What does bernard have for each thing I use in ActiveCampaign?

Read it before you move, not after. Move my mailing list from ActiveCampaign is the move itself, step by step.

Your people

Lists. Bernard has no lists. People are grouped three ways instead:

• Tags you give them yourself, one at a time or up to 200 people at once from the contacts page.
• Fixed audiences that fill themselves: everyone who has said yes to your email, your buyers, your students, and the people who came in through each kind of form.
• Saved audiences: a fixed audience narrowed by tags, saved under a name so you can pick it again.

When you import from ActiveCampaign, each list becomes a tag called list: and its name. What happens to my lists and tags when I bring my list across? explains why bernard holds permission once per person rather than once per list.

Tags. Yes, and they are the main way to split up your people. Nothing adds a tag on its own, though. In ActiveCampaign an automation can tag somebody. In bernard only you, or Bernard on your say, can.

Custom fields. The values come across and stay on each contact. You cannot filter, segment or send on them, and no automatic email can change them.

Segments. A saved audience can narrow by up to 20 tags. You cannot build a segment from a field, a date or whether somebody opened an email.

Import and bulk changes. Bring your ActiveCampaign exports across with a report you approve first (Bring my mailing list across from another email tool), or bring in any spreadsheet from the contacts page. You can tag and untag in bulk. You cannot change a field in bulk.

Automations

Automations and triggers. Bernard has eight ready-made automatic emails. Each one is started by one event, and only that event:

What starts it	The automatic email
Someone signs up on a form but does not confirm	A reminder to confirm
Someone confirms their sign-up	A welcome sequence
Someone buys from your shop	Thank-you and aftercare
Someone enrols on a course	Course onboarding, or a course delivered by email
Someone sends an enquiry	A follow-up to the enquiry
Someone joins your waiting list	Waiting-list emails, then the doors-open announcement you send
Someone finishes a course	A request for a review

You write the words, choose the timing within limits, and switch each one on or off. How do automatic emails work? covers all eight.

What does not exist: a trigger on a tag, a field, a date or an anniversary, an open or a click, a page visit or a deal. There is no if/else branch, no “wait until”, no step that adds a tag or changes a field, and no automation that starts another. A person goes through each automatic email once.

Can I rebuild my ActiveCampaign automation in bernard? shows how to take one of your ActiveCampaign automations and find its nearest match.

Internal notifications. Every active member of your account gets an email each time somebody fills in a form on your site. There is no notification step inside an automatic email and no way to send a notice to one team member only.

Campaigns

Broadcasts. Yes. Pick an audience, narrow it by tag, preview it, send one test, and schedule it. You approve the exact version and the number of people before it goes. Send an email campaign to my audience is the whole path.

Templates and copying a campaign. Yes. Reusable templates, starters Bernard designs in your site’s colours, and “start from a campaign I already sent”.

A/B split tests. No.

More than one sender address. Each site sends from one address of its own. If you run several sites on one account, each site can have its own.

Unsubscribes. One unsubscribe covers everything that site sends. It does not reach your other sites, because each site keeps its own permission record. How does unsubscribing from my emails work? has the detail.

Reports

Every campaign shows how many were delivered, which addresses bounced, who unsubscribed and who complained. What happened after I sent my email campaign? explains each line.

Opens and clicks are recorded only for the readers who agreed to it, and only on sites we have switched on for it. Today we do that for a site when its owner asks us, and the site must already send campaigns from its own email address. Nobody who has not agreed is ever counted, so the numbers are a count of those readers and never a rate over your whole list. Can I see who opened my email? explains the switch and the numbers.

Keeping your list tidy

Sunsetting. Nothing is removed on its own. Bernard can show you the people who have gone quiet for more than a year, and you choose whether to stop emailing them with your own click. How do I tidy my mailing list once a year? explains the rules it uses.

Clean-up. Every new address is checked when it arrives, duplicates are merged on import, and your do-not-email list travels with every export.

Sales

Deals, pipelines, stages, deal values and owners. None. Bernard has no deals.

Tasks. None. Each contact has a free-text notes box.

Connections to other tools

• ThriveCart. No connection. A sale there does not reach bernard on its own. You, or Bernard, can enrol a student by hand (Enrol a student myself - they paid elsewhere), and that student then becomes a contact and starts your course emails like any other.
• Typeform and other form tools. A form on another service keeps sending its answers there. Move my Typeform (or other form) sign-ups into bernard explains what can move and what cannot.
• Calendly. A booking calendar can sit on one of your pages. A booking does not become a contact.
• Facebook. Lead ads do not come in. To show ads to people already on your list, download your contacts and upload the file to Facebook yourself: Upload your buyers or students to Facebook.
• Zapier. No connection, and no way for another tool to add people to your contacts.
• SMS and WhatsApp. None.

The honest test

If most of this page reads “yes” for the things you use, the move is worth making, and Move my mailing list from ActiveCampaign is where to start. If the things you rely on are in the “none” lines, stay where you are. That is a better answer than a move you regret in a month.