Kartra vs. ClickFunnels: Which One Is Right For Me?

If your online business is not taking off quite as you had expected, there is a strong possibility that you have looked into some digital marketing resources to help you along—specifically the concept of sales funnels. Throughout your search, you have likely stumbled across Kartra and ClickFunnels, two of the most recognizable names in the digital marketing sphere. But which one is right for your business?

If you are looking for an all-inclusive platform to build your business’ online presence, Kartra is probably the best choice. If you are strictly looking to create sales funnels and educate people about online marketing, ClickFunnels is tailored to meet your needs.

Both platforms are outstanding digital marketing resources and will likely benefit your business, one way or another. Therefore, you must know your business’s objectives and goals to choose the software that can return your online company’s best value. The following breakdown will give you an idea of where each platform is particularly strong.

Click here for a FREE two-week ClickFunnels trial, a FREE ClickFunnels course, and over 10 done-for-you funnels!

What is a Sales Funnel?

Before starting the comparison, it is essential to thoroughly understand the idea of a sales funnel, as it is a contemporary tool that most successful businesses use for digital marketing success. Additionally, sales funnels are central to the business models of both Kartra and ClickFunnels.

According to UpLead, a sales funnel is the multi-step process that customers go through in their journey from being prospective leads to buyers of your product. A sales funnel will be broken down into various steps, from initial awareness to their actual purchase.

While the sales funnel steps may differ between products and industries, the purpose of a sales funnel will always be the same: To transform leads into purchases.

With this in mind, let’s take a look at both Kartra and ClickFunnels to see how they use sales funnels and other digital marketing tools to benefit your online business.

About Kartra

Kartra is a website building platform that can help your business with everything from page creation to digital marketing. As posted on the company website: “Kartra is the greatest all-in-one platform…ever!”

Among the features at your disposal with a Kartra membership include:

• Sales funnels and campaigns
• Kartra mail
• Memberships
• Videos
• Help desks
• Calendars
• Kartra affiliates
• Marketplace

All these systems are connected to create a unique experience for each visitor, customer, and subscriber. Every activity that visitors have ever done in the Kartra system allows you to develop meaningful business insights. You will be able to see which emails are being opened, which videos are being watched, and which content is generating traffic to the help desk.

Let’s take a more in-depth look at each of these features and see how they work together in the Kartra system to provide meaningful feedback to help drive business decisions.

Sales Funnels and Campaigns

The goal of Kartra’s sales funnels is to improve your business’ conversion rate. They want to convert visitors into leads, leads into customers, and customers into recurring clients.

Kartra claims that it is easier to build advanced funnels with them than on other platforms because “all the different pillars of a funnel (pages, opt-in forms, checkout, mailing, lead tagging, membership, etc.) are already interconnected within one single ecosystem.”

Among the resources provided by Kartra to help build powerful sales funnels include:

• Pages: All pages built within the Kartra ecosystem are interconnected in the multi-page flow, which is a characteristic of strong sales funnels.
• Emails: Kartra Mail allows you to leverage and incorporate email sequences into your marketing campaign.
• Lead tagging: The software allows you to denote where leads are the most promising and assign them to specific subgroups.
• IF and THEN automations: Gives you insights on past customer behavior to allow you to tailor marketing campaigns based on it. 
• Plug and play campaigns: If you are truly new to funnel building, Kartra offers several templates from their world-class marketing professionals that will allow you to build a powerful digital marketing sequence.

Kartra Mail

The Kartra ecosystem allows you to create automated or live email and/or SMS marketing campaigns to keep your user base informed and engaged. The company uses the slogan “More reads. More clicks. More customers.” to advertise their email platform’s power.

By choosing to subscribe to Kartra, online businesses can eschew subscriptions to individual email management platforms—such as Mailchimp, Flodesk, and Mailer Lite—that are necessary when piecemealing an online presence less comprehensively.

Among the features that Kartra lists that make their email builder modern and user-friendly include:

• Glorious templates: Using various drag, drop, copy, and paste options, users can quickly customize professional emails from the multitude of beautiful templates crafted by the Kartra designers.
• Behavior-based automations: Kartra allows you to customize your follow-up decisions based on customer reactions to an initial email. Some of the key automations include unsubscribing users who have not opened any mail in 30 days, sending follow-up emails to customers, and assigning tags to customers who click on links.
• Intelligent split testing: Split testing is the process of sending two different versions of an email and/or subject line and tracking data on which performs the best in terms of opens and clicks. Not only does Kartra keep track of this data, but it automatically switches the email to the best-performing option before sending it out en masse.
• Personalized messages with custom tags: This helps make email communication seem less spammy and more authentic.

Memberships

Like other aspects of the platform, the membership builder operates on an intuitive drag-and-drop interface that allows users to deliver content, course, or training material in an attractive and professional design.

Some of the unique features of the memberships page that allow you to share professional content with your visitors include:

• Content drip: Users have the option of sharing all their content at one time or slowly dripping their content over a series of releases using “set-and-forget” automation.
• Membership tiers: You can define levels of membership based on price and access.
• Upload files, video, or audio: Create a truly multimedia portal for your members using any number of file types.

Videos

Kartra gives users the ability to truly customize their videos to optimize their marketing experience. You can build videos with pop-up offers midway through the video, incorporate lead capture forms, and/or create multi-video playlists that keep visitors engaged and increase the chance of capturing a sale.

Other important features of Kartra video creation include:

• Watermarks: Make each video truly your own by incorporating your business’ unique watermark.
• Social share buttons: Grow your web by efficiently allowing watchers to share your videos on social media.
• Device optimization: Make videos that look great for desktop and mobile viewers alike.

Help Desks

One of the more challenging aspects of running an online business is dealing with technology concerns—especially if technology is not your cup of tea. Kartra offers a full help desk suite with support ticketing and live chat. It is also fully compatible with Kartra checkout to help with billing concerns.

On the support ticket side, Kartra offers the following attractive features:

• Sort tickets by department: Kartra automatically sorts your support tickets based on department, such as billing, technical, or sales support; this allows the correct representative to respond in the most helpful manner possible.
• Multi-agent collaboration: It is difficult for all agents to have all the answers all the time. Using the agent collaboration tool on Kartra, tickets can be easily shared and reviewed among agents, ensuring that the person with the most helpful answer will be able to respond.
• Integrated billing: As all information is shared within Kartra’s comprehensive ecosystem, business owners have access to a customer’s full profile, including a complete purchase and refund history.
• Canned responses: Many times, customers submit tickets with the same question. Rather than having to reply over and over to the same issue, Kartra makes it possible to respond with a universal response with a single click of a button.

In terms of live cha, Kartra offers a whole host of additional features:

• Always-on chat window: Regardless of what you are doing on your site, the support chat will always follow you; this will allow you to respond to customers’ questions as quickly as possible and leave no frustrated customers unsatisfied.
• Downloadable chat log: Most business owners find it is helpful to keep tickets for training and compliance purposes. Kartra stores all chat support sessions in the cloud, so you can download them at any time.
• Multi-agent chat: If you do not have the answer to an inquiry, Kartra allows you to quickly invite other agents to a chat session to help get the problem solved as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Calendars

Kartra offers a convenient and integrated dashboard to manage all your one-to-one client appointments and meetings. Some of the key features provided through calendars include:

• Real-time booking management: The system automatically updates your calendar as appointments come in to ensure that you never double-book sessions.
• Time zone conversion: Even though you can set your calendar to your local time zone, Kartra uses geo-location technology to ascertain the time zone of your client and update it to your time zone, eliminating any confusion as to what time the meeting will take place for clients in different locations.
• Convenient master calendar: If your business offers multiple classes and courses, all appointments can be synced to one central calendar to avoid overlapping your offerings.

By choosing Kartra, you will eliminate the need for Calendly, Schedulicity, and any other calendar software used by online businesses.

Kartra Affiliates

Affiliate marketing is a major industry in 2020, with companies happy to give a commission to draw on their spheres of influence and promote their products and services for them. Kartra makes it easy to recruit, manage, and track a large team of affiliates, offering flexible commissions and payment milestones.

Among the many features that allow Kartra users to communicate with their affiliates and make it easy for them to spread the word about a business’ offerings include:

• Custom landing pages for affiliates: Kartra truly gives you the ability to make your affiliates look like world-class marketing professionals. You can build beautiful, high-conversion landing pages for affiliates, with the option to create multiple landing pages for various affiliate offers.
• Review and approve affiliates: Perhaps you are very circumspect about whom you want to market your business’ products. Create questionnaires to interview potential affiliates before they are cleared to start marketing your offerings.
• Create commission tiers: Give your highest-earning affiliates special commission tiers to incentivize them to continue their strong earnings.

Marketplace

The Kartra marketplace allows you to sell your marketing funnels and expert services and discover other resources created by Kartra users. The motto of the Kartra marketplace is to “Buy or sell expertise with the community” and actually claims to be a replacement for ClickFunnels.

Among the features users can expect from the Kartra marketplace include:

• Profit: Generate cash by selling campaigns to the networks of thousands of Kartra users. Kartra takes care of the logistics of handling and processing payments while you work on your marketing campaigns.
• Grow the list: Business owners can choose to expand their network by collecting email addresses instead of payment for specific offerings.
• Sort in seconds: You can reduce browsing time by sorting campaigns based on factors such as template, price, most popular, and time in the marketplace.

What is ClickFunnels?

ClickFunnels is a software that is primarily focused on providing online business owners with elite sales funnels. 

While you can build a website with ClickFunnels, it is a type of website focused primarily on entrepreneurs and has a very formulaic approach to using the website to make sales. In short, there will not be a lot of “fluff” with a ClickFunnels website, with the majority of its features focused on converting traffic into customers.

Among the essential digital marketing tools that you can create with ClickFunnels include:

• Landing pages
• Sales pages
• Payment collection
• Membership portals

ClickFunnels is likely a more recognizable name than Kartra, as it was the first digital funnel software that made it possible for people with limited tech skills to build attractive, customized sales funnels. It has also soared to the top of the digital marketing landscape thanks to the outstanding marketing work of creator Russell Branson, who has published much work helping to demystify digital marketing for the average person.

Click here for a FREE two-week ClickFunnels trial, a FREE ClickFunnels course, and over 10 done-for-you funnels!

Let’s look at how ClickFunnels can build value for your online business.

Landing Pages

In “Internet terms,” a landing page is the place where customers arrive when visiting your site. Whether by typing the domain address in the browser or arriving at your website through a link in your email, the landing page will be the place where customers get a first impression of your online business. 

ClickFunnels has an intuitive, drag-and-drop interface that allows customers to create attractive landing pages quickly and efficiently for their site. At the landing page, users have the chance to collect email addresses of visitors to turn traffic into potential leads, or they may “funnel” traffic to a specified opt-in page.

Sales Pages

The sales page is a location that gives the entrepreneur the chance to turn leads into customers. The sales page allows the business owner an opportunity to add value to each visitor, upselling them on additional products or services that can make their shopping experience more complete.

Payment Collection

Using this page, business owners can employ PayPal, Stripe, Square, or any other tool for collecting payment for their products or services.

Click here for a FREE two-week ClickFunnels trial, a FREE ClickFunnels course, and over 10 done-for-you funnels!

Membership Portal

Based on the membership level purchased, customers will have access to the content offered by the business. ClickFunnels is a favorite software for online coaches and training programs, thanks to its attractive membership portal pages.

Kartra vs. ClickFunnels

It is clear that both Kartra and ClickFunnels offer powerful digital marketing tools to the online entrepreneur. The matter of which one is better for your particular business is mostly a matter of your company’s objectives and what kind of online framework you want to create.

To help potential clients make sense of which one to choose, the following are some of the key similarities and differences between the two platforms:

Similarities Between Kartra and ClickFunnels

There are many similarities between Kartra and ClickFunnels, but you’ll find these features are the most notable:

• Strong funnel-building capabilities on both platforms: A wide array of templates and drag-and-drop features make it possible for users of varying technical backgrounds to create attractive landing pages.
• Funnel sharing functionality: Both platforms make it possible to clone an entire funnel to a different person’s account with a single click, allowing for the easy proliferation of marketing efforts.
• Tiered membership portals: These allow business owners to allow or restrict access to certain content based on the consumer’s options. 
• Strong split testing features for both sites: This ensures that business owners will be sending out the content that is most likely to engage customers. 
• Excellent affiliate programs for both platforms: In 2020, this is an essential feature, as it essentially allows your traffic to work as an advertiser for your business and pool from a broad array of spheres.

Differences Between Kartra and ClickFunnels

Although both platforms operate on the same general premise of leveraging sales funnels in their digital marketing efforts, there are several areas in which one platform or the other performs exceptionally well.

For Kartra, the following characteristics are distinguishing calling cards:

• For being an all-in-one platform, Kartra is the better value in terms of price. Starting at $99 per month, users can get dozens of features that would otherwise cost hundreds of dollars if contracted out to web-building professionals. On the other hand, ClickFunnels, which is primarily an email marketing tool that offers groundbreaking funnels, will cost $297 per month for its Etison suite.
• Since Kartra is an all-in-one platform, the need for piecemeal functionality is not required. Everything can be completed in a single ecosystem. In contrast, ClickFunnels may require you to have a professional business site built through a site-building platform and a separate site for your sales funnels.
• The array of templates and functionally for Kartra Mail is superior to the email used by ClickFunnels, which is comparatively plain and simplistic.
• Kartra has video hosting capabilities. With ClickFunnels, videos must be created on an external platform and uploaded to the ClickFunnels page.
• The advanced Behavioral Adaptive Marketing feature on Kartra leads to a high rate of conversions. It does an industry-leading job of changing fonts, colors, and texts based on visitors’ demographics and other browsing behavior. 
• Kartra has advanced one-time offer (OTO) functionality that is proven to boost sales. Not offered by ClickFunnels, this feature automatically introduces customers to an OTO based on their previous purchase behavior.
• The help desk feature is another significant advantage of the all-in-one ecosystem. Rather than spending money on external support platforms, such as Drift or Intercom, Kartra allows you to handle all tickets in-house.

While the all-in-one ecosystem of Kartra definitely leads to a whole host of spin-off benefits, the more pared-down approach offered by ClickFunnels can be desirable to some entrepreneurs. The following are some of the key advantages of using ClickFunnels:

• The Evergreen webinars hosted through ClickFunnels are a proven way to rapidly increase the number of conversions for your business.
• Although you may be paying more for fewer features with ClickFunnels, the rates will remain the same, the Etison suite costing $297 per month, no matter how big your business grows.
• Building pages is a bit easier and more intuitive than when using Kartra.
• The training videos on ClickFunnels are top-notch, with users able to browse through a Netflix-esque catalog of tutorials to get their sales funnels up and running.
• The affiliate program for ClickFunnels is one of the best out there, with some people making as much as eight figures promoting the service.

Click here for a FREE two-week ClickFunnels trial, a FREE ClickFunnels course, and over 10 done-for-you funnels!

Which is Better: Kartra or ClickFunnels?

There is really no right or wrong answer to this question, as both are excellent choices for marketing your business online. The most important factor is knowing what your business needs before making a decision.

• If you want to do more with your online business, Kartra will be the better choice. It allows for more creativity and offers various features that will be appealing to companies that have significant e-commerce aspirations.
• However, if you are a sole proprietor or are a small business that wants to generate online sales quickly and effectively, ClickFunnels could be the best option. It was designed specifically for entrepreneurs with lower technology experience to leverage digital marketing opportunities and ideal for professionals trying to sell content.

If you are still unsure which platform is better for your needs, consider comparing the two in terms of budget versus your marketing potential. 

Kartra seems to be the better choice for budget users, as users get more for their dollar, thanks to the all-in-one platform. Additionally, features such as the advanced marketplace and help desk make Kartra more of an entire online business instead of strictly a digital marketing tool.

However, when looked at from the perspective of marketing a business and increasing sales, ClickFunnels is better, as the simplicity of integration, accuracy of split testing, and high-converting funnel templates made it the best bet for those businesses looking to turn leads into sales dollars.

Click here for a FREE two-week ClickFunnels trial, a FREE ClickFunnels course, and over 10 done-for-you funnels!

In Summary

As a business owner in the 21st century, you must have an online presence to be successful. To this effect, the digital marketing industry has soared in recent years, specifically in the realm of sales funnels, or the process of turning website traffic into loyal, long-term, repeat clients.

While dozens of digital marketing and sales funnel platforms are available to online businesses, two of the most prominent names in the sphere are Kartra and ClickFunnels. Both offer powerful marketing and funnel solutions. However, each can influence your business in specific ways.

For an affordable, all-in-one platform that will help your business create an attractive website, drive traffic, convert that traffic into sales, and offer elite back-end support throughout the purchase process, Kartra is most likely the best platform on the market.

However, if you have a solid online presence in place and are looking for a way to drive online sales quickly, ClickFunnels, thanks to the simplicity of its interface and long track record as being an industry frontrunner, could be the best choice for your business. While ClickFunnels may seem more expensive for fewer features, it is important to remember that the price will not go up, even if your business starts turning multi-million-dollar revenue.

At the end of the day, it is essential for you to know your business’s objectives and have a clear understanding of the online presence you are trying to create before deciding which of these two great platforms to purchase. 

Click here for a FREE two-week ClickFunnels trial, a FREE ClickFunnels course, and over 10 done-for-you funnels!

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