Using Tracking Links to Analyze Your Marketing

Marketing can often feel like a black box -- it’s hard to know what’s working and where you should be making adjustments.  By using the Unique Tracking Links feature, you can answer the most important questions about each of your marketing efforts: How much traffic did it generate?  How many gifts--and how much money--did it produce?  Which donors responded to it?  And, what is our ROI?  

This data will empower you to adjust your strategy in real time and make more informed decisions about where to invest your time and resources.

Examples of insights you can gain include:

• Return on investment of a print mailer such as postcard
• The time of day that is most effective for sending an email
• Which email content generates the most traffic/click-throughs
• What social media site (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, etc.) drives the most activity
• Which buttons and links on your website are being used most often
• What type of marketing gains the most traction (Facebook, Direct Mail, Email, Text Message) 

To create a Unique Tracking Link, follow these three simple steps:

• Go to the Campaign/Form Settings > Tracking & Analytics > Links & Appeal Codes tab
• Enter a unique and descriptive title to help you remember how you used the link (e.g. ‘Facebook - 10am - June 30’)
• Use the link!  Activity associated with that link will be tracked and the information will be available and updated in real-time as illustrated in the screenshot below.

With the QR Code Generator for Unique Tracking Links, you can also create scannable QR codes to help with marketing efforts. QR codes function the same way that unique tracking links do, redirecting donors to a giving page while allowing school admins to track where these donors are coming from. They function seamlessly across Giving Forms and the Social Fundraising Platform.

To create custom QR codes follow these four simple steps: 

• Go to the Campaign/Form Settings > Tracking & Analytics > Links & Appeal Codes tab
• Click on the button labeled 'QR Code' on the rightmost column to generate a QR code for a specific tracking link.
• This will open a pop-up window that contains an image of your QR code (you can use it for printed flyers, social media graphics, and similar marketing materials).
• To save the QR code for later use, simply right click on the image, and hit 'Save Image As…'

Pro Tips: (1) Don't only use Unique Tracking Links for digital marketing.  Use them for print!  (2) If you want a URL that is easy for people to remember and/or displays better in printed communications, ask your web team to create a ‘vanity URL’ that points to your new tracking link (e.g. www.holycross.edu/givepurple). (3) You can also use gvcmp.us instead of givecampus.com in the links to save a few characters (especially helpful for text campaigns with character limits)!