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How can I track where donations are coming from?
How can I track where donations are coming from?

How to use the Automatic Data Capture feature to Track your donations.

Ashleigh Alldredge avatar
Written by Ashleigh Alldredge
Updated over a week ago

You may have a few partners wanting to list your donation form link on their website or you may have a specific appeal that you would like to reach out to donors about, and would like to keep track of where your donations are coming from. 

If you are interesting in tracking where donations are coming from, consider using our Automatic Data Capture feature. This feature can be helpful for tracking Google Analytics parameters too like utm_campaign, utm_source, utm_medium, etc.

Setting up an Automatic Data Capture Rule

1. On your main Campaign Management page that the form is listed under, click on the Form List tab.

2. From your list of Forms, click on the Form you would like to add this feature to.

3. Click on the Form Details tab.


4. Scroll down to the section labeled "Automatic Data Capture."


5. Click "+ADD" on the right-hand side.


6. Select the Rule Type (in this specific scenario, we want Reporting Metadata).

7. Create the rule for source variable (Parameter Name) like "s" to store its value in the Reporting Metadata under the key (Reporting Code) such as "source."

***For Google Analytics, you can set up rules like:

Reporting Code: GA Campaign

Parameter Name: utm_campaign

8. Click Save, and you've added it to your form!

Now when you distribute the link to the form you can add "?s=____", where the ___ is the source you're reporting on, to the donation form link. 

For example: if you had the donation form link of www.puppiesaregreat.org/donate, and wanted to email the link out and track who is coming in from the email vs the website, you would add "?s=email" to the end of your donation form link emailed out. The link would then be www.puppiesaregreat.org/donate?s=email, and the data upon form submission would report back "email" as the source.

Adding the Data to Reports


You will need to update your reports to include this new information, if you are interested in tracking it. 

In order to update your report, simply add a new column. This will be in the Advance Data Fields Category, with the column being Form Response Metadata, and you need to select "source" as the Form Response Metadata Key from the dropdown menu. That Metadata Key will always be the value you added in as the Reporting Code when creating your Auto Data Capture rule.

This will report on what you make "?s=___" in your link. If you had "?s=email" at the end of your link, the report would say "email" in that column.


If you have any questions about the Automatic Data Capture feature, please email enterprise-support@givegab.com.

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