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Introduction to Link Builder

Link Builder creates the links you use in adverts, emails and social posts. Each link carries a set of tags describing where it was published, and those tags travel with the visitor into the donation that follows, so a donation arrives in Engage already knowing what prompted it.

It gives you a more detailed way of setting tags than adding parameters to a web address by hand. The standard utm_ parameters are there, and alongside them Engage's own ntm_ parameters for the detail the standard set does not reach, together with any tags specific to your organisation. Values are chosen from what your administrator has already set up rather than typed each time, so the same campaign is described the same way on every link.

  • Your reporting comes from one place. The tags reach Engage with the donation, so campaign reporting and income reporting are drawn from the same record. Engage is the single source of truth, rather than one figure in Engage and a different one in a separate analytics tool.

  • The values stay consistent. Choosing from a prepared list rather than typing avoids the same campaign being recorded under several spellings and splitting across rows in a report.

  • It keeps working as tracking is restricted. Browsers and ad blockers continue to limit third-party tracking, and reporting that relies on external scripts loses coverage each year. Tags are recorded against the donation itself, so they are not affected.

  • Your other analytics still work. The utm_ parameters in a generated link are the standard ones, so Google Analytics and similar tools read them exactly as before.