How to Migrate ActiveCampaign Automations to HubSpot Workflows

Your team has decided to move from ActiveCampaign to HubSpot. The contact export is ready, the new properties have been created, and the first email template is taking shape.

Then you look at the automations.

A welcome journey sends different emails based on a contact’s interests. A lead nurturing sequence stops when someone books a meeting. Another automation updates a score, assigns an owner, and alerts sales when a prospect takes a particular action.

Some contacts have just entered these journeys. Others are halfway through. If they are all enrolled in HubSpot from the beginning, they could receive the same emails twice. If the old automations are stopped too early, they may receive nothing.

An ActiveCampaign automation migration needs a plan for the journeys as well as the people moving through them. This guide explains how to assess the existing setup, rebuild it in HubSpot, and manage the transition without losing track of your audience.

Why ActiveCampaign Automations Don't Transfer Directly to HubSpot

ActiveCampaign and HubSpot both support marketing automation, but their builders, data structures, triggers, and settings work differently.

An ActiveCampaign automation may depend on tags, custom fields, lists, email engagement, website activity, and actions performed in connected applications. Those elements need to exist in a suitable form in HubSpot before the journey can work.

For example, an ActiveCampaign tag might indicate that a contact requested a product demo. In HubSpot, that requirement could be represented through a property, form submission, segment, or another supported event. The right choice depends on how the information is created and used.

The automation also needs an equivalent way to determine who enters, which path they follow, and when they stop receiving messages.

A screenshot of the existing journey is useful, but it is only a starting point. The migration plan should capture the purpose and behavior of the journey so the new workflow can be tested against the same requirements.

Audit Existing ActiveCampaign Automations Before Migration

Start by listing your ActiveCampaign automations and identifying which ones are currently in use.

For each automation, record its name, purpose, owner, entry trigger, key conditions, emails, delays, and exit rules. Include the tags, fields, forms, lists, and integrations it depends on.

Pay attention to the number of contacts currently moving through each journey and where they are in the process. ActiveCampaign provides ways to review the contacts in an automation and their progress, which can help you plan the transition.

The audit should also identify automations that are no longer needed. An old event follow-up or campaign built for a discontinued product may not need to be recreated.

Prioritize journeys that affect active leads, customers, and important handoffs. A sales enquiry follow-up may need to be ready on day one, while an inactive campaign can be reviewed later.

Agree on an owner for each journey. That person should confirm the intended behavior and approve the HubSpot replacement before it goes live.

Map ActiveCampaign Triggers, Conditions, and Actions to HubSpot

Once you understand the existing automations, document how each part will work in HubSpot.

Start with the entry trigger. A contact might enter an ActiveCampaign journey after submitting a form, receiving a tag, reaching a score, or changing a field. Identify the event or property that will represent the same business event in HubSpot.

Then review the conditions and actions. These might include sending an email, waiting for a period, updating a field, assigning an owner, creating a task, or notifying a salesperson.

Not every trigger or action has a direct equivalent in every HubSpot subscription. Confirm the available features against your proposed plan before committing to the design.

Review re-enrollment carefully

Some journeys should run once. Others should run whenever a new event occurs.

A welcome series may be intended for a contact’s first signup only. A webinar follow-up may need to run again when the same contact registers for a different event.

HubSpot’s re-enrollment settings depend on the workflow and selected criteria, so check the supported options for each journey.

Do not enable re-enrollment simply because an automation ran more than once in ActiveCampaign. Define what should cause a repeat and test whether the contact could receive messages more often than intended.

Define what stops the journey

A contact should not continue receiving every nurture email if the business event the journey was designed around has already happened.

For example, someone who books a sales meeting during a demo nurture journey may need to leave the marketing sequence and enter a sales follow-up process. Document the exit condition, how HubSpot will receive the booking information, and what happens if that update is delayed.

The same applies to unsubscribes, customers who have already purchased, and contacts who no longer meet the intended audience criteria.

Rebuild Email Sequences and Customer Journeys in HubSpot

Moving an email sequence involves both the messages and the logic that controls them.

Recreate or adapt the email content in HubSpot, including subject lines, sender details, reply addresses, links, images, buttons, and personalization. Check whether each email uses information from an ActiveCampaign field that needs to be mapped to a HubSpot property.

Personalization needs a fallback. If an email says “Hi, [first name]” but the destination record has no first name, the message should still read naturally.

Review links to forms, booking pages, landing pages, and preference centers. A copied email can look correct while sending contacts back to an old ActiveCampaign form or an outdated page.

Also review the timing of the journey. If an email is scheduled three days after a form submission, confirm whether that delay should begin from the original submission date or from the contact’s entry into HubSpot. The answer matters for contacts who are already partway through the sequence.

Plan for contacts already in a journey

A contact’s position in an ActiveCampaign automation should not be assumed to transfer into a HubSpot workflow. Before switching, decide how each active audience will be handled.

One option is to let contacts finish the existing journey in ActiveCampaign while new contacts enter the HubSpot version. Another is to move selected contacts into a carefully designed HubSpot journey that starts with an appropriate next message. Some contacts may need to stop receiving the journey altogether.

For example, if a contact has already received the first two emails in a five-email sequence, enrolling them at the beginning of the new workflow could repeat those messages. A transition segment or temporary property can help identify the appropriate audience, but it needs to be prepared and validated before enrollment.

Document the chosen approach for each active journey. Avoid switching off the source automation until you know what happens to the contacts still inside it.

Preserve subscription preferences

Marketing eligibility should be part of the migration scope from the beginning.

Review unsubscribes, opt-outs, subscription categories, and the evidence available for each contact’s preferences. Map those requirements to the appropriate HubSpot subscription setup and confirm how the selected import or migration method handles them.

A contact appearing in the CRM does not automatically mean they should receive marketing emails. Test the destination audience and subscription status before activating any sending workflow.

Test and Validate HubSpot Workflows Before Launch

Testing should show what happens to different types of contacts, not just whether the workflow turns on.

Create representative test records for each important path. Include a contact who meets the entry criteria, one who should be excluded, one who follows each branch, and one who completes the desired action before the journey ends.

Also test missing data. If a contact has no owner, product interest, or country, confirm that the workflow behaves as intended and does not send an irrelevant message or assign the record incorrectly.

HubSpot provides workflow testing tools that can check enrollment criteria and simulate a record’s path. Use these alongside controlled end-to-end tests where appropriate, because a simulation alone does not prove that every connected system and email handoff works as expected.

For each test, record the expected result and the actual result. Ask the journey owner to review the emails, timing, property updates, notifications, and exit behavior.

Before activation, check whether existing contacts could meet the workflow’s criteria immediately. Make a deliberate decision about who should enter and when. An import or a broad property update can affect a much larger audience than the small group used during testing.

Common ActiveCampaign Automation Migration Mistakes

Rebuilding every automation without reviewing it

A migration can carry years of unused campaigns into the new account. Each unnecessary workflow adds another process to maintain and another opportunity for contacts to receive conflicting messages.

Review the purpose and performance of each automation with its owner. Retire journeys that no longer support a current business need, while retaining any historical information the team still requires.

Moving tags without defining what they mean

A tag may represent a product interest, an event, a status, or a temporary campaign action. Treating every tag as the same type of HubSpot property can create a confusing data model.

Document the meaning, source, and future use of each tag. Then decide whether it belongs in a property, segment, event, or another part of the destination setup.

Ignoring contacts who are already enrolled

Contacts halfway through a sequence can receive repeated messages, miss the remainder of a journey, or enter two versions at once.

Review active enrollments before cutover. Give each audience a transition rule and verify the size of the group before moving or stopping it.

Switching off the old platform too soon

A form, integration, or automation may still depend on ActiveCampaign after the contact import is complete.

Check website forms, landing pages, connected applications, and active journeys before retiring the account. Agree on a final review date and owner for each dependency.

Treating historical reporting as part of the email copy

A recreated email does not necessarily bring its historical opens, clicks, automation performance, and reporting into HubSpot in the same form.

Identify the reports your team needs for comparison and decide what must be exported or retained as an archive. Document where reporting in the new platform begins so teams do not assume every historical metric is directly comparable.

ActiveCampaign to HubSpot Automation Migration Checklist

A checklist gives marketing, sales, and operations a shared view of what must be ready before launch.

The checklist should include a named owner and completion date for each critical item. A workflow is ready when the people responsible for its data, content, and business outcome have reviewed the relevant checks.

Conclusion

An ActiveCampaign to HubSpot migration is an opportunity to review how your marketing journeys work and which ones still serve your business.

Start with an audit, map the purpose of each automation, and plan carefully for contacts already in progress. Testing the full journey before launch helps your team move to HubSpot with clearer ownership and fewer surprises for your audience.

OneMetric can help assess your existing automations, map the required journeys, and support the transition to HubSpot.