Working with your site
Simple menus vs complex menus
Last updated 26 October 2026
Short answer: HubSpot gives you two ways to build a navigation menu. A simple menu lives in the page editor as a module field. A complex menu lives in HubSpot’s settings, outside the page editor. ThemeSpot can read and edit simple menus and cannot see complex ones, which is why ThemeSpot themes use simple menus by default.
Simple menus
A simple menu is a field on a module, usually the header or footer. You edit it in the page editor’s sidebar: add a link, rename it, nest a dropdown, reorder. The links and labels are saved with the module, like any other field.
On a ThemeSpot theme the header and footer are global content, so the menu is a global field. Open it from any page through the global content editor, change it once, and every page picks it up when you publish.
Because the menu is a field, ThemeSpot can work with it. Ask the agent to add a page to the navigation, rename a dropdown, point a link at a new address or audit the menu for broken links, and it reads the field, drafts the change and shows it to you before anything goes live.
Simple menus nest up to three levels on a ThemeSpot theme. That is an editing limit rather than a HubSpot one: a deeper menu is hard to work in the sidebar, and a site that needs one is usually better off with a complex menu.
Complex menus
A complex menu, which HubSpot calls an advanced menu, is managed in HubSpot’s settings under Website, then Navigation. You build the menu there, give it a name, and a menu module on the page points at it by name. The page editor shows the menu but the links are not on the page.
Complex menus suit large sites: many levels, menus shared across several themes or domains, or a navigation team that works in settings rather than the page editor.
ThemeSpot cannot see or change a complex menu. It works through the content HubSpot exposes on pages and in themes, and the navigation settings are outside both. If you ask the agent to change a link in a complex menu it will tell you where to make the change in HubSpot instead.
Which should you use?
- Use a simple menu when you want the agent to manage the navigation, when the menu is three levels or fewer, and when the people who edit it already work in the page editor. This is the default on every ThemeSpot theme.
- Use a complex menu when the menu is deeper than three levels, when the same menu must serve several themes, or when navigation is owned by someone who works in HubSpot settings and should stay there.
Switching a ThemeSpot theme to a complex menu
Every ThemeSpot header and footer carries a navigation source setting. Open the global content editor, find the navigation group and switch the source from Simple to HubSpot menu, then choose the menu by name. The theme renders the complex menu from then on, and the simple menu field is hidden but kept, so you can switch back without losing it.
Once you switch, the agent stops managing that menu. Page content, templates and the rest of the theme are unaffected.