Tracking Links and Autofill Links: Building, Sharing, and Reading the Results – GiveCampus University

This guide covers two tools that often get used together: unique tracking links (short links that measure clicks and attribute gifts to a channel) and autofill links (URLs that pre-fill the giving form with an amount, designation, recurring frequency, and more). It also explains why your click counts may differ from your email vendor's, and what donors see if they follow a link to a campaign that isn't live yet.

Unique tracking links

A unique tracking link is a short URL—formatted like givecampus.com/s/abc123—that redirects to a destination you choose and records activity along the way. Create one for each channel (an email, a postcard QR code, a coach's social post) and you'll be able to see clicks, gifts, and dollars per link in your unique tracking link report.

Creating one

From your campaign, form, or event admin view, open the tracking links section, give the link a name (this is the label you'll see in reports—make it descriptive, like "FY26 Spring Appeal Postcard"), and choose the destination. GiveCampus generates the short link for you.

A tracking link can point to:

A campaign page
A tiered (tier 2 or tier 3) landing page
A giving form
An event page

Short links and your custom domain

Short links are always generated on the GiveCampus domain (givecampus.com/s/...)—they can't be created on your school's custom domain (like give.school.edu).

Using tracking links with QR codes

QR codes work great with tracking links: generate the QR code from the short link so scans are counted. If you also want a typed-out URL under the QR code, print the short link itself (givecampus.com/s/abc123)—it's the URL that tracks. Don't print the long destination URL, since visits to it won't credit your link.

Heads-up: If your campaign is still in draft, its pages and giving form aren't public yet—anyone following your link or QR code will hit a sign-in page. Test your printed links after the campaign (or its pre-launch page) is live, not before.

How clicks are counted—and why your email vendor shows more

GiveCampus counts a click when a real visitor lands on the destination page through your link, with two safeguards:

One count per visitor session. If the same person clicks your link five times in one sitting, that's one click in your report.
Known bots are filtered. Link-preview crawlers from Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google aren't counted.

Email platforms count differently: they typically log every click event, including repeat clicks and—significantly—automated clicks from corporate email security scanners that "click" every link in every message before delivery. That's why an email vendor can report two or three times the clicks GiveCampus shows. Neither number is wrong; they're measuring different things. For donor behavior, the GiveCampus count is the conservative, deduplicated view—and gifts and dollars per link are the numbers that matter most.

Gift attribution

When a visitor arrives through a tracking link, their session is tagged, and a gift they make is credited to that link in your unique tracking link report. On campaigns, you can also send donors to a specific giving form with tier credit using the tc=parameter (for example, /campaigns/12345/donations/new?tc=678), which credits the gift to that tier 2 or tier 3 page.

Autofill links

Autofill links pre-fill the giving form so donors land with their amount, designation, or recurring choice already selected—fewer clicks, more completed gifts. There are two flavors: URL parameters you can add to any giving form link, and personalized autofill links generated in bulk from a CSV.

Generate an autofill link in GiveCampus

Open your campaign or giving form and go to Tracking & Analytics → Links & Appeal Codes.
Choose Generate Autofill Links.
Select the fields and values you want to pre-fill. Use the designation search to choose funds; when selecting multiple designations, the tool generates the required parameters automatically.
Copy the generated URL and test it in a private browser window before sharing.

You do not need to build the URL by hand. The syntax below is an optional reference for advanced use.

Optional reference: autofill URL parameters

Start from your giving form URL (it looks like .../campaigns/12345/donations/new) and add parameters after a ?, joining multiple parameters with &.

What you want to pre-fill	Parameter	Example
Gift amount	`value`	`?value=100`
One designation	`designation`	`?designation=annualfund`
Multiple designations	`designation_1`, `designation_2`, ...	`?designation_1=annualfund&designation_2=athletics`
Recurring gift	`recur` with `period`	`?recur=true`
Source tracking	`utm_source`, `utm_medium`, etc.	`?utm_source=email`

A few notes:

The autofill tool supplies the URL-friendly designation values automatically when you choose the funds. Use the generated URL to avoid spelling or encoding errors.
You can combine parameters: ?value=50&designation=annualfund&recur=true&period=monthly pre-fills a $50 monthly recurring gift to the Annual Fund.
One amount per link. URL parameters can pre-fill multiple designations, but not a separate dollar amount for each one—the donor splits the total on the form. If you need per-designation amounts pre-filled, use personalized autofill links (below), or send one link per designation.
Match and challenge links only work on campaigns that allow donor matches and challenges.
Recurring start dates can't be set by URL parameter—donors choose timing on the form where available.

Personalized autofill links (bulk, from a CSV)

Upload a CSV to create a separate autofill link for each donor using the values you provide. This is the Autofill Donation Form Links uploader, separate from the single-link Generate Autofill Links tool and school-level Personalization.

Open the intended campaign or giving form and go to Tracking & Analytics → Links & Appeal Codes. Scroll to Autofill Donation Form Links.
Click Click here to download a sample csv file with the appropriate headers and sample data. Use this form's template: the available columns depend on the fields it can pre-fill. Example columns include value, payer_name, payer_email, zipcode, and addr_country.
Keep the header names unchanged, replace the sample row, and enter one row per donor. Use the full supported country name in addr_country and the state abbreviation for a state address field.
Save the file as .csv. Choose it in the uploader and click Upload.
Once the upload has been processed, use See Existing Autofill Links to review the records or Download Existing Autofill Links to export them. The export's token column contains complete donor-specific links ending in ?aft=....
Check that values are under the right headers and test representative links in a private browser window before merging the link column into your email or mail-merge tool. If columns are shifted, correct the CSV and upload it again.

These links use the data in your CSV. Smart Ask Amounts and school-level Personalization use their own workflows and templates; do not assume their export columns work in this uploader.

Formatting country names in the CSV

Use the full name from the list below in addr_country, such as United States, rather than a two-letter abbreviation such as US. Keep the listed spelling, capitalization, punctuation and legacy names.

Enter the country name in one spreadsheet cell. When Excel or Google Sheets exports that sheet as CSV, it normally adds the necessary quotation marks. If editing the raw CSV as text, wrap any country containing a comma in double quotes so it stays in a single column. Do not type Markdown backticks into the file.

The following example shows only four columns to illustrate quoting; keep the actual headers from your downloaded template:

payer_name,payer_email,addr_country,value
Example Donor,donor@example.com,United States,100
Example Donor,donor@example.com,"Congo, the Democratic Republic of the",100
Example Donor,donor@example.com,Cote D'Ivoire,100
Example Donor,donor@example.com,"Virgin Islands, U.s.",100

Supported country names for CSV autofill uploads

Copy the appropriate value exactly as listed into the addr_country column.

Afghanistan
Albania
Algeria
American Samoa
Andorra
Angola
Anguilla
Antigua and Barbuda
Argentina
Armenia
Aruba
Australia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Bahamas
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Barbados
Belarus
Belgium
Belize
Benin
Bermuda
Bhutan
Bolivia
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Botswana
Brazil
Brunei Darussalam
Bulgaria
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Cambodia
Cameroon
Canada
Cape Verde
Cayman Islands
Central African Republic
Chad
Chile
China
Colombia
Comoros
Congo
Congo, the Democratic Republic of the
Cook Islands
Costa Rica
Cote D'Ivoire
Croatia
Cuba
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Djibouti
Dominica
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
Egypt
El Salvador
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Estonia
Ethiopia
Falkland Islands (Malvinas)
Faroe Islands
Fiji
Finland
France
French Guiana
French Polynesia
Gabon
Gambia
Georgia
Germany
Ghana
Gibraltar
Greece
Greenland
Grenada
Guadeloupe
Guam
Guatemala
Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Guyana
Haiti
Holy See (Vatican City State)
Honduras
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
India
Indonesia
Iran, Islamic Republic of
Iraq
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Jamaica
Japan
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Kiribati
Korea, Democratic People's Republic of
Korea, Republic of
Kosovo
Kuwait
Kyrgyzstan
Lao People's Democratic Republic
Latvia
Lebanon
Lesotho
Liberia
Libyan Arab Jamahiriya
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Macao
Macedonia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of
Madagascar
Malawi
Malaysia
Maldives
Mali
Malta
Marshall Islands
Martinique
Mauritania
Mauritius
Mexico
Micronesia, Federated States of
Moldova, Republic of
Monaco
Mongolia
Montserrat
Morocco
Mozambique
Myanmar
Namibia
Nauru
Nepal
Netherlands
Netherlands Antilles
New Caledonia
New Zealand
Nicaragua
Niger
Nigeria
Niue
Norfolk Island
Northern Mariana Islands
Norway
Oman
Pakistan
Palau
Panama
Papua New Guinea
Paraguay
Peru
Philippines
Pitcairn
Poland
Portugal
Puerto Rico
Qatar
Reunion
Romania
Russian Federation
Rwanda
Saint Helena
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Lucia
Saint Pierre and Miquelon
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Samoa
San Marino
Sao Tome and Principe
Saudi Arabia
Senegal
Seychelles
Sierra Leone
Singapore
Slovakia
Slovenia
Solomon Islands
Somalia
South Africa
Spain
Sri Lanka
Sudan
Suriname
Svalbard and Jan Mayen
Swaziland
Sweden
Switzerland
Syrian Arab Republic
Taiwan, Province of China
Tajikistan
Tanzania, United Republic of
Thailand
Togo
Tokelau
Tonga
Trinidad and Tobago
Tunisia
Turkey
Turkmenistan
Turks and Caicos Islands
Tuvalu
Uganda
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom
United States
Uruguay
Uzbekistan
Vanuatu
Venezuela
Vietnam
Virgin Islands, British
Virgin Islands, U.s.
Wallis and Futuna
Western Sahara
Yemen
Zambia
Zimbabwe

Common questions

Can I get a tracking link on our give.school.edu domain? No- short links are always set up using the GiveCampus.com URL not your branded URL.

Why are my QR code links sending people to a login page? The campaign or form is still in draft. Links work for the public once it's live (a live pre-launch page counts—visitors will see the countdown page until launch).

My email platform shows 1,500 clicks but GiveCampus shows 500. Which is right? Both, for what they measure. GiveCampus de-duplicates by visitor session and filters known bots; email vendors count every click event, including security scanners. Compare trends within one system rather than across systems.

Can one link pre-fill several designations with different amounts? Not with URL parameters—multiple designations, one total amount. Use personalized autofill links or separate links per designation.

Can I use personalized ADID links as QR-code destinations for printed mailers?

Yes. The personalized URLs generated from your school-level Personalization data (those containing ?adid=…) work as QR-code destinations on any printed material. When a donor scans the QR code and opens the URL, the giving form loads with the personalized values—such as greeting, ask amount, designation, and other pre-filled fields—that you uploaded.

These ADID-based links are separate from the per-campaign autofill links (the ?aft=… links generated within a campaign or giving form's tracking section). ADID links come directly from your school-level Personalization records and are designed for bulk mail and print outreach.

Key details and best practices

No conversion required: The full ?adid= URL works as is without conversion into a short link.
Token origin: Export ADID tokens from Online Giving > Personalization by clicking Get Personalization Tokens (or Get Personalization Tokens through Email for large exports). The CSV will include an adid column for your mail-merge or QR-code generator.
Instant activation: Personalization records become active immediately with no additional setup required.
Token stability: ADID tokens do not automatically expire. They remain valid until you revoke them by deleting the underlying personalization record.
Unlimited scans: Each ADID link or QR code can be scanned unlimited times, consistently delivering the same personalized form.
Test before printing: Verify each personalized URL in an incognito or private browser window (or by scanning the QR code) to ensure the pre-fill works correctly. If the campaign or form remains in Draft, the donor will see a sign-in page instead of the live form.

Can I link straight to a section of the giving form, like the employer matching box? No—giving form links open at the top of the form. There's no supported anchor for specific sections.

Where do I see results? The unique tracking link report on your campaign or form shows clicks, gifts, and dollars per link. To see every tracking link across your account, pull the report from each campaign or ask support for a consolidated export.