Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Welcome to our podcast, where we dive into everything Go High Levelβfrom mastering the basics to tackling the most complex tasks. I use GHL daily in my business and rely on Google NotebookLM to stay ahead of the curve, keeping up with all the latest GHL features, tools, and innovations. This podcast is powered by AI, fueled by the research and insights I personally curate to bring you the most valuable and up-to-date content.
Copy this link for a free trial of Go High Level - https://www.gohighlevel.com/highlevel-bootcamp?fp_ref=amplifi-technologies12
Welcome to this deep dive. And uh before we even get into the heavy lifting today, I want to immediately let you know about a pretty massive tool we've secured for you. Oh, yeah. You're definitely going to want this setup to actually apply what we're talking about today. Exactly. Right now, you can get a free 30-day Go High Level trial. I mean, that is double the standard trial length. Which is huge for really getting in there and testing things out. Totally. And the link to claim it is just waiting for you right down in the show notes below. So, you know, open those show notes, get that ready, and let's get into it. It really is the perfect time to have that handy because um today we are tackling a seriously foundational piece of agency infrastructure. Right. So, picture this scenario. It's like 2:00 in the morning on a Friday. Oh, no. I already know where this is going. You are an agency owner, right? And you've just spent the last three weeks building this massive, intricate client acquisition system for a high-paying dental clinic. We're talking a sprawling primary website, three separate landing pages for ad campaigns. Yeah, a 50 email nurture sequence, an automated SMS reminder system. I mean, it's a masterpiece. Truly a work of art. But then, you get an email from the client, they just decided to change their primary phone number. Oh, and they also tweaked their brand's primary hex color from like deep blue to a slightly lighter teal. Classic. Of course, they did. And they wanted updated before their ad spend doubles on Monday. See, that right there is the exact moment an agency owner either sleeps soundly or just completely panics. Yeah, because if you built that infrastructure by hard-coding the phone number and the hex color into every single page, well, every single email, every single text message, your weekend is entirely gone. You know. You are about to spend 10 hours just hunting down every instance of a phone number. And the worst part is, I mean, you are definitely going to miss one. A prospect is going to get email number 17, call the old number, and just hit a deadline. It's a total nightmare. But if you built the system using dynamic architecture and specifically custom values, you could update that phone number and that brand color in exactly one place. Right. You hit save and instantly watch it ripple across the entire ecosystem. And that is the mission for today's deep dive. We are really decoding the hidden power of custom values and custom fields inside Go High Level, which is going to be incredibly actionable for you if you're a digital marketing agency owner trying to save time, reduce errors, and scale your client setups. Definitely. And our sources for this include the official Go High Level support documentation, some really strategic blog posts from Supply Gym updated for 2026, and a YouTube tutorial straight from the High Level team. Yeah, we're basically synthesizing all of this to give you the exact blueprint for scaling. But, um, we have to start by untangling a serious point of confusion. Yeah. Because they sound so similar. Right. If you're skimming the platform dashboard, custom fields and custom values sound like they do the exact same thing. They both deal with customized data. But under the hood, I mean, they operate in completely opposite directions. Let's look at custom fields first. Okay, let's unpack this. How do we define custom fields? A good way to conceptualize custom fields is to think of them as data ingestion points. They are these designated empty spaces you build into the system to, well, to catch unique information generated by your leads. Right, because a standard CRM just gives you the basics: first name, last name, email, phone. Exactly. But if you're running lead generation for say the insurance industry, which was the example in the source, knowing someone's name doesn't really help you sell. No, you need to know if they want to buy or sell specific insurance. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you build a custom field for that specific question. When a user interacts with a form, they input that data and it flows into the field. And then it enriches their CRM profile. Right. From that moment on, that specific data permanently enriches that individual contact's profile. So, using my catchphrase here, okay, let's unpack this with an analogy. Custom fields are essentially like blank intake forms you hand to your clients to learn about them. I like that. Yes. But custom values, on the other hand, are like a magic rubber stamp you use across all your agency's documents. That's the perfect way to look at it. Custom values do not pull data in, they push data out. In database terms, they are, um, global key-value pairs. Key-value pairs. So, how does that look in practice? Well, the support documentation explains the syntax. You establish a single source of truth, so you give it a friendly name like, uh, my custom value. Okay. And then the system takes that name and generates a programmatic key for it as a placeholder. It usually looks something like custom values.mycustomvalue. Got it. And that key is what autopopulates data anywhere in the platform. Exactly. When the system renders a page or fires an email, it just pings that single source of truth, retrieves the value, and injects it. So the actionable takeaway for you as an agency owner is pretty clear here. You need to use fields to gather granular data on your client leads, while you rely on values to blast global information across an account. Establishing that division of labor early on is what prevents massive structural headaches later. Right. Now that we've defined the tools, though, why should an agency owner actually care? I mean, transitioning from the definition to the actual ROI. Oh, the efficiency is just off the charts. We touched on the nightmare of manually editing 500 emails or, you know, updating a client's changed address across dozens of funnels. Yeah, that manual work is soul crushing. With custom values, you literally change the value in one master list and the key updates everywhere automatically. It's a total cheat code. And it's not just about saving time, either. We pulled this incredibly powerful engagement statistic from the Supply Gym source. Oh, it's a click-through rate stat. Yeah, that blew my mind. Right. They noted that personalized email bodies achieve click-through rates of over 40%. Over 40%. Which is wild. But you simply cannot execute that level of hyper-personalization at scale without relying heavily on these dynamic variables. Now, the sources also mentioned a specific hack for custom values that I thought was brilliant. It's not just for text strings like names and addresses. Oh, the color code hack. Yes. This completely changes how agencies build website templates. You can actually use hex color codes as values. Wait, so you can instantly change the theme, the fonts, and the colors of a webpage template just by swapping a code. Exactly. So, instead of going into the page builder and manually clicking every button and every header to change the colors for a different brand, you just assign those design elements to custom values. So, let me play devil's advocate for a second. What does this all mean for the agency owner who says, "Look, I only manage a few client sites right now. Is this overkill? Why not just type the address in manually?" I hear that pushback a lot, but the short answer is that you are future-proofing your setup. Right, because three clients today might be 30 clients next year. Exactly. The manual approach feels faster on day one, but it prevents costly human errors as the agency scales. Taking an extra 20 seconds to define a custom value during onboarding is essentially an insurance policy against those errors. So, the move is definitely to map out client branding like colors, taglines, contact info as custom values from day one. That way, duplicating templates for new clients takes seconds, not hours. That's the dream. But, um, if an agency starts doing this, they are going to end up with hundreds of variables for different clients. Which leads to the inevitable problem of digital clutter. Yeah. I mean, how do we organize this magic so it doesn't just turn into chaos? Yeah, digital clutter will paralyze a team, which is why the Go High Level tutorial we reviewed goes deep into their folder management system. Folders save lives, honestly. They really do. You can create dedicated folders and move items individually, or even better, you can move them in bulk using checkboxes. Oh, bulk moving is essential. And there's a search function, too, right? Yep. So, if a team member forgets where they stored the holiday promo link, they can just search a keyword and find it instantly. But we should note a couple of critical limitations from the sources here. Custom values can only live in one folder at a time. Right. It's a strict one-to-one relationship. You can't have a value mirrored in two places. And the other constraint, folders cannot be nested. No subfolders, which means you need to be highly intentional with your top-level folder names. It's a very flat organizational structure. Got it. Now, that brings up another thing from the Supply Gym FAQ. It says, custom values are sub-account specific. They don't cross over. Right. They are isolated to the specific sub-account. Which makes sense for security, but doesn't that mean I have to manually recreate all those folders for every new client? Not at all. And this is a massive value add for an agency's pre-built packages. You can add your custom values and folders to Go High Level snapshots. Oh, snapshots. Okay. Yeah. You build your master architecture once, save it as a snapshot, and when you onboard a new client, you just deploy the snapshot. The entire folder structure is already there waiting. Okay, here's where it gets really interesting though. And this gives me a bit of technical anxiety. What if I mess up? Like a typo. Yeah. If I go into the item menu to edit my custom value, just change its name so it looks neater in my folder, will that break the key and ruin all my live funnels? I totally get why you'd worry about that, but no, you are completely safe. The platform architecture separates the display name from the unique identifier. Oh, thank goodness. Yeah, the source that confirms it. Changing the name does not change the key. The live funnels are tethered to that original programmatic key, so they won't break. That is a huge relief. So, you definitely want to build neatly organized snapshots, preloaded with custom value folders. Then you can deploy instant, hyper-personalized campaigns the moment a new client is onboarded. Exactly. So, we have our custom elements built, organized, and packed into snapshots. Now, we just need to bring it home by exploring where an agency owner can actually deploy them. Right. Where do we put them to work to get that 40% click-through bump? The sources list five key areas for deploying custom values. The first one is conversations. This includes SMS, WhatsApp, and social media DMs. Wow, even social media DMs. Yeah, you can dynamically pull values into your automated replies. The second area is email campaigns. They actually have dropdowns right in the template editor, so you don't even have to memorize the codes. That makes it so much easier for the team. Definitely. The third area is the social planner. And this is huge for personalizing automated posts. Wait, so you can push variables into social media feeds? Absolutely. You write one master post with the values, and the system automatically generates localized posts tailored to each region. It scales a local strategy effortlessly. That is brilliant. What are the last two areas? Number four is web pages and funnels, which is where that hex color hack comes in. And number five is automations. You can personalize internal notifications and client communications right inside your workflows. It's like weaving an invisible web of personalization that touches every single digital touchpoint a lead interacts with. I mean, from the very first chat widget ping to a fully automated WhatsApp follow-up. Exactly. But we can't forget about where to use custom fields to actually gather that data. The sources highlight three key areas for fields. Okay, lay them out for us. First is contact profiles and opportunities. But there is a vital note here. If a field is assigned to an opportunity, it will not appear on standard contact forms. Oh, that's a tricky constraint. So, if you want the prospect to fill it out, assign it to the contact profile. Right. The second area is forms and surveys. Once it's assigned correctly, it's just drag and drop. Love that. And the third area is the chat widget. Now, I want to make sure we mention the specific limitation with the chat widget that the sources pointed out. Oh, right. The field types. Yeah, you can only add basic fields to the chat widget, like single-line text or numerical fields. You cannot use multiple-choice fields there. Which really forces you to keep the chat widget frictionless. Just grab their basic intent and then use your forms for the deeper qualification later. Exactly. So the immediate takeaway here is that agency owners should immediately add custom fields to their clients' chat widgets to pre-qualify leads, right? And then utilize custom values in the social planner to scale localized content effortlessly. It's all about building a seamless, scalable system. It really is. And as we wrap this up, I want to leave you with a final provocative thought to mull over. Something that builds on everything we've just discussed. I love a good perspective shift. Think about this. What if the future of digital marketing agencies isn't about manually designing content anymore? What if the highest-paid agencies act more as architects? Oh, I see where you're going with that. Yeah. Building the invisible keys and values that autonomously generate perfect, hyper-personalized experiences for every individual user. You aren't writing the emails. You're building the infrastructure that writes them. That is exactly the shift happening right now. Once you stop doing manual entry and start engineering the system, your potential to scale is basically limitless. And if you want to start building that architecture today, remember to check the show notes right now. Click the link to claim your free 30-day Go High Level trial. Yeah, double the standard length. You can't beat it. You really can't. Get in there and start testing these custom values out for yourself. Thank you so much for joining us on this deep dive. It's been great. Keep building smart, and we will catch you on next one.