How to Build a 6-Figure Email List Using ActiveCampaign (A Guide for Content Creators)

As an content creator, you know the drill: content is king, and ActiveCampaign helps you monetize your content.

If you’re relying solely on your platforms algorithm, you’re building a castle on rented land. To achieve a 6-figure income from your courses and digital products, you need to transition viewers into subscribers and, eventually, buyers.

The challenge? Doing this at scale, automatically, without spending hours manually fulfilling lead magnet requests.

The solution is the powerful combination of ActiveCampaign and your high-converting landing page builder (like Leadpages). ActiveCampaign’s automation engine handles the heavy lifting, delivering your free guide, nurturing the lead, and segmenting them for future sales—all on autopilot.

This guide will walk you through setting up the single most valuable automation for any content creator: delivering your free PDF lead magnet instantly after a viewer subscribes via a Leadpages form.

---

The Problem: The Subscriber-to-Buyer Gap

Your viewers are engaged, but they are also cold traffic. They might watch your videos but aren’t ready to buy your $497 course.

The Fix: A high-value lead magnet (e.g., a “30-Day YouTube Growth Checklist”) that provides an immediate, low-commitment win. This moves them from “viewer” to “lead” and segments them into an audience you own and can communicate with directly.

Step 1: The Setup – Your Assets

Before you dive into ActiveCampaign, ensure you have these elements ready:

1. A Lead Magnet (The Hook): Your finished PDF, guide, or checklist. Upload this to a cloud service (like Google Drive or Amazon S3) and grab the shareable download link.
   
2. A Lead Capture Form: This will be the form embedded on your Leadpages landing page. In ActiveCampaign, navigate to Forms and create a simple form asking for Name and Email. Assign a relevant tag (e.g., lead-magnet-downloaded) to this form. This tag is the trigger for your automation.
   
   You can use LEADPAGES to create the landing page.

Step 2: Building the Automation in ActiveCampaign

This is the core of your passive income machine. We’ll build an automation that triggers, tags, and delivers the PDF instantly.

A. Define the Automation Trigger

1. In ActiveCampaign, go to Automations and click Start an Automation from Scratch.
2. Select the Start from Scratch option and choose Continue.
3. The first block is the trigger. Select the option: “Subscribes to a list” (Select your main list) and check the box “Runs once.”
   • Pro Tip: While using the lead-magnet-downloaded tag as the trigger is possible, using the “Subscribes to a list” trigger with a unique Leadpages form connection is often cleaner. The tag is still essential for segmenting later.

B. Add the Action: Delivering the Magnet

This is the most critical step: the email that delivers your high-value resource.

1. Click the + button to add a new step.
2. Go to Sending Options and select Send Email.
3. Create a new email. Title the email clearly (e.g., “Your [Lead Magnet Name] is Inside!”).
4. In the email body, use friendly, brief text. The entire purpose of this email is to deliver the link.

Crucially, the download link must be added as a direct link in the email body.

Example Copy: “Thanks so much for subscribing! Here is your promised resource. Download it now: [Paste Your Shareable PDF Link Here]“

C. Add the Action: Tagging and Nurturing

After the email is sent, you need to ensure the contact is properly marked for segmenting.

1. Click the + button.
2. Go to Contacts and select Add a Tag.
3. Add the specific tag you created in Step 1 (e.g., lead-magnet-downloaded). This confirms the lead received the item.
4. Immediately follow this with a new action: Wait (e.g., Wait for 2 days).
5. After the wait step, add the lead to your core Nurture Sequence Automation (e.g., an email series explaining your methodology, sharing testimonials, and softly introducing your course).

Step 3: Integrating ActiveCampaign with Leadpages

Now, you need to connect your Leadpages form to this ActiveCampaign automation.

1. Log into Leadpages and open the landing page where your form is located.
2. Click on the form widget and select Integrations.
3. Choose ActiveCampaign from the list.
4. Select the List you defined in Step 2.
5. Most importantly, you must select the Automation you just created to trigger when the form is submitted.

---

📈 The Result: Your Passive Income Engine

Once this automation is live, every viewer who clicks the link in your description/bio, lands on your Leadpages form, and subscribes, will immediately receive the tag and the email with the download link—all while you sleep.

This systematic process moves leads from MoFu (Middle of Funnel, high-value content) to the perfect starting point for your BoFu (Bottom of Funnel) sales sequences. It’s how content creators start making course revenue.

Ready to build your automated 6-figure list?

➡️ Click here to start your free ActiveCampaign trial and set up your first automation today!

CLICK HERE TO CLAIM YOUR 14 DAY FREE TRIAL OF LEADPAGES!