As a company proprietor for over a years, I rely on software and automation to streamline procedures and deliver results. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene couple of years back, it certainly captured my attention Does GoHighLevel Have PPC.
The idea was attractive– an all-in-one customer monitoring platform with marketing, sales, and solution devices integrated with each other. As an entrepreneur always aiming to simplify and scale my organization, it seemed like a dream become a reality on paper. Who would not want a solitary solution that does it all?
But in this comprehensive GoHighLevel evaluation, I’ll take you inside my disastrous trip of attempting (and failing) to switch over to this prominent brand-new software application. You’ll discover:
If you’re taking into consideration whether GoHighLevel is right for your own business needs, hopefully you can pick up from my agonizing blunders and inflated assumptions.
Spoiler: I do NOT recommend GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, begin with this checklist of ideal CRMs rather. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re looking for a sales, marketing, and task monitoring choice to GoHighLevel, after that below are a couple of we advise.
Backstory: Why I Considered Switching from Keap
To understand what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you require context concerning my previous configuration. For over 5 years I had actually been gladly relying on Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to fulfill all my client monitoring and automation requirements.
I found Keap user-friendly to utilize and it took care of whatever I needed– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, membership sites, and client assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are made to aid small businesses keep their clients while including new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and messages, ensuring leads and clients obtain the appropriate messages at the correct time. Use website and social media sites forms to simplify lead follow-up, and handle your development with very easy appointment organizing and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated pricing estimate, invoicing, and repayment processing, liberating your time. With Keap, small businesses can conserve 10 hours weekly and boost revenue by 39%. Start with a 14-day free trial, no charge card needed.
Why we like Keap
Keap uses a detailed client connection management (CRM) and marketing automation option customized for local business and entrepreneurs. We appreciate Keap’s concentrate on improving sales procedures and nurturing client relationships through effective automation tools. The platform’s all-in-one method integrates CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and task management, making it particularly appealing for organizations seeking to consolidate their tech stack.
For the most part, it simply worked dependably with marginal hassle or upkeep needed. My open and click-through rates were terrific (like 35% great). Automations ran efficiently with no concerns.
So why in the world was I tempted to uproot my entire functional foundation from a system that functioned to attempt something unproven and untested?
In knowledge I can admit I obtained seduced by the alarm call of “shiny item syndrome”. You understand the sensation: when every person’s talking about a new tool that will certainly transform your service … The lawn typically looks greener on the other side, and I wondered whether GoHighLevel could reduce friction points that I would certainly found out to endure over the years with Keap.
I resisted initially, however a couple of more irritations led me to believe maybe it was time for a modification.
The Investment: Migrating My Company to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I determined to take the plunge. I enrolled in HighLevel’s Company plan at $297/month, spending dramatically greater than the $97/month starter cost.
This had not been a decision I took lightly. I knew switching over systems was mosting likely to call for moving all my Keap information and essentially reconstructing my whole technology facilities from scratch using every one of the GoHighLevel integrations offered.
Here’s a review of simply a few of the effort called for:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ email client records
- Recreating lots of automations and workflows
- Moving client accounts, notes, and job information to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Establishing landing pages, promos, and sales funnels throughout again
- Learning a completely international UX and user interface layout
All in, I spent around 30-40 tedious hours of arrangement job transitioning everything over– and also managing lost productivity throughout the button.
However eventually, it was a computed investment I agreed to make. I figured some short-term discomfort would repay with GoHighLevel offering a far better long-lasting option for my company, Dripify. Oh how wrong I was …
It just took me concerning a month of hands-on usage to understand I had actually made a large mistake. The problems started piling up swiftly, till it reached a factor I had to cut my losses and change back to Keap completely.
Allow’s go through the horrible troubles I ran into.
Safety Issues & Many Bugs
Provided GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation system, I took care to thoroughly recreate every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These included series for onboarding brand-new email subscribers, onboarding new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending event pointers, taking care of membership expiries and a lot more.
Whatever appeared to be working fine … until unexpectedly it wasn’t. One morning, I woke up to find 171 totally unimportant e-mails had actually been sent out to individuals that need to NOT have received them. This took place 3 days in a row, with a different batch of 160 people every day.
I frantically attempted fixing and restoring the automation from scratch. But the problem continued.
When I desperately connected to their assistance group, they slightly claimed “server problems” were to blame. But this explanation didn’t make any sense, given that the errors continued occurring each early morning like clockwork unconnected to any type of downtime.
In my mind, this huge failure was totally unacceptable and simply didn’t help my company. I have countless contacts relying on my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be absolutely undependable, exactly how could I entrust mission-critical workflows and delicate client data to their innovation?
The unintuitive user interface just worsened these concerns …
Irritating UX
Coming from Keap where everything was smooth and user-friendly, GoHighLevel’s learning curve felt steep and complex.
Simple jobs like modifying workflows included digging via food selection systems that were all over the place. Secret setups were unexplainably spread in absolutely different sections. Relocating in between features felt disjointed or complicated.
I’ll tell you what I imply by speaking about their funnel builder as an instance. There were 3 separate settings panels to take care of total, specific, and item arrangements. Yet for some insane reason, the web links to gain access to each of these core setups were expanded on opposite sides of the display. What!?
As someone that values clean, thoughtful design, this seriously annoyed me.
It enhanced that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress as opposed to a refined item all set for prime-time use. Their priorities seemed focused on packing in every feature imaginable, with poor usability as an afterthought.
And speaking of features, I soon understood the small cost tag included expensive compromises …
Deceptive Pricing Does GoHighLevel Have PPC
One of GoHighLevel’s greatest marketing factors is the inexpensive rate for accessibility to numerous features. Yet I promptly discovered this cheap base expense was deceitful.
They nickle-and-dimed customers with erratic charges for core performance. All of a sudden my charge card statements had obscure $10 charges from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it ended up, you obtain charged whenever you send out an e-mail with their servers. So for high quantity users, this added up to hundreds of dollars in unanticipated costs.
Between these per-email fees and paying additional for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “affordable” GoHighLevel subscription wound up costing substantially greater than my Keap plan.
The reduced sticker price was appealing, yet simply not realistic in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative taste in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The final dealbreaker was seeing my carefully nurtured email open prices plunge virtually over night after switching to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my audience engagement consistently hit 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. But once I migrated their documents over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked quickly to a worthless 9% open price.
No matter just how much I enhanced my sending methods or tried every repairing technique, I might barely nudge open prices back into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decline from my previous benchmarks Does GoHighLevel Have PPC.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and emails all of a sudden had horrible involvement. The only point I can assume that would be causing this was whatever was happening behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a firm so depending on email marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the crippling deliverability concerns, hidden costs, broken features, and dreadful interface, I had actually ultimately reached my limitation …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after migrating my agency to GoHighLevel, I knew I had actually made a big blunder. The cons drastically outweighed any type of benefits.
No software application is excellent, however the large quantity of troubles was beyond appropriate.
At the end of the day, software boils down to trust. If I can’t trust it to deal with crucial features effectively or believe a supplier has my benefits in mind, then it’s time to walk away– even after spending significant time, cash, and initiative migrating.
So I made the challenging contact us to reverse course and return back to Keap entirely just weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Let’s discover what I learned from this debacle.
Key Takeaways: What I Learned From My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as a costly accident. But in hindsight, it instructed me a few key lessons:
- Adhere to what works. Don’t upset what’s working unless something is definitively better across the board. Adjustment brings danger.
- Veterinarian declares extensively. Marketing buzz around new software program typically obscures larger underlying flaws. Deep due diligence is necessary.
- Choose simpleness over features. Well-designed tools should make your work life simpler, not a lot more challenging and messy.
- Openness constructs trust. Nontransparent pricing, questionable reseller terms, and finger-pointing to evade issues ruins trust.
- Seek honest evaluations. Delighted support assesses imply less if too much concerns imply bad total functionality.
- Excellence is difficult. No single service can perfectly meet every one-of-a-kind organization need. Find the least-bad fit.
- Advancement over transformation. Step-by-step enhancements typically surpass risky wholesale reinvention of what already functions fine.
Basically, I learned to be a lot more doubtful of “also great to be true” marketing cases and less attracted by the allure of glossy brand-new items. The devices you make use of daily must earn trust with transparency and performance, not slick advertising.