What gets recorded
When a donor follows a tagged link and gives, the link's tags are recorded on the donation. N3O donation forms add tags of their own about the visit, and the donor's account keeps the tags of the gift that first brought them in. All of these are tags, so they can be used in Lists like any other tag.
On each donation
Each donation records the tags of the link that brought the donor: the standard tags, the Engage Analytics tags and any custom tags. It is also given a channel, worked out from its source and medium as set out in Naming and channels.
The tags are remembered in the donor's browser, so a gift made on a later visit still records them. When the donor follows another tagged link, the tags that link carries replace the ones remembered, and any tag the new link leaves out keeps its earlier value. Filling in the source, medium and campaign on every link keeps those three from being carried over from an earlier link.
A donation with no source, such as one from a donor who has not followed a tagged link, is classed by the website the donor came from.
On the donor's account
When a donation creates a new account in Engage, the account keeps that donation's tags. The account therefore shows how the donor first arrived, while each later donation keeps the tags of whatever prompted it. That separates recruiting a new donor from prompting an existing one to give again.
On regular giving
Each payment of a regular gift keeps the tags of the donation that set it up, so every payment is counted against the link that brought the gift in.
Tags added automatically
N3O donation forms add these tags to each donation, with nothing to set up.
| Group | Tags | What they record |
|---|---|---|
| Browser | Engine, Major Version, Name, Type, User Agent, Version | The browser the donor used, such as its name and version |
| Device | CPU Architecture, Model, Operating System, Operating System Version, Type, Vendor | The device the donor used, such as its type and operating system |
| Donation Form | Offering, Suggested Amount Used, URL | The offering given to, whether a suggested amount was chosen, and the page the form was on |
| Session | Landing URL, Referrer, Session Duration (Seconds), Session ID | The page the donor arrived on, the website that sent them, the time from arriving to giving, and an identifier for the visit |
Finding donations by source
In Lists, a donations list can show and
filter by Acquisition Source, Acquisition Medium and Acquisition Channel Group. Any tag,
including a custom one, can be used through the Tag Value and Has Tag fields, which take the
tag's full name, such as utm_campaign. The steps for building a list are
in Creating Lists.