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UTM Tracking and Your Virtuous Integration

If you tag your giving links with UTM parameters and also sync with Virtuous, two questions come up: do the UTM values get captured, and do they show up in Virtuous? This article answers both.

UTM values are not sent to Virtuous by default

WeGive stores UTM values (utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_term, utm_content) with each gift in WeGive. The standard gift record that WeGive sends to Virtuous does not include them, and it does not include the tracking URL either. A gift can therefore have full UTM data in WeGive and show nothing for it in Virtuous. This is expected, and it is not a sync error. If you need UTM values in Virtuous, contact WeGive Support. Donation Mappings (under Integrations, then Virtuous) can send custom field values to Virtuous gift fields, and Support can confirm whether your UTM values can be sent this way and set it up with you. It needs a matching custom field already created on the Virtuous Gift record.

Make sure WeGive captures the UTMs first

How a UTM reaches your gift depends on how the checkout is placed on your site:
  • Pop-up. The pop-up script automatically copies tracking parameters from the URL of the page the donor is on, including UTM parameters, onto the checkout. A donor who lands on yoursite.org/give?utm_source=newsletter and opens the pop-up gives with utm_source=newsletter recorded.
  • Embedded iframe. An iframe has no automatic copying. The UTM parameters must be part of the checkout URL in the iframe’s src. Visitor-specific values on the page’s own URL are not picked up unless you add the forwarding script described in Embedding a Checkout on Your Website.
  • Direct link. Put the UTM parameters on the checkout link itself. See Checkout URL Parameters for the full list.

UTM Attribution Window

If Transaction Tracking URL is on, you can also set a UTM Attribution Window (hours) in your organization settings. When it is set, WeGive remembers the UTM values from a donor’s landing visit in a cookie on your own domain. A gift made later within that window is still attributed to the original source, even if the donor navigated to a page whose URL no longer carries the UTMs. A new UTM-tagged visit replaces the stored set. Setting the window to 0 turns this off, so each visit is attributed on its own. Because this writes cookies on your domain, confirm it fits your privacy and cookie-consent requirements before turning it on. See Organization Settings for where the setting lives.

Troubleshooting

  • UTMs empty in Virtuous, present in WeGive: expected, see the first section.
  • UTMs empty in WeGive too: check how the checkout is embedded (the list above) and that the parameters are on the link the donor actually clicked.
  • Gifts from a multi-step path losing UTMs: each page hop only carries parameters present on its own URL, unless an attribution window is set.
Last modified on November 12, 2026