Groundhogg

As business owners, we understand that a CRM can help you manage customer relationships, nurture leads, get more sales, and generally grow your business.

At WPBeginner, we’re long-time fans of HubSpot and FunnelKit, but we know that every business has different needs. With that said, in this Groundhogg review we’re going to help you decide whether it’s the right customer relationship management (CRM) system for you.

We’ll be taking a close look at its features, support, and pricing, to see how it compares to all the other CRMs we’ve tried over the years.

So, is Groundhogg the right CRM for your WordPress website? Let’s find out, in this detailed Groundhogg review.

Groundhogg Review: Why Use It in WordPress?

Groundhogg is a customer relationship management (CRM) system that can record detailed information about your visitors, potential leads, and customers. It then displays all that data in a single location, making it easy to manage your contacts.

Beyond that, Groundhogg comes with a drag-and-drop email builder and a funnel builder. This helps you automate many common tasks and even entire marketing campaigns, saving you a ton of time and effort.

As your run campaigns run, Groundhogg monitors their performance so you can see what’s working, and what isn’t. You can then refine your funnels, broadcasts, automated emails, and other campaigns to get even better results.

If you’re just getting started or have a limited budget, then you can download the lite version of Groundhogg from WordPress.org.

This plugin lets you create automated marketing funnels, broadcasts, and email campaigns. It also comes with a range of built-in templates, so you can create professional-looking campaigns and essential automations, fast.

However, the premium plans come with extra features, including the ability to create custom fields, send automated birthday emails, capture company information, and more.

The premium plans also come with a ton of integrations for membership sites, online stores, affiliate marketing blogs, and many other kinds of WordPress website. In fact, you’ll get access to 30+ integrations, so it’s easy to add Groundhogg to an existing blog or website.

Groundhogg Review: Is It the Right WordPress CRM for You?

With the right CRM, you can collect and organize detailed information about visitors, potential leads, existing customers, and anyone else who matters to your business.

With so much at stake, it’s important to find the right customer relationship management system for you. That said, could Groundhogg be the right CRM to grow your business? Let’s find out, in this detailed Groundhogg review.

1. Syncs with Popular WordPress Plugins

Groundhogg integrates with many must-have WordPress plugins you may already be using on your site, particularly contact and user-focused plugins.

Going further, Groundhogg can access all the data from these plugins and sync it automatically. That said, Groundhogg can show all the information for each contact, without having to use a third-party integration such as Zapier.

2. Self-Hosted CRM

Groundhogg is 100% self-hosted, so all the data stays on your servers.

According to Groundhogg’s website, they don’t have access to your personal information or any of your data. In fact, most businesses use Groundhogg anonymously.

3. Streamlined Contact Management

Groundhogg lets you track all your contacts directly inside the WordPress admin dashboard. Even better, it collects and displays relevant data from other WordPress plugins, add-ons, and integrations, so you can get all the information you need in one location.

This makes it much easier to track and monitor all your contacts. Groundhogg even lets you update multiple contacts at the same time using a bulk editor tool.

4. Contact Relationships

Groundhogg lets you assign multiple parent and child relationships to each contact.

This helps you get a complete overview of how your contacts are connected, so you can better coordinate your communication and outreach.

5. Supports Custom Fields

With Groundhogg, you can create unlimited custom fields with ease. In this way, you can capture and manage the information that matters to your business, even if Groundhogg doesn’t support those fields out-of-the-box.

In addition, you can group these custom fields into tabs and sections so your data is organized in a logical way that’s easy to navigate.

6. Activity Timeline

Groundhogg automatically records each contact’s activity, including every time they log in or log out, the pages they visit, and the emails they open.

It then displays this activity as a historical timeline that you can view directly in the WordPress dashboard. You can also sort and filter this timeline to find exactly the activity you need.e, you might tag leads based on specific interests or be

7. Create Targeted Campaigns

With Groundhogg, you can segment your contacts using tags, which allows you to target specific sections of your list. For example, you might tag leads based on particular interests or behaviors. You can then send emails or initiate funnels based on whether the lead has a specific tag.

You can even go one step further and use Groundhogg’s powerful search filters to create precise contact lists based on multiple criteria.

8. Create Engaging Emails

Groundhogg comes with a drag and drop email editor that makes it easy to create professionally-designed campaigns. You can either create a new campaign from scratch or get a head start by using one of Groundhogg’s ready-made templates.

No matter what approach you choose, you can simply drag and drop text, images, call to action buttons, spacers, dividers and other content onto the canvas.

You can also change the number of columns, footer, social media links, menus, and other content. More advanced users can even add custom CSS to their designs.

As you’re designing your messages, you can preview how they will look on mobile. That said, you can be confident your campaigns will look great across all devices.

To help you create consistent emails more quickly, you can define global fonts and create a reusable custom color palette.

Alternatively, Groundhogg has an HTML editor that you can use instead. You can even import custom HTML email templates from 3rd party editors, giving you even more options.

However you design your emails, you can either send them as a broadcast or target specific segments of your list.

You can schedule your broadcasts in advance, or organize your messages into a timed sequence or drip campaign. Finally, you can set up recurring emails that Groundhogg will send based on a schedule set by you, or in response to certain events. For example, you might create automated birthday emails to make your contacts feel more valued.

By using these features carefully, you can ensure you always send the right email, to the right person, at the right time.

9. Supports SMTP

With Groundhogg, you can improve your email deliverability rates by using your own SMTP service. In fact, Groundhogg integrates with most of the popular SMTP service providers, and even lets you use multiple providers at the same time.

10. Personalized Emails

Dynamic content lets you provide contacts with personalized experiences, recommendations, and other interactive elements. Due to this, dynamic content can often increase user engagement and conversions.

Groundhogg lets you use this powerful strategy in a few different ways.

To start, Groundhogg can personalize your emails by dynamically adding details like names, custom fields, and account information.

Going further, it can adjust the messaging in your emails based on whether a contact meets certain criteria. For example, you might hide or show an entire block, based on whether the contact has a specific tag. This helps you create dynamic, personalized content that really resonates with the recipient.

Another option is using the Dynamic Posts Block to display a list of recent posts. This block pulls from the latest posts, and can optionally filter the content using categories and tags.

If you sell items online, then Groundhogg can even insert information about the contact’s actions in WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, or similar plugins. For example, if a shopper abandons their cart then Groundhogg can send them a cart abandonment email with information about the specific products left behind.

11. Send Emails Across Multiple Timezones

Groundhogg tracks each contact’s timezone so you can schedule email broadcasts to be delivered in the person’s local time. This can often improve important metrics, such as your open rates and click throughs.

12. Broadcast Batch Sending

To improve email deliverability and performance, Groundhogg can send your broadcasts in smaller batches. This can also help you avoid traffic spikes on your site, which may cause performance problems or even outages, depending on your WordPress hosting.

You can specify the number of emails to include in each bath, and how long Groundhogg should wait inbetween batches.

13. In-Depth Email Analytics

Groundhogg comes with built-in analytics for broadcast and individual emails. This means you can see the opens, clicks, unsubscribe rates, and bounces at a glance.

All these numbers are clickable, so you can drill down to see information about individual contacts. This lets you take immediate action, such as sending follow-up emails or scheduling a conference call.

Groundhogg will also send weekly summaries to your inbox, so you can monitor your campaigns without even logging into the dashboard. You’ll also get a monthly review at the start of each month, and day after updates for each broadcast you send.

If you want to track different metrics, then you can create a custom dashboard containing your choice of tables, line charts, donut charts, and more. In this way, you can see the metrics that matter the most to your business, analyze trends, and make data-driven decisions.

14. Automated Email List Maintenance

To keep your email list clean, Groundhogg will flag bounces and complaints and then update the corresponding contact.

This helps you react to problems straight away, so you’re not repeatedly sending emails to invalid addresses, or people who’ve marked you as spam. In this way, Groundhogg can keep your email deliverability rates high.

15. Publish Your Past Campaigns

With Groundhogg, you have the option to make your campaign archives public, so non-subscribers can look through all the broadcast emails you’ve previously sent.

This gives visitors a chance to see all the great content they’re missing out on, which will encourage them to sign up for your mailing list.

16. Built-in Notepad

Sometimes, you may need to quickly record important information. For example, you may want to summarize a recent conversation, or create a reminder to follow-up with that person.

With Groundhogg, you can add notes directly within a contact record.

Going further, you can use Groundhogg to create a funnel that generates a note when specific interactions or events happen, and then adds it to the person’s profile.

17. Task Management

With Groundhogg, you can stay organized by creating a ‘to do’ list of your important tasks, such as scheduling an appointment or following up on an email.

For each item, Groundhogg shows when the task was created, who assigned it, and when the task was last updated. It will also show whether this item is pending, overdue, or complete.

To help you stay organized, you can categorize these tasks by type, such as conference calls, emails, and meetings.

18. Built-in File Box

Do you have important documents related to your contacts?

Groundhogg lets you upload files directly to the customer’s record, so everything related to that person is available in one location.

If you’ve created a file upload form, then Groundhogg can even accept user-submitted documents and then add them to the correct person’s profile automatically.

19. Detailed Company Records

In addition to tracking individuals, Groundhogg lets you create company records where you can store essential details, notes, and files related to a specific organization.

After creating a company record, Groundhogg lets you link multiple contacts to that record, so you can easily manage all the individuals associated with a particular organization.

20. Advanced Search Filtering and Queries

Groundhogg comes with an advanced filtering system that can search any kind of data in your database, while also checking the information in many different WordPress plugins.

In this way, you can find contacts using dozens of criteria, and even combine criteria using AND/OR comparisons. For example, you might search for contacts who have completed an online course within the last 30 days but haven’t signed up for your email list.

To streamline your workflow, you can save your most frequently-used searches. You can then reuse these queries with just a few clicks, saving you a ton of time and ensuring more consistency in how you manage and target your contacts.

21. Drag and Drop Funnel Builder

Automated funnels are a great way to convert leads into customers, and turn customers into sources of recurring revenue.

The right funnels can also optimize the customer journey, without requiring a ton of ongoing time and effort from you. For example, you might create a funnel that automatically follows-up with a lead after a sales call, or create an onboarding sequence for new users.

If you want to get started with automated funnels, then Groundhogg comes with a user-friendly funnel builder.

Rather than writing code, you can add steps to your funnels using simple drag and drop.

If you want to create more advanced funnels, then Groundhogg supports conditional logic so you can create dynamic pathways that adapt to each contact’s needs, or the actions they take within the sales funnel. For example, you might run or skip steps based on whether a contact meets specific criteria.

Even better, Groundhogg’s funnel builder integrates seamlessly with popular plugins such as WooCommerce and LearnDash. This means you can add these plugins to your funnels with ease, so you can create advanced workflows that span all your favorite WordPress plugins.

To save time, Groundhogg comes with a dozen pre-built funnel templates with pre-written emails and pre-configured settings. Alternatively, you can save your own funnels as reusable templates.

22. Create Your Own Funnel Steps

Want to create custom funnels? With Groundhogg, you can create unique actions and benchmarks within your funnels, using custom code.

This ‘Custom Funnel Steps’ feature lets you tailor your funnels to match your exact needs and goals. For example, you might set up a benchmark that measures how users interact with your emails and then moves them to different paths within the funnel, based on their score.

23. Detailed Funnel Analytics

To get the best results, it’s important to monitor what’s working and what isn’t within your funnels. You can then use this insight to fine-tune your funnels.

Groundhogg provides analytics for each step within your funnels. In this way, you can closely track each visitor’s journey, identify where leads drop off, and pinpoint where your engagement rates are the highest.

24. Share Funnels Across Websites

Do you manage multiple sites? Then you may want to use the same funnels across all these websites. In that case, you can easily export your funnels and then import them into any other site that has Groundhogg installed.

This feature is also useful for WordPress development agencies. You can create reusable funnel templates for common client tasks, and then use them across all your client websites. This can save you a ton of time and effort on each project.

25. Automated Login Reminders

Do you allow user registration, or run a membership site?

With Groundhogg, you can set up automated reminders to notify users who haven’t logged in for a certain period of time. This helps you re-connect with customers and users who may become inactive over time.

26. Customizable User Permissions

Do you need to share your CRM with other people? With Groundhogg, you can control the information each person can access and the actions they can perform, by assigning them specific roles. By using these roles and permissions carefully, you can improve your security and keep your data safe.

You can either choose from 4 ready-made roles (Administrator, Marketer, Sales Manager, and Sales Representative) or create custom roles with exactly the permissions your team needs.

27. Import and Export Contacts

Sometimes, you may need to share your contacts with people who don’t have access to the WordPress dashboard. You might even want to import this data into another program, such as a separate email marketing service.

In that case, you can easily export all your contact information from Groundhogg as a CSV file.

You can then share this file with any other person or program. This import/export tool is also useful if you want to backup your data, such as uploading the CSV to a cloud storage service.

28. Built-in Developer Tools

Want to extend or customize Groundhogg? To help you out, Groundhogg comes with hundreds of hooks and filters, webhooks, and full support for the REST API.

You can use these features to customize the platform in all kinds of ways. For example, you might map responses from outgoing or incoming webhooks to contact fields, or create your own extensions, apps, and scripts.

29. Community and Professional Support

Choosing the right CRM is just the beginning, as you also need to use your chosen system correctly. That said, Groundhogg has a ton of resources to help you get the most from this CRM.

To start, there’s online documentation that you can access 24/7. Here, you’ll find detailed guides on a wide range of features and topics, including a step-by-step guide on how to use lead magnets with Groundhogg.

This documentation also shows you how to use Groundhogg with various plugins and tools such as SendGrid, Elementor, and BuddyBoss.

Want a more structured approach? Then you can sign up for various free courses, over at the Groundhogg website. They even have a quickstart course, which is perfect for new users.

Are you planning to use Groundhogg to grow your mailing list?

Then Groundhogg also has a series of ‘Email is hard’ essays that you can explore.

Beyond that, the Groundhogg team run a blog and a YouTube channel. With that said, if you prefer to research and get help independently, then there’s lots of resources you can explore.

Prefer one-on-one support? All the Groundhogg plans come with professional support, so you can get help directly from the experts. Simply submit a ticket and a member of the Groundhogg team will get back to you as soon as possible.

Groundhogg Review: Pricing and Plans

If you’re just getting started or have a limited budget, then you can download the lite version of Groundhogg from WordPress.org. This plugin has many essential features so you can create automated workflows, email broadcasts, and marketing campaigns.

However, you can unlock extra features and integrations by upgrading to a premium plan.

There are 4 plans to choose from:

• Basic. For $20 per month, you can use Groundhogg on a single WordPress blog, website, or online store. This plan includes all the Groundhogg essentials such as a drag and drop email editor, the funnel builder, and support for SMTP services providers. That said, this is a great starting point for solo bloggers or anyone who owns a single WordPress website.
• Plus. Priced at $40 per month, this plan lets you use Groundhogg on up to 3 websites. It also has some extra features such as the ability to create company records, send automated birthday emails, and score your leads. With that said, we recommend this plan to companies who want to perform more advanced email marketing, or anyone who owns multiple websites.
• Pro. For $50 monthly, the Pro plan integrates with a ton of other plugins and services. This includes AffiliateWP, MemberPress, Thrive Cart, Zapier, and WP Simple Pay. With a long list of integrations, this plan is ideal if you run an existing membership, eCommerce, or affiliate marketing website, as Groundhogg will integrate easily into your existing stack. You can also use the Pro plan on up to 5 websites.
• Agency. Priced at $100 per month, the Agency plan lets you rebrand the Groundhogg admin interface. With that said, this is the perfect plan if you run a WordPress development agency and want to use Groundhogg on your client sites.

Groundhogg Review: Is It the Right WordPress CRM for You?

To sum up this Groundhogg review, we’re confident that it’s a great CRM system with lots to offer business websites, blogs, WooCommerce stores, and many other kinds of website.

The free plugin is a great option for anyone just starting out, as it lets you create automated workflows, send emails, and manage your contacts. However, the premium plugin adds a ton of integrations, so it’ll fit perfectly into all kinds of sites. For example, the premium plans come with integrations for popular plugins such as WPForms, LifterLMS, and LearnDash.

We hope this Groundhogg review helped you decide whether it’s the right CRM for your WordPress website. Next, you may want to see our guide on how to set up Google Analytics goals, or check out our expert pick of the best auto dialer software for small businesses.

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