Disclaimer: ActBlue user roles and permissions dictate what users can do on our platform. If the tools or features mentioned in this article are unavailable to you, please speak to your Dashboard Admin(s) about updating your permissions.
In this article:
ActBlue makes tracking the effectiveness of your forms and ad campaigns simple. You can set up tracking codes on your contribution forms and collect ad success data and donor behavior analytics.
We advise that you only set up tracking on forms specifically made as an endpoint for an ad campaign. Doing so ensures that the forms you use for email fundraising or website traffic load quickly.
Understanding Analytics Tools on ActBlue
Popular tracking & analytics services we support:
- Meta Ads
- X (formerly Twitter) Ads
- Google Ads
- Google Analytics 4
Tracking Events
We trigger tracking events on two areas of your contribution form:
- Landing Page events are triggered whenever a donor visits the contribution form. They will display as a “PageView” event in your analytics platform. Note: Due to privacy limitations, we do not support landing page tracking on the Meta ads platform.
- Conversion Page events are triggered after the donor makes a contribution and reaches the Thanks page. These will display as a “Purchase” event in your analytics platform.
Setting Up Your Analytics Integration
Using Global Tracking Codes
If you’re doing a lot of ad tracking, you can set up global tracking codes to save and easily apply to any of your forms. To do this, head to your Dashboard and click " Settings " at the bottom of your Dashboard menu.
Then, click on the “Tracking” tab under “Settings.”
Under “Tracking,” you can set up landing page and conversion page tracking codes in their respective tabs:
The “Landing Page” and “Conversion Page” tabs have sections for the most common third-party ad services campaigns and organizations use to run and track ads: Google Ads, Google Analytics, Meta Ads, and X Ads. Fill out these sections with tracking codes from each specific service. Below, you can find helpful instructions on the tracking information you need and where to find it. Note: Due to privacy limitations, we do not support landing page tracking on the Meta ads platform.
At the bottom of the “Landing Page” and “Conversion Page” tabs, you can find “Additional code” sections for any custom code needed for global tracking. For example, if you need to track custom events or ads on additional third-party services like Snapchat, include the custom code in “Additional code.'
The “Additional code” section has restrictions to ensure your contribution forms always load and perform quickly. If you need help with custom code, contact your ActBlue representative or submit this form .
Once you set up global tracking, click “Save changes” at the bottom of the tab.
Now, you can apply global tracking to a specific contribution form. Open the form, and click the “Edit” button on the form navigation bar.
In the form editor that opens, click the “Tracking” tab.
Under the “Tracking” tab, select the “Tracking code” dropdown and choose to keep ad tracking off ("No Code"), apply global tracking codes to all third-party ad services to the form (“Use global tracking code”), or customize ad tracking (“Customize”).
When you turn on “Use global tracking code,” all your codes will apply to this form.
If you want to return to your Dashboard to update any codes, click “Configure globals.”
Using Form-Specific Tracking Codes
You also have the option to specify individual tracking codes for forms or use a mix of custom and global codes.
To use form-specific tracking codes, open the form editor and select the “Tracking” tab.
Click the “Tracking code” dropdown to turn off ad tracking, apply global tracking codes for all third-party ad services to the form, or customize ad tracking.
Click “Customize” from the dropdown.
You have the same options for customizing ad tracking as you do for global tracking codes. Below each field are instructions on where to find the third-party tracking codes.
If you want to turn on the global tracking codes you set up in your Dashboard for some services for a specific form, toggle the button next to “Global” so it’s green.
After turning on global tracking, you may see a link that says, "Currently blank, configure a default tracking code," as shown in the screenshot above. This indicates that you have not set up global tracking for this service in your Dashboard. Click on the link to your Dashboard and set up global tracking there.
Like global tracking in your Dashboard, you will find “Additional code” sections in the “Tracking” tab of the form editor. If you need to track custom events or set up tracking for additional third-party ad services for this form, you can include custom code. Add this code to the “Additional code” section under “Landing page tracking” and “Conversion page tracking.”
Once "Landing page tracking" and "Conversion page tracking" are both set up, click "Publish" to save your changes.
