Brief Overview Introduction

Are you frustrated by the complexities of integrating multiple tools in your digital marketing tech stack?

If you're a small business owner feeling overwhelmed by the array of digital marketing tools, AI, and apps you need to use.

You may struggle to integrate and synchronize them effectively without breaking the bank.

If any of this holds true for you, then this blog post is crafted exclusively for you. 

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Discover valuable insights and solutions tailored to ease your burden.

I feel your pain because I was in a similar predicament six years ago. Back then, I was grappling with the exasperating task of managing my digital marketing tech stack. It was a costly mishmash of disparate apps and systems held together by APIs and Zapier. The resulting tangled spider web of apps and integrations was a nightmare to manage. It was complicated, intricate, prone to malfunctions, and draining my finances with a hefty monthly bill of well over $3000.

Fast forward to today, I now rely on just two digital marketing SAAS software platforms that come at a combined cost of under two hundred dollars!

Navigating the fast-paced world of digital marketing can be an arduous task. The quest for a high-quality tech stack that seamlessly integrates at an affordable price while simplifying and unifying all the components of your digital marketing sales funnel is a complex and often exasperating endeavor.

Currently, I rely on Kartra for managing all my information products and coaching, consulting, and professional services for digital marketing.

Additionally, for my small local business clients who primarily require lead generation services, I utilize HighLevel.

What You Can Expect In This Blog Post

In this blog post, I will explore the key advantages and downsides of using Kartra.

I'll provide a comprehensive review of HighLevel in a future blog post.

My company, Bolder Future Marketing, has used Kartra as our all-in-one CRM SAAS solution for the past six years since its launch.

For nearly a decade now, we have also been utilizing Genesis Digital's software (the parent company of Kartra) for both Live and Evergreen webinars. This longstanding partnership has proven invaluable in our webinar endeavors.

In fact, we used Genesis Digital’s WebinarJam to launch our first online course in January 2014.  We went live on the Beta version of it from the offices of Traffic Geyser, where we were running a marketing strategy session with our clients Mike Keonigs and Pam Hendrickson for a launch of their product called Make, Market, Launch It.

Before finding Kartra, we struggled with Infusionsoft, ClickFunnels, Calendly, Zoom, survey apps, and many other software platforms for our digital marketing needs. 

Kartra has been a game-changer for us, providing a comprehensive and seamless solution that has streamlined our operations and improved efficiency.

Adopting Kartra marked a pivotal moment in our marketing strategy, revolutionizing our automated marketing processes. Since then, we haven’t looked back.

With its intuitive interface, comprehensive features, and cost-effective pricing, Kartra transcends being a mere tool - it's a game-changer. 

Let me elaborate on why Kartra is the ultimate solution for automating your digital marketing sales funnel.

Please find below a screenshot of my Kartra dashboard.

What I like best is the user-friendly interface, intuitive navigation, extensive features, and cost-effective pricing - all consolidated in one place.

So, you can say farewell to complicated, expensive technological frameworks and exasperating integrations.

I won't bore you with an exhaustive list of all their features, which you can easily find on their website. Instead, I'll highlight the standout features that I personally love and use the most.

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Key Features

The key features I love and use in Kartra are;

Campaigns

Pages

Memberships

Calendars

Surveys

HelpDesk

Funnels

Integrations

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Kartra Campaigns

As you can see in the screenshot below, they have provided many pre-built campaigns for most digital marketing niches.

The best part is that these campaigns are pre-set up with landing pages, products, sales pages, email sequences, lists, tags, forms, surveys, memberships, videos, and whatever else you need.

All you have to do is follow their guided wizard implementation to customize the campaigns to fit your business. 

If you really can’t find what you need in the pre-built campaigns, you can build one yourself, or feel free to go to their in-app Marketplace tab to purchase one from other Kartra partners.  Most of them are reasonably priced, too …way less than if you hired someone to do it for you.

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Kartra Pages

Seriously, if you can’t find a landing page in their pre-built library to serve whatever purpose you have, I don’t know what to say!  They have landing pages, squeeze pages, video pages, launch pages, sales pages, content pages, and I could go on and on. But again, if you can’t find what you’re looking for, you can build it yourself or buy one inside the Marketplace area. I have built pages with their simple landing page builder for everything from online product launches, to Black Friday 4-Day Sale, to One Click Upsells, to webinars, 10-Day Challenges, book launches, and everything in between.

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Kartra Memberships

I have been creating courses for my clients and coaching students for over ten years. I have used everything from Kajabi to Teachable, ClickFunnels, LeadPages, Thinkific, MemberPress, LearnDash, and so many others I can’t remember! I have over a dozen courses in my Kajabi Learning Portal and coaching & mentoring programs for Entrepreneurs, Marketing Agencies, and Small Business Owners.  In a single month, my partner and I achieved a remarkable revenue of $144,000 through our most successful course launch. All summed up, we’ve made close to half a million in course launches alone on this platform.  That’s on top of our Agency clients and monthly coaching/mentoring students.  I don’t think you can find a membership course requirement that wouldn’t fit into one of their Membership templates.  

The only negative thing is that their level of course gamification is almost negligible. 

You can, however, build it into your membership area. I have done it, especially in my 10-Day Perfect Day SoulPrint for Entrepreneurs Challenge.

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Kartra Calendars

I can’t say too much about this module.  I mean, calendar booking functionality is relatively dull and commodity-based now.  I just like that it’s integrated as part of my campaigns, funnels, and automations, including sending out my Zoom link to join the calls.  The only downside is they don’t have a native integration for SMS text messaging to remind people to attend their appointments.  However, I have still integrated it into Kartra using my Twillio account.  This is one thing I admit I do like GHL for.

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Kartra Surveys

I use both Kartra and HighLevel for running my surveys.  I would rate them both about the same with respect to the actual survey builder, but again, I do like that GHL integrates natively with SMS Text follow-up automations. I have used both for business surveys, particularly when running a marketing audit for a business where I need them to provide some input about their business for me to do the audit.  Both options work well, but if I could choose only one, I would opt for Kartra for my high-end consulting agency services.

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Kartra HelpDesk

Again, this is another one of those need to have commodity-type features.  I just like that it’s integrated into all my products and courses, so if any of my customers need help, it’s one click to access our support.

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Kartra Funnels

This is a feature I’ve only used a handful of times to be perfectly transparent.  It used to be just a nice to have additional feature for planning my marketing campaigns and having an overall diagrammatic view of the entire promotion.  

As a side benefit, it also looks very professional when showing your marketing strategy for the campaign to a client. 

However, Kartra has just added a new feature that I have not used yet, but I believe it will blow your mind …it’s Real Time Funnel Analytics.  

As you no doubt understand intimately, tracking, analytics, and attribution for our various marketing channels is an immense pain in the you-know-what!  This is one requirement where I still use multiple different platforms and still have trouble getting consistent data to analyze the success of my marketing efforts.  I use Google Analytics, Google Data Studio, now called Looker Studio (I know, sounds creepy, right), Segmetrics, Facebook & Google ads conversion tracking, Google Tag Manager, First Party Server Side Tracking tools, Lucky Orange, Hotjar, MS Clarity and the list goes on.  

I’m hopeful that Kartra’s new real-time live funnel analytics will help, but truthfully, I’m not holding my breath.  If they solve this problem, they’ll be the first.  At the end of the day, for now, I will continue to use several tracking platforms and correlate them with my own intuitive knowledge from running paid and SEO traffic for over 15 years.

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Kartra Integrations

Integrations done in-app natively are, again, sort of a commodity no-brainer in my mind, but this is one of those things that can drive you crazy, especially when they break.  

I’ve had no problems using the Kartra native integrations.  I don’t use a lot of them because, as I said before, most of what I need is already inside Kartra.  

I use Stripe and Paypal for my merchant payment & card processing, Google Calendar to see what appointments are coming in on my daily driver calendar, and Zoom for my client meetings and coaching student sessions.  

As you can see in the screenshot, there are many others you can use if needed.

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Kartra Overview: An All-in-One SaaS Tool for Your Business

In this crazy expansive market of SAAS CRM (Software as a Service) software platforms, my opinion is that Kartra stands out to me as a comprehensive tool for managing most aspects of your online digital marketing needs for your business. I recommend it to all my in-house clients and coaching students as my #1 go-to all-in-one CRM platform, providing multifaceted solutions under one roof.

Features Overview

Kartra's user interface is intuitive and user-friendly, simplifying the otherwise daunting process of setting up and navigating the platform. The dashboard is neatly organized, enabling users to access and manage their features easily.

Kartra's strength lies in its pre-built campaigns with robust marketing automation. The platform offers automation features, such as smoothly running email campaigns, advanced lead scoring, and deep analytics.

Kartra doesn't disappoint when crafting compelling landing pages and sales funnels. It offers a rich set of tools for designing and optimizing landing pages and seamlessly guiding your leads through the sales funnels.

For those who host and manage membership sites, Kartra provides a straightforward and efficient solution. The integration options are commendable, with Kartra smoothly syncing with numerous other tools and platforms.

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Pricing

Kartra offers various pricing tiers, each providing a distinct set of features. Compared to similar SaaS platforms, Kartra's pricing is lower, considering all the digital marketing features you get under one roof. The best thing is that they recently upgraded the packages to unlimited websites, landing pages, videos, products, emails & SMS messages. When I had the Starter Plan, they limited all those features, so I used to have to go in and delete legacy campaigns I wasn’t actively using anymore, even though I wanted to keep them for future use to clone. You wo

The feature sets vary in their four pricing tiers, so ensure you choose the right plan for the features you need. I initially purchased the Starter Plan but have now upgraded to the Professional Plan, which is their highest tier unless you go complete Enterprise for large businesses.

You can check out all the Kartra pricing plans by clicking here. 

*Note: See Affiliate Partner Disclosure below.

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‍Customer Support

Kartra's customer support is responsive and helpful, operating through various channels to resolve users' queries promptly and efficiently. In my current Kartra Plan, 

I have chat support and recently requested support with them and only waited a couple of minutes to get a live support person. They gave me an answer immediately, which helped solve my problem.

I also found a minor software glitch at the same time.  They emailed me back the next day to let me know their software development team had pushed out a software fix for the glitch.  

They also have a full-featured knowledge base and a course they call the Kartranaught program, plus a community of many other Kartra users if you need 

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Pros and Cons

Like any other tool, Kartra has its strengths and weaknesses. Its primary advantages lie in its extensive feature set, ease of use, and reliable customer support. 

However, the pricing for the top-tier plans could be a hurdle for small businesses or startups. 

Also, if you want to integrate SMS messaging sequences, you will need to set that up inside Kartra and integrate it with third-party software like Twillio. It’s not difficult to do; it just adds another step to your setup, whereas some other platforms have the templates built natively.

One last thing that could be important if you run ads.  In today’s environment of privacy concerns and tracking analytics issues, it is beneficial to leverage first-party data server-side tracking.  

In simpler terms, this method entails connecting your CRM software platform to your ad account instead of relying on your ad media platform to send you tracking and conversion analytics based on their pixel firing on your website entities. By reporting your data directly to them, you streamline the process and ensure a more efficient and accurate flow of information.

Using your data provides a more precise means of determining the conversion of leads or sales. This enables the ad platform to discover more highly qualified leads and individuals with a higher potential for customer conversion. 

At the time of this writing, I’m unaware of a native capability to do this within Kartra.  You would need to use a separate third-party platform like LeadBridge, Hubspot, HighLevel, or Make (there are several other platforms, but it can get complicated). 

Apart from that, you are limited to pixel-based tracking, which is increasingly becoming less reliable and the IOS 17 update made it even worse now.

Real-World Application

I have personally used Kartra to run marketing campaigns for both my own Agency as well as for customers.

Here are some examples of marketing campaigns/business applications;

Author - Book Funnel Campaign

Author - Online Course Product Launch

Realtor - Lead Generation & Appointment Booking

Contractors - Lead Generation & Appointment Booking

Mastermind Organizations - Lead Gen & Event Ticket Sales

Marketing Agency - Lead Gen, Course Selling, Events, Challenges

Restaurant - Website, Lead Gen, Digital Coupons

Consultants & Professional Services - Lead Gen, Calendar Booking & Online Sales

I am part of several mastermind groups with other Agency-type business owners and have seen many use Kartra for various business applications. 

I’ve seen many examples where they have streamlined marketing operations and automation and boosted sales with Kartra. From e-commerce stores to fitness trainers and business consultants, RE Investors and other business models have reaped the benefits of Kartra's comprehensive features.

Your business is very likely easily accommodated on the Kartra platform.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Kartra shines as a comprehensive and robust tool, especially for businesses looking to consolidate their online operations under one platform. 

The pricing might be a sticking point for some with an eye on the top-tier plan, but the sheer variety of tools and capabilities it offers provides value for money. 

For most businesses, the Starter Plan or Growth Plans should suffice. 

If, however, you need the features in the top-tier Professional Plan like I do, then your business is likely doing well enough to invest in it.

If that doesn’t push you to use it, Kartra is giving me a special 40% off of the Professional Plan for a limited time.  

Plus you'll get a 30 day trial instead of the normal 14 day trial.

You can grab that discount by using my Affiliate Partner Link here.

Use Coupon Code; PROSAVE40

This is a special offer available only for a limited time so grab it now!

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Bonuses

If however, your business needs fall into the Starter or Growth Plan, I have a special offer for you too!  

By using my Affiliate Partner Link here, you will get a special 30-day trial to give it a test.

If you do decide to invest in Kartra, please email me your confirmation email with a receipt from Kartra. I’ll set you up with access to my Customer Portal with several training modules on marketing and advertising, including my Entrepreneurs Concierge Coaching Marketing training that teaches you how to create an online course leveraging your professional expertise, productizing that expertise and how to do a product launch with ads to get lots of people investing with you. This program sold for $1500 on its own, so you will be getting well over $6000 in the training portal for free.

I will also give you one complimentary marketing makeover review call to review your strategy and go-to-market plans to grow your business.

My email is;

Shane@Shane.marketing

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Book A complimentary Marketing Revew For Your Business

If you’re still unsure if Kartra is suitable for you or you simply need some guidance concerning marketing and growing your business, go ahead and book a time slot in my virtual online calendar here. We’ll spend some time together to review it for you.

https://saas.bolderfuture.com/free-audit

As always, my passion is helping entrepreneurs and SMB owners bring their transformational help to the world and make it a better place for all of us.  

So, I would love to hear about your experiences with marketing, business growth, or even the entrepreneurial struggle.

Feel free to comment below or contact me for further discussion.

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Affiliate Partner Disclosure:

Just a quick heads-up before you dive into investing in Kartra with my awesome affiliate partner link – I'm about to spill the beans.

When you use my magical link to purchase, I may earn a small commission.  Yep, you heard it right! 

But fear not my fellow digital marketer, this doesn't cost you a dime extra. You're still getting the same fantastic product at the same price. 

So go ahead, click that link, shop 'til you drop, and know that you're helping a fellow entrepreneur in the process.

Oh and hey don’t forget, you’ll be getting my fabulous bonus package too!

P.S. Kidding aside, I have your back.  I love to help, support, and cheer on fellow entrepreneurs …the struggle is real so if you have any questions or need recommendations, feel free to reach out. I'm here to help you grow your business smarter, not harder!

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