Access and Share Advocacy Links

Overview

Our advocate functionality allows you to generate and share advocacy links directly with your advocates, eliminating the need for them to log in in order to start spreading the word about your campaign. Our recent connection to GC Outreach makes this communication that much easier!

Key Benefits

• Streamlines the advocacy process by removing login barriers
• Allows direct distribution of unique advocacy links to supporters

• Tracks advocate activity — the clicks, dollars, and donors they generate from this unique links — even without account creation

   

Step-by-Step Guide

1. Upload or Add Advocates

Click the blue 'Add Potential Advocates' button to add advocates. You'll see options to use smart segment advocates, start from an existing segment, upload a list of advocates, or add one-by-one depending on your needs.

• Using a Smart Segment requires that you've uploaded data via the School-Level Data Importer. 
• Starting from Existing Segments allow you to choose from event data, pre-built segments, a custom segment, or a smart segment. 
• Upload List of Advocates requires you upload a CSV file with the following columns: external_id, first_name, last_name, and email_address.
• Lastly, you can manually add a Single New Advocate

2. Access Advocacy Links

• After upload, advocacy links are automatically generated for each constituent, and you can either download a CSV of all the links to share out, or copy individual advocate links.
• Advocate links are distinct to each campaign.

3. Share Links with Advocates

• Copy individual links directly from the Advocacy dashboard to share 1-1, or leverage Advocacy's new connection with GC Outreach to send templated e-mails to advocates of all statuses. More info on that functionality: Advocacy and Outreach

FAQ's

• Will the advocacy activity show on the campaign page? 
  Yes! If an advocate shares the link you provide, the activity they generate will show on the campaign page. There is a brief lag between when a click or gift is generated and when that shows on the campaign page.
• What if an advocate already has an account? 
  No problem! The advocate can still login and may choose to still do so (especially if they want to add a personal video). If the advocate logs in and copies their advocacy link from the campaign page or advocacy dashboard, that’ll be the same unique URL as what is now accessible on the back end. If they share the link you provide or login and copy a link, all advocacy will be tracked to the same person. 

• What if an advocate creates an account after I share the link with them? 
  No problem! Advocates can still create an account. As long as the email address uploaded via the Advocacy settings is the same email used to create an account, we ensure all of the advocacy action is tracked to the same constituent.
• Since advocates don’t have to create an account, what is considered an ‘active’ advocate? 
  We mark an advocate as ‘active’ within your dashboard when an advocate:
  • Generates a click, dollar, or donor via their link
  • Creates a match or challenge
  • Posts a personal video

Questions? Reach out to support@givecampus.com

Manual Advocate Attribution

Adding Advocate Attribution After a Gift

If a gift should be credited to an advocate but didn't automatically attribute:

Steps to manually attribute:

1. Go to your campaign's gift management (Manage Donations)
2. Locate the specific gift by donation ID or donor name
3. Click on the donation to open the details view
4. Find the "Advocate ID" field in the gift details
5. Enter the advocate's unique ID number (the "a=" number in the URL when you click their advocacy short link)
6. Save the changes

Finding an Advocate's ID Number

To get the correct advocate ID:

1. Go to your campaign's Advocacy section
2. Locate the advocate in your advocacy table
3. Copy and paste their short link into a new window and look at the URL
4. The ID is the number after "a=" in the URL is their ID
5. Example: if the link is ...?a=12345, the advocate ID is 12345

When Manual Attribution is Needed

Common scenarios:

• Donor used a general campaign link instead of the advocate's unique link
• Gift was made before advocate link was properly shared

Important Notes

• Manual attribution updates advocate performance metrics
• Changes appear in advocate reporting and donor attribution

Finding and using your own advocate link as a staff advocate

If you’re a staff member or administrator added as an advocate, follow these steps to locate and use your unique advocacy link so that your clicks and donations are properly tracked.

• Origin of your unique link

  • A unique, short-form URL (for example, https://www.givecampus.com/s/xxxxxx) is automatically generated when you’re added to a campaign’s advocacy list. This URL is used to track clicks, donors, and contributions.

• How to find your link

  • Via an outreach email: Look for the personal campaign link inserted by the $PERSONAL_CAMPAIGN_LINK$ merge token. Copy the link directly from the email.
  • Via your GiveCampus account: Sign in and navigate to your campaign page or advocacy dashboard. Your personal link is available for copying there.

• Using your link

  • Plain paste: Simply paste the short-form URL into your email, text, or social media post. All activity will be properly tracked.
  • Hyperlinked text: You may also hyperlink any text (for example, “Give to our campaign”) with the short-form URL to maintain tracking without displaying the URL.

• Understanding link formats

  • The short-form URL is the easiest to use. In some cases, you might see a longer URL with an a= parameter (for example, https://www.givecampus.com/campaigns/school-name/campaign-name?a=12345). The number following a= is your advocate ID and can be used for manual attribution if needed.

• Important consideration

  • Your link will track all activity regardless of whether the advocate or donor is logged in. Always copy the full URL exactly as provided to ensure accurate tracking.