Getting Started With Memberium “X”

Setup Process

Follow these steps in order for the smoothest setup experience:

1. Install and activate the Memberium plugin
2. Connect Memberium to HighLevel
3. Create local tags and map them to remote tags
4. Create your membership levels
5. Protect your content
6. Setup your welcome automation
7. Create your login page
8. Test your member experience

1. Install Memberium “X”

To get started, log into the Memberium members area. If you are a beta member, you will already have access to the dashboard. Scroll down to find Memberium Universal, access the beta section, and click Download Plugin to download the .zip file.

Once downloaded, head to your WordPress admin dashboard and go to Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin. Select the file you just downloaded, click Install Now, and then click the blue Activate Plugin button. After activation you will be taken to a welcome screen confirming that Memberium Universal is installed on your site.

Note: Memberium Universal is currently in beta and should only be used on staging sites. Bugs are to be expected prior to public release. If you encounter any issues, please email support@memberium.com or use the feedback form in the members area.

2. Connect Memberium to HighLevel

After activating the plugin, navigate to the Memberium > HighLevel menu in your WordPress dashboard. You will need two things to complete the connection: a Private Integration API key and your Location ID.

Creating Your API Key

1. Inside HighLevel, click Settings at the bottom of the sidebar.
2. Go to Private Integrations and click Create New Integration.
3. Give the integration a recognizable name — including your site’s URL is helpful so you can identify it later.
4. Under Scopes, click Select All at the top to grant Memberium full access to your HighLevel account.
5. Click through the warning by selecting Continue, then copy the private key that is generated.

Finding Your Location ID

1. Click on Business Profile at the very top of the HighLevel sidebar.
2. Your Location ID will be displayed on that page — copy it.

Saving Your Credentials

1. Paste your API key and Location ID into the appropriate fields in the Memberium > HighLevel settings page.
2. Scroll to the bottom and click the blue Save Settings button.
3. Once the page reloads, you will see a confirmation that Memberium is connected along with details about the API connection.

3. Create Local Tags

Memberium Universal uses a concept called local tags — tags that exist within your WordPress site and can optionally be mapped to a corresponding tag in HighLevel. This is different from previous versions of Memberium where tags were pulled directly from the CRM.

To create your tags, go to Membership > User Tags and enter a tag name, then click Add Tag. At minimum, you will want to create two tags per membership level:

• An access tag — granted when a member purchases or is given access (e.g., “Membership Foundations”)
• A cancel tag — applied when a member cancels or loses access (e.g., “Membership Cancel”)

Once your local tags are created, map each one to its corresponding HighLevel tag by clicking the pencil/edit icon next to the tag and selecting the matching remote tag from the dropdown. This list is pulled directly from your HighLevel account.

Once mapped, the sync works both ways — if a contact receives the tag in HighLevel, they will receive the local tag on your site, and vice versa.

Tip: You can also create local-only tags that don’t sync to HighLevel at all. These are useful for on-site tracking purposes and don’t consume any API calls.

4. Create Membership Levels

With your tags in place, you can now create a membership level. Go to Membership > Memberships and add a new membership. You will be asked to set the following:

• Name — the name of the membership level (e.g., “Membership Foundations”)
• Access Tag — the local tag that grants access to this membership
• Cancel Tag — the local tag that revokes access when applied

Click Activate Membership to save it.

What’s the difference between a tag and a membership level? A tag is binary — the user either has it or they don’t. A membership level builds on top of a tag and gives you additional controls, including:

• A login/redirect URL — where members are sent after signing in
• Membership levels — the ability to inherit access from lower-tier memberships
• Modifier tags — additional tags such as a payment failure or on-hold tag that can temporarily suspend access without removing the access tag entirely

For example, if a member’s payment fails, you can apply a payment failure tag which will treat them as not having the membership. When they resolve the issue, simply remove that tag and their access is instantly restored — no need to re-grant the access tag.

Tip: If you don’t see all available settings, scroll down in Memberium’s settings and enable Advanced Mode.

5. Protect Your Content

Once your membership levels are set up, you can protect any page or post on your site. Open the page you want to protect and scroll down to find the Content Protection settings added by Memberium Universal.

From here you can require:

• A specific membership level
• A specific local tag
• That the user simply be logged in or logged out
• That the user has any active membership

You can also control what happens when someone tries to access content they don’t have permission for. By default this shows a 404 page, but you can instead set a redirect URL to send them to a custom no-access page.

If you need to protect content using a HighLevel tag that doesn’t yet exist as a local tag, simply go to Membership > User Tags, create the local tag, and map it to the corresponding remote tag in HighLevel.

6. Setup Welcome Automation

Your welcome automation in HighLevel is what creates the member on your WordPress site and sends them access after a purchase. Here is the recommended sequence:

1. Trigger: Payment Received
   Set the trigger to fire when a payment is received for your specific membership product. Filtering by product is the most reliable approach, and you can combine filters if needed.
2. Remove any cancellation or payment failure tags
   Add a Remove Contact Tags step to clear any cancel or payment failure tags. This ensures returning members who previously cancelled or had a failed payment are not accidentally blocked from access.
3. Apply the access tag
   Add an Add Tag step and apply the HighLevel tag that is mapped to your membership’s access tag (e.g., “Membership Foundations Access”).
4. Fire the Create Member webhook
   This tells HighLevel to send the contact’s information to Memberium and create their WordPress account. To find your webhook URL, go to Memberium > Settings, enter a secret key, save, and then copy the Create Member webhook URL that appears. Paste this into a Webhook action step in your automation with the method set to POST.
5. Add a wait step (minimum 1 minute)
   This gives Memberium time to create the member account and generate a magic link before the welcome email is sent.
6. Send the welcome email
   Send an email that directs the new member to sign in. Include either a direct magic link (pulled from the Magic Link custom field on the contact) or a link to your login page where they can request one. Since Memberium Universal does not generate passwords by default, this magic link is how they will access the site for the first time.

Tip: Enable Allow Re-entry in the automation settings so that returning members who previously cancelled can go through the sequence again without issues.

7. Create Your Login Page

Your members will need a page to sign in from. Create a new page in WordPress (e.g., “Login”) and add the following shortcodes:

Standard login form (email and password):

[mem_login_form]

Magic link request form (passwordless login):

[memb_request_magic_link]

It is recommended to include both on your login page. The magic link form allows members to enter their email address and receive a secure one-time login link, which is especially useful since Memberium Universal does not generate passwords for new members by default. This also eliminates the common support burden of members forgetting their passwords.

You may also want to create a separate, simplified page that only contains the magic link shortcode to use as a first-time sign-in page linked from your welcome email.

Once your login page is live, go back to your membership level settings and set it as the Login/Redirect URL so that members are sent there when they need to sign in.

8. Test, Test Test!

Before going live, it’s important to walk through the full member experience yourself. Here’s how to test your setup end to end:

1. Create a test contact in HighLevel
   Go to Contacts and add a new contact using a real email address you have access to. This way you can receive and click the actual welcome email and magic link.
2. Manually trigger the automation
   Rather than making a real purchase, you can manually add the test contact to your welcome automation from within the contact record. This will run them through the full sequence as if they had just purchased.
3. Verify the tag was applied
   After the automation runs, confirm inside the contact record that the access tag was applied successfully.
4. Verify the WordPress account was created
   In your WordPress dashboard, go to Users and confirm the test contact’s account was created by the webhook.
5. Test the magic link
   Check the welcome email in your inbox, click the magic link, and confirm you are automatically signed in and redirected to the correct membership homepage.
6. Verify content protection
   Open an incognito window and try to access a protected page without being logged in. Confirm you are redirected to your no-access page or the login page as expected.

Getting Help

We offer multiple ways to get support when you need it:

• Submit a ticket through our support portal
• Email us at support@memberium.com
• Join our bi-weekly Office Hours calls