ActiveCampaign success story · Online courses for shared housing operators

How an online course business grew customers 52.5% a year with ActiveCampaign automation.

Name: Overtop Media Digital Marketing
Address: 933 Louise Ave Suite 101-18, Charlotte, NC, 28204, US
Telephone: (704) 237-0707
Price range: $$

Frank and Sherri teach people how to open shared housing based on the model they built for their own recovery housing nonprofit. They started with a spreadsheet of 100 names. With automated enrollment, behavior-based tags and AI-built campaigns in ActiveCampaign, they now serve more than 5,000 active customers, growing 52.5% a year.

Business: Frank and Sherri
Market: United States
Goal: Grow without adding staff

Cozy living room with a sofa, armchair and warm lamplight

The results.

Growth is year over year; ActiveCampaign does not give the start and end dates. The starting point was a spreadsheet of about 100 names. The time saving compares building campaigns now with drafting each email by hand, which took over an hour.

52.5%customer growth year over year
95%time savings creating and launching campaigns
5,000+active customers

Figures as reported by the business in the story; ActiveCampaign does not publish dates or a measurement method for them.

The challenge.

Frank and Sherri founded a nonprofit that offers an alternative recovery housing model for people with substance use disorder. Their second business teaches others how to open shared housing for people who need it, using the same model, through online courses.

As their contact list grew, they tracked leads in spreadsheets, sent the same email to everyone and enrolled course buyers by hand. They needed communication, automation and lead nurturing that would keep up with growth without hiring staff.

ActiveCampaign AI assistant drafting a flash sale email campaign from a short prompt

What they did.

AI Campaign Builder · Behavior-based tags and segments · Automated course enrollment · Lead ad and ad platform integrations

Enrollment without manual work: Course access and enrollment emails go out through automations the moment someone buys.
Tags that follow behavior: Contacts are tagged by what they do, so nurturing emails match where each person is in deciding to start a shared home.
AI-built campaigns: The AI Campaign Builder drafts campaigns from a short prompt, cutting build time from hours to minutes.
Leads from ads flow straight in: Integrations bring leads from Facebook lead ads and Google Ads directly into ActiveCampaign, and a chatbot on their site triggers emails too.

Why it worked.

Our read on the decisions behind the numbers, and what any business can take from them.

Instant delivery builds trust: A buyer who gets course access within seconds starts learning while the purchase still feels exciting.
Nurture matches a big decision: Opening a shared home is a serious step. Behavior-based emails meet people with the right information at the right time.
Time saved is time for the mission: Cutting campaign work by 95% freed the founders to create courses and serve their community instead of formatting emails.
Ads and email work as one: Leads from paid ads enter the same nurture automatically, so ad spend keeps paying off after the first click.

How we would run this play for your business.

You do not need a national budget to use the same ideas. This is how Overtop Media Digital Marketing puts them to work in our ActiveCampaign automation and management.

Automate delivery and onboarding: Purchases, enrollments and bookings trigger the right welcome in your ActiveCampaign account, with no manual steps.
Nurture by behavior: We tag what people read, click and buy, and write sequences that answer the questions holding them back.
Use AI with an editor: AI drafts save time; our email marketing team edits every message for accuracy and voice before it sends.
Connect your lead ads: Our Meta ads and Google Ads lead forms feed straight into the nurture, so no lead goes cold.