Ortto’s features like A/B testing and reactions, Sked Social were able to generate feedback in a timely manner, and adjust the newsletter to give the users what they wanted.

Their previous marketing automation platform only allowed for AB testing of the subject lines. “Now I can actually properly AB test, as quickly as I want, and in the actual body content in emails,” he shared.

The reactions footer has also been a favored feature in drawing timely feedback and insights from users. This simple, yet effective, tool has allowed Sked Social to gain a better understanding of what their customers are looking for — something that is crucial in the early stages of setting up a newsletter.

From time to time, “we have found things that people respond to negatively, and we're finding out why that is the case,” shared Ankucic. “But getting that insight has been amazing.”

A better reporting and analytics solution 

One of Mark’s pain points with ActiveCampaign was the lack of analytics, particularly when it came to attribution. “I needed something for analytics, and ActiveCampaign actually told us to go and get another program to figure out our email analytics. That seemed crazy to me.”

In Ortto, Mark is able to report on the specific actions a user takes that indicate an email is successful. “Now that I know we can test if things are successful, I can actually test new campaigns. For example, if they don’t sign up and I send them this nurture journey, will they actually come back at some point?”

Being able to identify which emails and campaigns are a success has allowed Mark to set up benchmarks and KPIs, something that was unreliable with his previous solution. 

Automating repetitive sales tasks with journeys 

“Chargebee is our source of truth when it comes to customers.” Mark shared. With Ortto’s Chargebee integration, he’s been able to set up a dashboard that reports on things like expansion, churn, and MRR in real time. 

The data is also used in journeys to automate Slack notifications about high-value trialists for the sales team. 

“Essentially when someone either starts a trial or slips off from a trial and they have been identified as a good lead—for example, their email included agency or they’ve said they’re managing 11+ Instagram accounts—we’ll send a Slack notification to Sales to reach out to them.” 

They have further automated sales tasks by setting up email journeys for customers who start the sign up process and never complete. Right now they have two journeys, one for ecommerce customers and one for agencies. This means they can automatically send relevant content, including testimonials from customers in the same field, and retrieve failed sign ups to increase conversions. 

These simple journeys save the sales team valuable time, allowing them to focus on the bigger fish.