Custom fields

Custom fields allow you to add custom UTM Parameters (tracking tags) for each of your campaigns. This is particularly useful for tracking your sources of supporter traffic in greater detail.

Create a custom field for your campaign

Custom fields can be added individually to each of your campaigns by going to the Settings tab within that campaign (to create a new campaign with identical custom fields to an existing campaign, you can always use the Campaign Cloning option).

Under Name, enter the name you want this custom field to be known by (e.g. “donor_traffic_source”).

You can decide whether to add a Default value. Use this option if you only want to detect values that deviate from a specific value. If 90% of your supporters come from marketing emails but you want to track the other supporters, for example, you would enter email_marketing as the default value, with &donor_traffic_source=email_marketing embedded in the URL. Default values can also be set specifically for certain Elements.

Custom field names can only include alphanumeric values, and no spaces. There is a 50-character limit for custom field names and a 200-character limit for the values and default values gathered. There is no limit to the number of custom fields you can add to each campaign.

Where values from custom fields appear

The information gathered by the custom fields you set up for your campaign will then appear:

• On donation records: go to the Donations tab in the dashboard, click on any donation and scroll down to the Custom fields subsection. You'll see the name of the custom field and the value detected for that donation.
• Exports: you will be able to include your custom field name and values when exporting data. As soon as the custom field is created, it will appear as an available field for export when you're creating an export template.
• Integrations: you will also find your custom field name in the mapping rules for your integrations.

Example use cases

Here are some examples of potential use cases for the custom fields feature.

Example 1

Context

For a new campaign, your organization is carrying out the following:

• Creating a social media post
• Collaborating with an influencer
• Sending a promotional email to all subscribers

Task

Find out which of the three channels brings the most supporters to this new campaign's Checkout modal.

Create the Custom Field

In the relevant campaign, create a name (e.g. traffic_channel) for the custom field under Name. Add “organic” as the default value, to filter out organic traffic to your new campaign. Click Save changes. Make sure one of the custom fields is added to URLs as needed, e.g.

• mycharity.com/?traffic_channel=smm
• mycharity.com/?traffic_channel=influencer
• mycharity.com/?traffic_channel=email
• mycharity.com/?traffic_channel=organic (our default value, for other routes to your Checkout modal)

Result

You can see where each donation to your campaign came from by clicking on the donation (in the Donations tab) and scrolling down to custom fields. You can also export all this information in a spreadsheet, or map it to one of your integrated services.

Example 2

Context

Your organization has a new campaign, for which you've partnered with a major hotel chain. Every supporter who can enter a valid membership card number for this hotel chain will have their donations matched.

Task

To record these membership numbers in your chosen CRM system, so that they can be verified and the corresponding donations matched.

Create the custom field

In the relevant campaign, add a name (e.g. member_number) under Name. A Default Value is not needed here. Click Save changes. Add the custom field to the URL, e.g: mycharitycampaign.com/?member_number=1234567

Result

You can see the membership number linked to each donation by clicking on the donation (in the Donations tab) and scrolling down to custom fields. You can export all the membership numbers in CSV format, or map it to one of your integrated services.

URL API

Custom fields can also be used with Fundraise Up’s URL API to dynamically assign values. See an example of this below.

1https://ropsi.org?form=DonateNow&appeal_code=fy2023