Why ConvertKit?

The features of what the application has are exactly what I need for myself and clients.

Yes, I have some e-commerce clients who may fit better with Drip as their platform, but I have other clients who are non-profits, service-based businesses, coach, and other individuals who are selling only a handful of products that ConvertKit is a perfect fit for.

UI Features

The UI is simple, yet powerful. They are always improving it and adding features too. But they are very intentional about adding features that the vast majority of customers would like, want, and use.

They don't add features for the sake of attracting new customers.

They don't add features for the sake of one customer.

Sure, I would like to see less cards in the UI and more list-type views to see more information per screen. But that's something that maybe not the vast majority would like. However, if that is something you would like, Alex Hillman shared his User Styles for ConvertKit on Twitter.

API + Support

The API has greatly improved over the years. It allows for a lot of what I need for my clients and my own business as well.

Being able to code specific experiences based on the subscriber data that my clients need is super helpful and allows me to do things that my clients may not expect.

Support has been outstanding in helping me with unique issues and "common" issues alike. If there is an issue that needs to be escalated, I get connected to that person.

Nathan himself has supported me. Haven't heard many CEOs doing that.

Feel valued as a customer

The other thing that makes me feel valued as a customer is that Nathan has outright asked my thoughts on ConvertKit, features, and how I use it for my clients and myself.

These sorts of inquiries have flowed to the rest of the team at ConvertKit as well. I've been asked on several occasions for input and feedback from several different people.

It makes me feel as though I matter and that I'm not just someone who pays them monthly to send my email.

There's a sense that they want to understand their customers and how they use the application for their business so that they can improve it to suit the needs of their customers.

That personal connection is rare for businesses of ConvertKit's size these days. Especially when the mantra seems to be "grow at all costs" and scale.

Cleaning up the house

The process to migrate from Drip to ConvertKit is a large topic to dive into and as someone who's done my fair share of them, they can vary greatly. Unless you have the same business as me not sure it would be helpful for me to dive too deeply into that.

However, as the name of this podcast suggests, if you have a specific question, go ahead and ask and I'll answer.

What I will say though, is that the process of moving, regardless of what platforms, allows you to reflect on exactly what you need.

It's like cleaning your basement. As you start to pull things out, you evaluate whether you actually need it.

Old tags and segments that you used once, may not be best to migrate over.

Custom fields that you don't even need anymore, best left out.

However, as you work through moving your lead magnets, email courses, post-purchase sequences, and eventually subscribers over, you'll have the opportunity to close some gaps, simplify the process, and build out better flows that are easier to manage.

Handling various integrations

Integrations are where the biggest difference between Drip and ConvertKit lie.

Not that you can't integrate other tools with ConvertKit, because you certainly can through various means, but you need to be mindful that there is no such thing as custom events in ConvertKit.

So for example, if in Drip you use Calendly and someone creates an appointment with you, that person would get a custom event called "Invitee created an event" created on their subscriber record along with the time, date, and other data that is passed along with the booking.

In ConvertKit, you'd need to create a form or a tag for that subscriber to account for that appointment.

This is good in that it simplifies where to look for things, but also it can cause your account to become overloaded with tags if you have many integration points.

So you want to think about your business as a whole and the process you want to use for your ConvertKit account for those integrations and stick with that.

If you are going to use tags, then use tags with a naming convention that's easy to read, recognize, and filter for.

If you are going to use forms, then stick with that.

How I think about and categorize integrations

For me, I like using forms if I can so that I don't clutter up the subscriber with tags. But also because anytime I integrate something, it's usually a form that the person filled out in some way. So for me, it makes sense to use forms since they are an entry point into my business.

Some other things to be mindful is your usage of Liquid templating and heavy use of the visual automations. Best to keep things simple, which to be honest is always good advice.

ConvertKit excels at...

ConvertKit does nicely, and this goes against that card UI comment I said before, is being able to see the analytics of forms and sequences. You can see immediately, without digging deep (or not at all), to see how effective they are for you right there in the app.

Sequences and managing those emails within

Speaking of sequences, I enjoy using sequences when working with visual automations because it's nice and easy to pull and push folks in and out of them. When you push them back into one they've already been in, they will actually pick up from where they left off.

This presents a problem though if you happen to run a sequence that you want someone to go through again. They can only go through once.

The real power of sequences though is that you can filter emails within a sequence based on a subscriber. So if you don't want a certain subscriber to receive a particular email, you can exclude them from getting it. This allows you such freedom to be able to combine like sequences together rather than duplicating a sequence only because one email is different.

Segments

Managing segments within ConvertKit is much easier to grasp and manage than other platforms.

Instead of creating a tag for "customer" and then "customer - monthly" and "customer - one-off", you can create a segment called "Customer" and then include anyone has submitted through a specific form, paid an invoice, purchased a product, or has a specific tag. This again helps with keeping your tags in order.

The only thing that I wish could be done is the ability to use those segments within Liquid code, but that's part of my own wishlist (nudge nudge if anyone from ConvertKit happens to see this).

THE #1 thing...folks get the emails

The big thing is deliverability.

Since moving, folks on my list, maybe you included, are seeing my emails for the first time in a long time. This is most important to me.

Open rates and click-through rates have improved slightly and some clients of mine have had much larger improvements some upwards of 15% more. However, I know that's an inexact science due to many factors.

What matters to me is you and if you are my list that you are getting my emails.

Seeing the uptick in rates and getting replies from people telling me that I'm showing up now, is enough of an indication that deliverability has been an issue in the past for me.

I can easily geek out about many things that I like about ConvertKit and some of the ideas that I have, but I think this has been long enough.

Mostly certainly I'll be diving into more discoveries and how I'm solving interesting problems as I continue to flex the ConvertKit muscle and boundaries.

If you have any specific questions about my move, ConvertKit, or your business and how ConvertKit may or may not work for you, I'd be happy to chat.