Migrate from ActiveCampaign to Loops Without Losing Triggers

The trigger is almost always the same. A product team ships a new signup flow, needs to fire a lifecycle email when a user hits a milestone, and discovers that wiring that through ActiveCampaign requires a Zapier zap, a custom field update, and three nested automation conditions just to send one email. That friction is exactly why Loops is pulling PLG teams away fast. The problem is that Loops publishes no migration guide, and if you just export a CSV and hit “import,” you will gut every behavioral trigger you spent months tuning in AC. This guide covers the full migration in the order I run it for clients, so you keep your automation logic and your deliverability.

Before you migrate: the prep work that saves you

I have watched teams skip this phase and spend a full week untangling broken loops after go-live. Do not skip it.

The core issue with migrating from ActiveCampaign is that AC’s automation model is condition-based (contact has tag X, field equals Y) while Loops is event-driven (contact performed action Z in your product). These are different mental models, not just different UIs. You need to translate before you export. Trying to map one directly onto the other without that translation step is where migrations fall apart.

Run through this checklist before you touch any data:

• Audit every active automation in AC. List the trigger type (tag applied, form submitted, date-based, link clicked) and the action chain that follows. This is your translation map.
• Export your full contact list as CSV including all custom fields, tags, subscription status, and hard bounce/unsubscribe flags. In AC: Contacts > Export > select all fields.
• Export your suppression list separately. Filter for unsubscribed and bounced contacts in AC, export those emails, and keep that file apart from your main import.
• Pause automations you do not plan to rebuild immediately. Live automations queuing contacts during migration create duplicates and split-brain state.
• Verify your sending domain is authenticated in Loops before import. Loops requires DKIM and SPF on your sending domain. If you already have those set in AC, the DNS records are likely identical, but confirm anyway.
• Create all custom contact properties in Loops first. Go to Settings > Contact Properties in Loops and define every field you are bringing over. Loops will not auto-create fields on import.

The migration steps

What breaks and what does not transfer

AC Automation Pattern:
Trigger: Contact tag = "trial"
Wait 3 days
IF opened last email
  Send email: "Tip 2"
ELSE
  Send email: "Did you miss this?"

Loops Equivalent:
Event: trial_started
Loop:
  Email 1: sent immediately
  Wait: 3 days
  Email 2: sent (no branch)

Engagement branching moves to:
- Separate event: tip_email_clicked
- Separate loop: power_user_nurture
- Fired from your app when user
  clicks a link or reaches a milestone

The biggest mindset shift I emphasize with every team I take through this migration: stop trying to replicate AC automations one-for-one in Loops. Loops is not a feature-for-feature replacement. It is a cleaner tool for a more specific job. If an AC automation required conditional logic based on email engagement, the Loops version should be driven by product behavior instead. That rewrite is a feature, not a compromise.

Verify it worked

Before you call the migration done, run through these four checks:

• Fire a test event for each loop trigger using the “Send Event” button in the Loops dashboard against a seed contact you own. Confirm the loop activates and email 1 arrives with correct personalization.
• Check your suppression list is enforced. Try importing one of your known unsubscribes and confirm Loops marks them as unsubscribed rather than opted in.
• Confirm custom properties are populated. Pull one contact from the Loops UI and verify all custom property values are present. Spot-check five contacts across different segments.
• Verify DKIM and SPF pass on a sent email. Use MXToolbox: DKIM lookup or forward a test send to a Mail Tester report. Loops has documentation on domain authentication that walks through the DNS setup if anything is failing.

This is the same checklist I use when migrating teams off ActiveCampaign to HubSpot, and the same principle holds: do not consider the migration closed until you have a real email fired from the new system hitting a real inbox with correct content and authentication.

Should you switch to Loops, or go somewhere else?

Choose Loops if

• You are a PLG SaaS team and your lifecycle emails should be driven by what users do in the product, not by manual tags
• You want a clean, fast email tool with a modern event API and you are comfortable rebuilding automations from scratch
• Your team is tired of maintaining Zapier chains just to send a triggered email

From $0 (up to 1,000 contacts), then usage-based Try Loops →

Choose Customer.io if

• You need conditional branching, A/B splits, and multi-channel messaging (push, SMS, in-app) in one tool
• You want to replicate AC's logic-heavy automation model but with a better developer API
• You have a dedicated email ops person who will maintain complex workflow diagrams

From $100/month (up to 5,000 profiles) Try Customer.io →

Choose ActiveCampaign if

• You run a mix of B2C and B2B lists with complex conditional logic you cannot afford to redesign
• You rely on AC's CRM features, deal pipelines, or lead scoring and have no separate CRM to fall back on
• Your team is non-technical and the visual automation builder is the only thing keeping campaigns running

From $15/month (Starter, 1,000 contacts) Stay on ActiveCampaign →

If you are coming from a Mailchimp migration and already switched to Brevo once, the Loops migration will feel familiar in structure. But the event model is genuinely different and worth the re-think. Do not assume the muscle memory carries over.

The migration is really a redesign

Migrating from ActiveCampaign to Loops is not a lift-and-shift. It is a forced rethink of where your automation logic lives. Teams that fight that and try to rebuild AC’s conditional sprawl inside Loops end up unhappy. Teams that embrace Loops’ event model and push behavioral logic back into the product ship better lifecycle emails in less time.

The two-to-four-day investment pays back fast. Your engineers stop writing Zapier zaps every time the product team wants a new triggered email. Your sequences reflect what users actually do, not what tags someone applied manually three months ago. That is the version of email automation your PLG motion deserves.