highlevel

Choosing the right marketing and automation platform can make or break your ability to generate leads, convert customers, and scale efficiently. Two platforms that often come up are ActiveCampaign and HighLevel.

They both promise automation, CRM tools, and customer journey mapping. But they’re built with different business models in mind.

So – which one is right for you?

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🧰 What Is ActiveCampaign?

ActiveCampaign is a well-established email marketing and automation platform. It’s known for its visual automation builder, robust integrations, and strong email deliverability.

It’s particularly popular among digital marketers, SaaS founders, and eCommerce brands who want granular control over email behaviour, tagging, and segmentation.

You can use ActiveCampaign to:

• Build advanced email sequences with logic-based triggers

• Score leads and track contact engagement

• Sync with tools like Shopify, WordPress, and Salesforce

• Automate follow-ups based on user actions

While it’s strong on the marketing automation side, you’ll need to bolt on external tools for booking calendars, pipelines, landing pages, or SMS.

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🔧 What Is HighLevel?

HighLevel (GoHighLevel) is an all-in-one marketing, CRM, and automation platform designed for service businesses, consultants, and agencies – although it’s now used by businesses of all sizes, including multi-location and enterprise teams.

Think of it as your full business operating system.

You can use HighLevel to:

• Manage leads in a visual sales pipeline

• Run automations across email, SMS, WhatsApp, voice, and more

• Create landing pages, surveys, forms, and booking calendars

• Manage reviews, social media posts, and even websites

• Offer the whole platform as a white-label CRM (great for agencies)

Unlike ActiveCampaign, HighLevel replaces several tools. And that means fewer subscriptions, fewer integrations, and one dashboard to rule them all.

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📊 Side-by-Side ActiveCampaign vs HighLevel Comparison

If you’ve been shopping around for a marketing tool, chances are you’ve come across Mailchimp – the long-standing favourite for email marketing. But if you’re serious about automating your marketing, managing leads, and scaling your business, another name is quickly gaining traction: HighLevel.

So which one is right for you?

Let’s break it down.

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📨 What Is Mailchimp?

Mailchimp is an email marketing platform that’s been around since 2001. It’s often one of the first tools small business owners try because of its user-friendly interface and free starter plan.

You can use Mailchimp to:

• Send newsletters and promotional emails

• Build simple landing pages and forms

• Automate basic email journeys

• Segment your audience based on behaviour or tags

It’s clean, clear, and built with beginners in mind. But while it’s great for email, it’s not designed to be your full marketing engine room.

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⚙️ What Is HighLevel?

HighLevel (also known as GoHighLevel) is a powerful all-in-one sales and marketing platform originally built for marketing agencies and consultants. But don’t let that put you off – it’s now widely used by businesses of all shapes and sizes, from solo service providers to large multi-location enterprises.

You can use HighLevel to:

• Manage your CRM and track leads through sales pipelines

• Automate entire customer journeys (email, SMS, WhatsApp, calls)

• Host booking calendars and live chat widgets

• Build surveys, forms, landing pages, and funnels

• Manage social media posts and review requests

• Even white-label the platform if you’re an agency

While many agencies use HighLevel to serve their clients, the end users are typically small to medium-sized businesses in sectors like health, legal, coaching, trades, property, and beyond. Larger businesses may also use it as part of a broader marketing and customer engagement tech stack.

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🔍 Side-by-Side Mailchimp vs HighLevel Comparison

 

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🧠 Which One Should You Choose?

✅ Choose Mailchimp if:

• You just need simple email marketing

• You’re running a blog, side hustle, or early-stage startup

• You’re not ready to invest in automation or CRM just yet

✅ Choose HighLevel if:

• You run a service business (e.g. coaching, legal, property, health, trades)

• You want to automate lead capture, follow-up, and bookings

• You’re tired of stitching together multiple tools

• You want to white-label a CRM to offer your own clients (if you’re an agency)

• You’re part of a larger team and need robust automation and reporting tools

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🧰 Real Talk: What’s It Like to Use Each?

• Mailchimp feels like a solid one-trick pony. Great at sending emails. But when your business grows and you need to automate follow-ups, track leads, or book appointments – you’ll hit its limits quickly.

• HighLevel has a steeper learning curve, but once it’s set up, it replaces 5–10 different tools. It becomes your marketing engine.

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🚀 Final Verdict

If you’re just starting out with a small list and want to test the waters with email marketing, Mailchimp is a solid choice.

But if you’re looking to grow, automate, and scale – especially if you’re in a service-based industry or want a fully integrated CRM and marketing suite – HighLevel is in a completely different league.

You won’t just be sending emails. You’ll be managing your leads, automating your client journeys, booking appointments, and tracking conversions – all in one system.

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Curious what it would look like for your business?
Book a free discovery call with Julian and let’s talk through how to set it up the smart way.

Check out HighLevel agency – MarketerM8.com

One of the simplest but most powerful tools I’ve used over the years is a video messaging platform called Bonjoro.

If you’ve ever wanted to add a bit more humanity to your client communications – especially in that crucial early phase of a relationship – this little app might just be a game-changer.

Here’s how it works in my setup:

👉 My CRM (now HighLevel via MarketerM8) “talks” directly to the Bonjoro mobile app
👉 A task is created automatically when a certain trigger happens (e.g. new enquiry, deal won, onboarding step)
👉 I get a notification on my phone, open the Bonjoro app
👉 Hold the phone up, record a short personal video
👉 Tap send – and the recipient gets a friendly, personal video message straight to their inbox

The whole thing takes less than 30 seconds, and the impact it makes is huge. In a world full of boring automated emails and cold sales follow-ups, getting a personal video from a real person is a real standout moment.

The big news? HighLevel and Bonjoro can now be integrated.

That means you can now automate personalised video tasks directly from your workflows in HighLevel – which opens up all kinds of use cases:

• Welcoming new leads

• Following up after sales calls

• Onboarding new clients

• Re-engaging cold prospects

• Celebrating milestones

If you’re already using HighLevel, this is a smart addition. And if you’re not, it’s another reason to look at what MarketerM8 can offer.

You can even start with Bonjoro’s free plan

Here’s a non-affiliate link to check out pricing and get started:
👉 https://www.bonjoro.com/pricing

And if you’re curious about how HighLevel and Bonjoro may fit into your own customer journey, I’m always happy to have a quick chat.
👉 Book a Discovery Call with Me

When you’re growing a business, time is your most valuable asset—and your biggest bottleneck. What if you could clone your best team member to handle leads, follow-ups, content, and customer service—24/7?

That’s exactly what the HighLevel AI Employee does.

More than just a chatbot, this suite of AI-powered tools integrates directly into your CRM, helping you automate, scale, and serve your customers better—without burning out your team.

Let’s look at how the AI Employee works, and the powerful tools that make it tick.

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What Is the HighLevel AI Employee?

The AI Employee is a fully customisable digital assistant built into HighLevel, combining multiple AI tools to automate common business tasks. It can talk to your leads, write your content, respond to reviews, build funnels, and even help you design automations.

It acts like a virtual team member—one that:

• Never sleeps

• Responds instantly

• Learns your business

• Works across chat, phone, SMS and web

And unlike most AI tools, the HighLevel AI Employee is trained specifically for small business workflows.

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The HighLevel AI Employee Toolset

Here’s what’s included under the AI Employee umbrella:

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🔊 Voice AI

Handles inbound phone calls with conversational AI. It can answer questions, qualify leads, take messages, and even book appointments. Perfect for after-hours or when your team is busy.

✅ Use it to: Never miss a call again—even outside office hours.

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💬 Conversation AI

A smart chat assistant that works across web chat, SMS, and WhatsApp. It mimics natural human dialogue and is trained on your own business FAQs, tone, and services.

✅ Use it to: Respond instantly to customer enquiries and guide leads toward conversion.

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✍️ Content AI

Your AI-powered content assistant, built directly into HighLevel. Whether you’re writing emails, social posts, blog articles, landing page copy—or need images to go with them—Content AI has you covered.

It can generate marketing copy that aligns with your tone of voice, suggest subject lines, and even create eye-catching images using AI-powered image generation. No need to juggle Canva and ChatGPT separately—it’s all in one place.

✅ Use it to:
Create on-brand content and visuals, faster than ever—perfect for busy business owners or lean marketing teams.

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🌟 Reviews AI

This clever tool can automatically respond to customer reviews in your brand tone, helping you maintain engagement and boost your reputation—even if you’re short on time.

✅ Use it to: Automate thoughtful, on-brand replies to reviews across platforms.

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🧠 Ask AI

Need help inside HighLevel? Ask AI acts as your personal support assistant. Ask it questions about how to use features, build automations, or troubleshoot problems.

✅ Use it to: Learn the platform faster and solve problems without waiting for support.

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🧩 Workflow AI Assistant

Struggling with automation? This AI can help build and optimise your workflows based on your goals, saving hours of setup time and reducing mistakes.

✅ Use it to: Rapidly create complex automations—without needing to be a tech expert.

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📈 Funnel AI

Need a funnel in a hurry? Funnel AI can build landing pages, write copy, and suggest layouts and calls-to-action. Ideal for testing new offers quickly.

✅ Use it to: Spin up new funnels faster than your competitors.

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Why It Matters for Your Business

You don’t need seven different tools, seven logins, and seven subscriptions. The AI Employee brings everything under one roof—automated, integrated, and intelligent.

Here’s what that means for your business:

• 💡 More leads captured, qualified, and followed up—automatically

• 📞 Fewer missed calls and faster responses

• 💬 Better customer experience across channels

• ✍️ Content creation and visuals that scale with you

• 🧠 Easier onboarding and faster team training

• 💷 Reduced staffing pressure as you grow

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How to Get Started

You’ll need a HighLevel account—or you can subscribe via my white-label agency MarketerM8.

Want to learn more? see it in action? Book a free discovery call with Julian.

Please note to use the AI in HighLevel there are small usage costs (e.g. 14p/min for Voice AI), but it pays for itself quickly by capturing missed revenue opportunities and streamlining your team’s workload.

If you’re active on Instagram, TikTok, or any social platform with a single bio link, you’ve probably come across tools like Linktree. These ini landing pages help you funnel followers to multiple destinations—your website, booking page, newsletter signup, or latest offer.

But if you’re already using Go HighLevel (or considering it), here’s the good news: you don’t need Linktree or any third-party tool. HighLevel lets you build a fully customisable, brand-friendly link-in-bio page—without the monthly fees or limited design options.

In this post, I’ll walk you through how to create your own social links page in HighLevel, with tips to make it both stylish and effective.

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Why Build Your Link-in-Bio Page in HighLevel?

Before we get to the how, let’s cover the why.

Using HighLevel instead of Linktree means:

• ✅ You control the design, branding, and user experience

• ✅ You own the traffic (and the data)

• ✅ You can embed calendars, forms, surveys, quizzes, and automations

• ✅ You avoid paying for another monthly tool

Plus, it looks a lot more professional when your followers land on your domain instead of a generic tool.

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Step 1: Choose Your Starting Point – Funnel or Website Template

You’ve got two great options for building your Linktree-style page in HighLevel:

Option A: Start from Scratch in a Funnel

Go to Funnels & Websites > Funnels, create a new funnel, and add a blank step named something like “Social Links.”
Use a short URL slug like /links or /bio, and connect it to your domain. This gives you full control and is great if you want a clean, fast-loading page.

Option B: Use a Pre-Built Website Template

Want a shortcut? Go to Funnels & Websites > Websites > Templates, and search for “Link Tree.”
You’ll find ready-made designs that include a profile image, link buttons, and a mobile-friendly layout—perfect for creators, consultants, or agencies.

Just pick one, add it to your site, and customise it with your own branding, links, and interactive elements.

💡 Pro Tip: You can even clone these templates for clients or multiple brands, saving hours of work.

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Step 2: Design Your Page

Whether you’re starting from scratch or using a template, the structure is simple:

• Profile Image – A circular headshot or logo at the top

• Short Bio – One or two lines to explain who you are or what you do

• Buttons – Use HighLevel’s button element to link to:

  • Your website

  • A lead magnet

  • A booking calendar

  • Your latest YouTube video or blog post

  • Product pages or affiliate offers

  • Your other social media channels

Keep your links focused. Too many options = no action.

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Step 3: Optimise for Mobile

Most people will click your link from their phone—so design for mobile first. In the HighLevel builder, toggle to mobile view and check:

• Font sizes are readable

• Buttons are spaced nicely

• The layout looks clean and scrolls smoothly

A great mobile layout builds trust instantly and improves conversion rates.

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Step 4: Add Interactive Lead Capture Elements

This is where HighLevel leaves Linktree in the dust. You can go way beyond simple buttons and turn your link-in-bio page into a lead generation tool.

Here are your best options:

• 📅 Booking Calendar – Let users book calls or consultations right from the page

• ✉️ Form – Collect names, emails, or phone numbers to build your list

• 📋 Survey – Qualify leads with smart questions and route them accordingly

• ❓ Quiz – Make the experience fun, interactive, and informative while capturing valuable data

💡 Example: Add a quiz titled “Which Service Is Right For You?” and tag leads automatically based on their answers. This not only boosts engagement—it sets you up for smarter follow-up.

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Step 5: Automate and Track Performance

Every interaction on your social links page can trigger HighLevel workflows.

You can:

• Tag contacts who complete a form, survey, or quiz

• Send a thank-you email or SMS

• Notify your team about hot leads

• Redirect based on responses

And thanks to built-in analytics, you can monitor:

• Page views

• Clicks on each link

• Form/survey completions

• Calendar bookings

That means you’re not guessing—you’re making decisions based on real data.

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Bonus: Use Templates to Scale Fast

Building this for multiple brands or clients? Clone your page, swap the content, and go live in minutes.

Templates also work great for VA teams or agencies managing multiple accounts.

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Final Thoughts

Linktree is a great idea—but HighLevel takes it to the next level. You get:

• Full design freedom

• Built-in CRM and automation

• Custom lead capture tools

• Complete control of your brand and traffic

If you’re serious about turning clicks into conversions, your link-in-bio deserves more than just a list of links—it deserves HighLevel.

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Want help building your Linktree alternative in HighLevel?
👉 Book a discovery call with Julian and I’ll show you how to do it the smart way—with automation and lead gen built in.