How to add customizable content to automated emails in HighLevel

One of my coaches, Angela Wills of Living Lifestyle Freedom*, was talking about automations the other day. She uses Kit (formerly ConvertKit*), which is a lovely system that I have used for many clients. She was showing us how she inserts a “snippet” into the emails that she has set up in her automations, and then later on she can go in and change the snippet ONE TIME to reflect something timely without having to update every single email. The snippet automatically pops that into the emails as long as the snippet has that content!

So, for example, lets say she has an automation set up to go out on Mondays and everyone on her list is potentially getting a different email based on when they joined her list. It would be time consuming and frustrating to try and go in and add a line or two about a sale or a holiday message or something like that to all of these emails, and then turn around and take them back out. So snippets in Kit allow her to do that in seconds.

She inserts the snippet into each email and then she can simply update the snippet which automatically updates the emails.

I loved that idea and decided to see if its possible inside of my email system. (I use FGFunnels* which runs on GoHighLevel.)

First I saw “snippets” and thought “oh yes! There it is!” But nope…the snippets in HighLevel are a totally different thing…something cool but doesn’t work like this.

Finally came up with the equivalent is basically “Custom Values”. I figured it was going to be something like that, and sure enough.

So, here is a step-by-step video I made showing how to set this up.

I really should start recording myself from the start of a discovery process like this, because its probably quite comical how I talk to myself! 🤣 But, I never think of it until I’m at the end and decide to show you how I did it.

1. Click on Settings at the bottom of the subaccount sidebar.

2. Click on “Custom Values” on the settings sidebar.

3. Click the blue “New Custom Value” button.

4. Title your custom value something that makes sense, such as “Add to everyday emails”.

5. Open up a notepad type document on your device. Paste in this code:

  <!-- Custom Text -->
  <h1>Insert Your Heading Text Here</h1>
<br><br>
  <p>Insert your supporting paragraph or description text here.</p>
<br><br>
  <!-- Custom Image -->
  <img src="https://via.placeholder.com/600x300" alt="Custom Image">
<br><br>
  <!-- Clickable Text -->
  <a href="https://your-link-here.com" class="button">Click Me</a>

6. You can switch this up as much as you want to, and add content to it as well. These are the basic pieces of content you will need.

7. Add your header copy in between the <h1> tags, or delete that line if you don’t want header copy.

8. Add your paragraph copy in between the <p> tags. If you want different lines of paragraph copy, duplicate that line of code and the “<br>” line as many times you’d like.

9. Grab the URL of an image you want to place in the email. I typically upload one to my media storage area and then copy the link for it. Paste that in between the ” ” under Custom Image in the code.

10. The clickable text allows you to include a link without showing the text of the link itself. Paste your link in between the ” ” and replace the words “Click Me” with whatever you want it to say. I do usually include the word “click” if its a call to action, because, well, you might be surprised the number of people who don’t realize its a place to click otherwise.

11. Now copy all of that code and paste it into the line on the Custom Value that says “Value”.

12. Click “Create”.

13. Now open up an email that you’d like to add this to. It can be a campaign or a template, or customize a template from directly within an Automation.

14. Put your cursor inside a textbox where ever you would like to add your Custom Value, then click the Custom Value icon above. It looks like a small rectangle with a line in it, to the right of the font customization buttons. Scroll down to and click on “Custom Values”. Then click on the Custom Value you just created. It will add a piece of code that you can’t modify in the email itself. Save the email.

15. Send yourself a test of the email to make sure it is presenting like you want. If it isn’t, play around with it or ask ChatGPT to help you format it better.

16. Repeat the email portion of these steps to add this Custom Value to each of your automated emails.

To Update the Custom Value:

When you want to change what the Custom Value on each email says, you will simply go back to Custom Values (under settings) and click the 3 dots to the right of the Value and choose “Edit Custom Value”. You can change all or part of it or simply empty out the field until you have something else to add to it. Do NOT delete the custom value though! You need to keep that in place so that you don’t have to go back through all of your emails and add it again.

* What the star implies: Links marked with a * mean that I may receive a commission if a booking or a specific action is made via the linked provider. There will be no additional costs for you. Also, I won't receive any money just by setting links.