Groundhogg Review – The Best Email Marketing Automation?

Are you looking for a Groundhoog review? Is Groundhogg the best email marketing automation tool for WordPress? You will find the answer after reading this Groundhogg review as I’m going to analyse it in detail for you.

Groundhogg is a WordPress plugin that allows you to self-host CRM, Email and Marketing Automation without leaving WordPress dashboard. You have full control of everything.

Many people are forced to use expensive SaaS platforms when it comes to CRM and Email Marketing, so Groundhogg is created to change this status quo.

I’ve been using Groundhogg for some time, so I can tell you more about it if you consider using Groundhogg for your WordPress site.

• Product Name: Groundhogg
• Website: https://www.groundhogg.io/
• Special Offer: Get A Special Offer Here
• Overall Rank: 4.8/5
• Who is it for: any WordPress users doing email marketing

In this review of Groundhogg, I’m going to cover the following:

What is Groundhogg?

Groundhogg is a self-hosted CRM, Email and Marketing Automation plugin for WordPress. Like WordPress, it is open-source and hence very flexible in terms of features.

It was created by a Canada-based company in 2018. The founder of Groundhogg is called Adrian Tobey. They won the Gold Stevie Award for Tech Start-Up of the Year in the software category 2020. Right now, it serves over 1200 businesses worldwide.

In my opinion,  Groundhogg is the best alternative to other CRMs like Infusionsoft, ActiveCampaign, Convertkit, HubSpot etc.

Groundhogg’s selling point is that it has most of the powerful features like other SaaS platforms but doesn’t charge you based on the number of subscribers or number of emails sent. Actually, there are no limits on the number of contacts, number of funnels or automation, number of emails sent if you use Groundhogg. In fact, you can save thousands of dollars per year if you use Groundhogg. 

Moreover, you own all the subscriber data. If you use SaaS platforms like Convertkit, your data is stored on the platforms and does not actually belong to you technically. If you breach the policy of those SaaS platforms, they can disable your account and delete all your data. So it’s not very safe if you want to build a sustainable business.

You can watch this YouTube video to learn more about Groundhogg:

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Groundhogg Features

In my opinion, Groundhogg has all the features you need for a CRM. And the developer is still adding new features from time to time. There are no other WordPress plugins as powerful as Groundhogg in terms of marketing automation.

Here are what you can get from Groundhogg:

• Segmentation: you can segment and organise your contents easily with tags
• Automation: you can send automated sequences to your contacts to save time
• Data collection: you can collect your contacts’ information and save in the database
• Integrations: Groundhogg can now integrate with over 30+ popular WordPress plugins.
• Analytics Reporting: Groundhogg is able to track all the important data like open rate, click through rates, conversions etc.
• CRM: Groundhogg is not just for email marketing, it’s also a CRM tool to help you manage customer relationships. You can store the customer details, tag customers to categorise them and give your sales team access to the CRM.
• SMS: apart from emails, Groundhogg also allows you to send SMS to customers.
• Integrate with SMTP services: You can integrate Groundhogg with multiple popular SMTP services like Amazon SES, SendGrid, Elastic Email etc to enhance your email deliverability.

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Who is Adrian Tobey?

Adrian Tobey is the founder and lead developer of Groundhogg. When he founded Groundhogg in 2018, he was just 21 years old. He studied Computer Science in the University of Toronto.

The reason why Adrian Tobey started his career so early was because he grew up in a very entrepreneurial family. His parents started a digital marketing training company in the early 2000s. He followed his family and worked as a helper in the marketing training seminars.

While going to the University, Adrian Tobey was working in his family’s agency business. He helped create websites, do sales copy, integrate CRMs, build sales funnels etc. Moreover, he was trained as an Infusionsoft Certified partner and developed advanced email marketing skills.

Those experiences paved the way for Adrian Tobey to create the first open-source CRM/Marketing Automation software for WordPress, which competes with ActiveCampaign or Infusionsoft. 

Groundhogg Pros

1. Marketing Automation Capability is Advanced

Groundhogg’s marketing automation features are comparable to other SaaS platforms like ActiveCampaign, Convertkit etc.

With Groundhogg, you build automated customer journeys. There are combinations of 18 actions and triggers to sales funnels, which can work on autopilot. You can use timed delays to time your communication with your email subscribers.

Moreover, to enable advanced automation, Groundhogg can integrate with many popular WordPress plugins such as WPForm, WooCommerce, LearnDash etc.

Apart from that, you can share the sales funnels created in Groundhogg with other websites and users.

2. Email Marketing is Easy and Simple

Groundhogg is very easy to use. The user interface is very intuitive. You can use WordPress blocks to design simple and effective emails without coding. Of course, you can edit in HTML if you are technical.

Moreover, you can email broadcasts to your email list easily with Groundhogg. Like other SaaS, you can do contact personalization to build a closer relationship with subscribers.

Most importantly, all the link clicks and email opens are tracked by Groundhogg so that you know what to improve.

3. Advanced Reports & Tracking

Reports and tracking are important when it comes to designing effective email campaigns. Groundhogg’s report is very detailed. You can see the subscribers growth by date range, track email opens, clicks, form impressions and submissions, Geo-location data and more.

If you like, you can export the reports into a CSV file for further analysis. The reports are displayed in easy to read charts.

All the sales funnels and email activity can be monitored with reports.

4. Flexible Contact Management

Groundhogg is more than email marketing, but a CRM. So it’s easy to manage the contacts you have collected online.

It also allows you to segment contacts based on tags, which can be any characteristics you like. You can basically collect an unlimited amount of information with unlimited custom fields.

Each contact has a profile, where you can see all the contact history. You can Geolocate contacts based on IP.

Groundhogg is also very flexible in that you can import contacts from any CSV and map the information to tags or fields.

5. You own all your data

All your data is hosted on your WordPress site since Groundhogg is a WordPress plugin. Therefore, you are in complete control of your technology stack and customer information.

The GDPR becomes easy to comply with, as do the stricter compliance regulations in  Europe.

You’ll still have all your funnels and systems functional if you don’t renew because you own the data. But Updates and support will no longer be provided.

6. No need for developers or custom integrations

Groundhogg offers all the WordPress integrations you’ll need to get up and running. LMS, form, and WordPress integrations are all available.

You can also rely on our third-party developer community for functionality Groundhogg don’t offer. So you can find a solution to meet your needs!

Develop your own integrations with Groundhogg if you are a developer! There are many hooks and filters available using Groundhogg’s codebase and REST API.

7. Scaling won’t increase your fees

Some platforms charge you a “Success Tax” that increases based on how successful your business is.

Groundhogg doesn’t do this. You pay a flat licensing and support fee. No matter what the licensing fee is, you will never see an increase in this fee.

Regardless of the fee structure in effect at the time of purchase, Groundhogg will grandfather all licenses. So it’s always good to get Groundhogg early before they increase their price.

Groundhogg Complaints and Cons

1. Groundhogg Needs a High-Quality Web Host To Work

Since you are self-hosting the autoresponder and CRM on your server, you should choose a high-quality server to ensure the smooth operation of Groundhogg.

It’s best to use VPS because you can set the custom cron-jobs for your automation emails. I highly recommend using Cloudways, which is affordable, easy to use and the support is excellent.

2. Groudhogg Needs an SMTP service to Work

To use Groundhogg, you need an SMTP service to send out emails. Using the SMTP service can enhance the deliverability of your emails, meaning you can ensure your emails land on your subscribers’ inbox instead of the spam box.

I recommend using Amazon SES, which is very cheap indeed. It only cost $0.1 for 1000 emails. There are no monthly charges.

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Other Groundhogg Reviews

Groundhogg is now rated 4.9 out of 5 on WordPress. It has received many positive reviews online.

Positive Grounhogg Reviews

“I’ve been in the tech industry for years, and the crew at Groundhogg have support that is up there with the best in the world.

What’s more, they really listen to their customers and community, and focus on enhancing the product to meet those requirements … and they do it with rock-solid code that’s not full of bugs and issues.

… if only everything in life was as good as Groundhogg !!!” ~ Max

“Better value then Mailchimp &n Activecampaign. This package has it all, on your own server !

No expensive “success fees” when you hit more subscribers.

I had a very good support experience with Jesse.” ~ Jessy86

“I have been able to replace several plugins with just this one! I can now have my crm, my marketing avenues, and my appointments/billing all in one place with the integration of grounhogg. I recommend this to all of my clients as well!” ~ Gypsytech

“I was searching for a plugin to manage my customers and also be a e-mail marketing tool. I found it and the plugin is very good with great support and fast and ongoing updates. Keep it up!” ~ Paulefde

“Groundhogg is a wonderful software platform that is helping us to manage multiple business needs from marketing automation to selling products. I love that you can manage your contacts and email lists directly from WordPress – without having to add additional connectors or other integrations. This is particularly important to our clients that have membership sites.

We are relatively new to using the software, but we are finding new applications each day to use Groundhogg. I highly recommend it.” ~ sanderson513

Of course, not everyone is satisfied with Groundhogg. I searched for hours but can only found a few negative reviews.

Negative Groundhogg Reviews

“While reviews in the past have been highly favorable, there are great concerns the new GH updates are taking a toll on current systems that are now suffering and clients aren’t happy. Happy clients keep your lights on. After weeks of a ticket open, there is still no resolve and slow on communication including getting my ticket seen. I see a great advantage to having everything in one place, but when WP updates sometimes connections break and that means an entire marketing automation ecosystem crashes. That’s scary! That’s what has happened here. Hoping they improve things.” ~ nymills

Groundhogg Pricing

Groundhogg is a freemium plugin, meaning there is a free version and paid version. The free version is basically the core Groundhogg tool, which allows you to have unlimited contacts, unlimited emails and unlimited users.

Here’s the pricing plan:

For the paid version, you will enjoy all the extensions developed by Groundhogg to make it a fully featured CRM tool. 

For most people, you should choose the Pro plan, which costs $40/month. It’s very affordable when compared with the SaaS platforms which can charge you a thousand dollar per month when your email list grows bigger.

You can get a 15% discount if you subscribe to their newsletter. Just scroll to the bottom and subscribe.

Get A Special Offer of Groundhogg Here

What I Like About Groundhogg

Groundhogg is a fully featured WordPress plugin for email marketing automation. With Groundhogg, you can manage your emails and contacts without leaving WordPress dashboard.

Groundhogg’s automation features are very similar to other big SaaS platforms. You can set up automation flows, which are called funnels by Groundhogg, using a visual drag and drop editor.

In addition, I like the fact that the Founder, Adrian Tobey, created a lot of free courses to help you succeed with Groundhogg. There are over 60 hours of tutorials you can access for free.

Moreover, there is a weekly live Facebook stream, which is called Office Hours. Adrian will teach you email marketing stuff and answer your questions.

So when you get Groundhogg, you have everything you need to succeed in email marketing.

Who Should Use Groundhogg?

Groundhogg is suitable for WordPress users who need to do email marketing. Here are the types of people or organisation who would benefit from Groundhogg:

• Digital Marketing Agencies
• WordPress Freelancers
• LifterLMS, LearnDash, or TutorLMS sites
• WooCommerce Sites
• WaaS Multisite Platforms
• Blogs and News Sites
• Coaches and Trainers
• Educators and Public Speakers
• Business Directories

You can benefit the most from Groundhogg if your email list is big and you rely heavily on email marketing in your online business.

Who Should Not Use Groundhogg?

Groundhogg is not for you if you don’t use email marketing for your online business. Also, if your website is not built with WordPress, you cannot use Groundhogg because it is a WordPress plugin.

Moreover, if your email list is very small (<1000 subscribers) and you don’t grow it further, it might be more convenient to just use a SaaS platform like ActiveCampaign, which I will tell you more in detail in the last section.

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Pros and Cons of Groundhogg

Pros

• Groundhogg is very easy to use. Building funnels are very intuitive
• The customer support is excellent
• Have all the advanced CRM features like automatic data capture, lead management etc.
• Can integrate with many popular third-party software or platforms

Cons

• Since Groundhogg is self-hosted, you have to use a quality web host for your website, such as WPX Hosting.
• Since Groundhogg is self-hosted, you need to pay for the SMTP services like Amazon SES, which are very cheap though.

Final Verdict: Groundhogg Review

Groundhogg is really a ground-breaking software in the world of marketing. Before Groundhogg, many companies have to rely on SaaS platforms and are forced to pay thousands of dollars a month when their business grows. It’s unfair to businesses.

Groundhogg is going to revolutionise this trend as it’s a fully-featured marketing automation tool where you can own all the data and have full control of it. You don’t have to worry about the sending limit or contact limit.

All in all, I highly recommend grabbing the Pro version of Groundhogg and start building email marketing funnels to scale your business.

Get A Special Offer of Groundhogg Here

Groundhogg Alternative

There are other great autoresponders on the market that you can use. I want you to have all the options and make an informed decision that is right for you.

If you are not using WordPress to build your website or you want to separate your website from your autoresponder, you can consider using ActiveCampaign instead.

ActiveCampaign is one of the most popular autoresponders that many successful online marketers use. It has the top deliverability among its competitors. Personally, I use both Groundhogg and ActiveCampiagn for my businesses.

ActiveCampaign’s automation power transcends most of the other autoresponders. 

With ActiveCampaign, you can create any kind of automation emails to promote your business. Many large businesses are using ActiveCampaign to automate their business.

It has a very flexible visual automation builder, which makes it so easy to create different triggers for your automation. You can build sophisticated automation with conditional logic and do all sorts of advanced stuff that looks very high-tech.

Of course, when compared with Groundhogg, you will have to pay more in the long term, because ActiveCampaign charges you based on the number of subscribers on your email list.

Moreover, you have to comply with ActiveCampaign’s policy. For examples, ActiveCampaign has a very strict anti-spam policy where affiliate links cannot be embedded directly on emails.

If you want to try ActiveCamapgin, you can get the 14-day free trial here.

If you want to learn more about ActiveCampaign, you can also read this detailed ActiveCampaign review.