The Page Drilldown Dashboard is a built-in ActionKit report that gives detailed stats on action takers, new subscribers, donations, and and related mailings for a given page.

Like other dashboards, it pulls information from multiple reports and displays them all on a single page, and it’s great for getting an all-in-one overview of how a page has performed.

For actions, you can see how many unique action takers you’ve received, how many new-to-list users joined on this page, and your net new-to-list count (minus unsubscribes) to see if you grew your list.

You can also see a summary of the sources of actions on this page, including how many new-to-list users you had from each.

For related mailings, you can see how many users received a mailing that led to actions on this page, including the number of mailings sent to people who had already received an ask to take action on this page.

Each related mailing is also shown, with a performance breakdown for opens, clicks, actions, and unsubscribes. Confirmation mailing performance is shown if you’ve set one up for this page, and if you have a notification mailing set up, you’ll see performance for that too.

Finally, there’s a section for shares so you can see the number of users who shared this page, plus a breakdown of shares by platform and clicks, actions, and new-to-list by shares.

If you aren’t sure what the Net NTL refers to, for instance — don’t worry! All of the terms are defined below the fold:

That’s a lot of information packed into one dashboard — give it a try! From the Reports tab, go to Browse All and search for Page Drilldown Dashboard:

I think the Page Drilldown Dashboard is really useful not only as a dashboard report, but also as an example of how to build out a dashboard report that’s descriptive and clear. Try it yourself!

In part one of this series, we saw how to customize the dashboard that appears on the ActionKit homepage by adding helpful resources like links to the documentation.  Use the same approach to add your own staff trainings, and any other resources that staff frequently use, like mailing calendars, style guides, or where you get your photos for campaigns.

You can also add standard reports to your homepage so all staff can quickly check progress toward shared goals or use of shared resources.  The built-in “Your Progress” report provides some examples.  Let’s look at another.

If you have several mailings going in a single day, you may need to do a bit of mental math to add up all of the people on your list who have received an email today and who haven’t yet.

Better yet, you could create a report to do it for you.

For clients using a re-engagement list, you may want to adjust your filter criteria slightly by excluding people on your re-engagement list, like this:

Now that I’ve created my report, I’ll need to add it into my your_progress dashboard.

<h3 style="background-color: blue; color: white; padding: 10px;">Members who haven't received an email today</h3>

<p style="margin-left: 10px;">{{ reports.members_who_havent_heard_us_today }}</p>

Finally, let’s return to the homepage to admire our dashboard.

Adding reports to your ActionKit homepage dashboard is easy, just keep in mind that it’s best for at-a-glance information. And since this dashboard won’t load until all of its reports have run, don’t use this section for reports that take a long time to complete.

Many clients like to use UTM tracking codes to track clicks and performance in Google Analytics. (Ever see utm_medium=email at the end of a URL?) In fact, you could add these UTM tracking codes to all of your URLs in a mailing.

Of course, ActionKit already adds some information to your URLs to enable user recognition and link click tracking — this blog post is about additional customizations you can do.

The {% filter tag_links %} tag allows you to add some text to the end of every URL that appears between this tag and {% endfilter %}.

Let’s say we wanted to add utm_medium=email to the end of each of our links. In our mailing or email wrapper, we would add:

{% filter tag_links:”utm_medium=email” %} near the top, and {% endfilter %} near the bottom.

If you want to append the UTM tracking code on most or all of your URLs, it’s easiest to do this in your wrapper.  However, you may want to test using these tags in a test mailing’s body and move the code to the email wrapper once everything works the way you want. If you’re making these edits in your email wrapper be sure to save it then look at a mailing that uses that email wrapper to confirm.

Using |urlencode

Some clients have written into support asking how to append other values, like a recipient’s country, to links.

Let’s say we wanted to add our recipient’s country to the end of our URL as the URL parameter “country”. That’s easy enough to accomplish with a snippet: https://actionkit.com/?country={{ user.country }}

But we run into problems with many countries (like “United States”), because URLs can’t have spaces in them. So we end up with the URL https://actionkit.com/?country=United

To fix this, we need to tell this snippet that we’re going to use it in a URL. Use the |urlencode filter: https://actionkit.com/?country={{ user.country|urlencode }}

Once we’ve done that, our URL changes that space into a “%20”, which is the URL code for a space, and the URL works as expected.

If you’re using any snippet that might possibly have a space in the URL, like postal code, be sure to use |urlencode.

Combining |urlencode with the tag_links filter tag

This is a good start, but let’s say I want to include the recipient’s country and use the utm_campaign code.

Let’s go back and edit our tag. This time, we’ll also need to use some {% with %} tags in order to create variables that we can use in our snippets.

The first {% with %} tag creates a variable called user_country that has the |urlencode filter applied, so we don’t have to worry about any spaces.

The second {% with %} tag concatenates our UTM tracking code and the user_country variable we just created. Now those two pieces of information have been smushed into one piece and saved as the variable utm_tags, which is then used in the {% filter tag_links %} tag.

This might seem more complicated than necessary — why do we need to use one {% with %} tag, let alone two? This has to do with the way the tags and filters get parsed and applied. Should the entire text get |urlencode applied to it, or just the country? And using |concatenate inside the {% filter tag_links %} tag doesn’t work at all the way we might expect. Using the {% with %} tags sidesteps all of these problems.

So even though the above method uses more tags, it works and is ultimately more readable and straightforward, which can help when making updates!

Do you have too many templatesets to choose from?

Not sure which ones you actually need? Not sure which ones are actually in use?

Now it’s easier than ever to figure out which templatesets you’re actually using — and clean up the ones you’re not. Reducing clutter in your menus will reduce confusion and mistakes so you can focus on making your pages look their best!

To find out which templatesets are in use — and which pages are using them, start on the Pages tab. In the sidebar menu, notice the Search Queries option and expand it to find the “Pages using a specific templateset” built-in query.

On this page, you’ll have the option to choose which templatesets you want to check. In this example, I’ve chosen the “Use this! New templateset 2018 October” templateset, because I want to see: is this even in use anymore now that we have more recent templatesets?

On the screen that follows, I can see that this templateset is in use by only three pages, so I can probably edit these pages to use a different templateset, then retire this templateset so it stops cluttering up my drop-down menu and confusing new hires.

Go through each of your templatesets, see if they’re still in use, and if not,  hide them so they won’t appear in your drop-down menus anymore!

To hide a templateset you’re not using anymore, go back to the Pages tab, and in the sidebar, expand the Appearance menu option to find Templatesets.

From there, click “Hide” on any templateset you’re not using anymore and it won’t show up in your dropdown menus. (Don’t worry, if you ever change your mind, you can always unhide a templateset!)

Hiding templatesets that you’re not using anymore can be really helpful, especially when onboarding new staff who might not have the same institutional knowledge as you or know all of the differences between the templatesets you’re using, or even which ones are still in use. That’s also a great reason to add a description to each of your templatesets!

Do you have too many reports in the reports tab? Having trouble finding just the ones you need? Do you regularly copy old reports and make one tiny change to make a new report?

If so, re-usable reports are for you!

Re-usable reports will pause before they run to ask you: which page (or mailing, or tag, or other type of thing) did you want to see these results for?

Let’s take a look at an example. Here I have a report called “Top 10 Pages with the Most Actions by Tag”, which will answer the question “Which pages had the most actions for a specific tag?”

Now I could create one report for every tag I wanted to see results for, but that would take a long time and I could easily end up with several reports! Worst of all, if I made a mistake in one of those reports, I’d have to fix them all.

Instead of doing that, if I leave my filter criteria option for tags blank like in the below screenshot, then the report will pause to ask me which tag I want to see results for.

Let’s take a closer look at just our filter criteria:

Note that this isn’t the same as leaving the filter criteria entirely blank, it’s just that we haven’t specified which tag we want to see results for, so the report will ask us when we run it.

In my example I’m using tags, but you could do the same with pages, mailings, or any other filter criteria you like!

At ClientCon in May, I ran a presentation called “10 Features Every Client Should Use,” intended to help clients get the most out of ActionKit. I wanted to highlight a handful of different features that every client would find useful and wanted it to be a good mix — some things quick and easy, others that would take a little more time to set up fully. Here’s a brief overview of those ten features.

Mailing Models

Mailing models are templates or starting points you can use to create new mailings — with your pre-set targeting and layout all set up for you already.

Page Models

Similar to mailing models, page models are templates or starting points for your pages and are especially useful for types of pages that you’ve customized heavily, like a video share page or a reportback page.

Two-factor authentication

You care about your members’ privacy, and they trust you to protect their data. Setting up two-factor authentication allows you to safeguard that information by adding an extra layer of security to your ActionKit staff accounts.

Staff announcements

Announcements allow you to remind staff of new policies, targeting, or workflows and stick to the top of every page in ActionKit for logged-in staff users. They’re especially useful for reminding staff of changes or things to keep in mind, and you can easily dismiss them.

Customize “Your Progress”

The “Your Progress” dashboard that appears at the top of the Home tab when logged into ActionKit can be customized with things like documentation, onboarding and training resources, a mailing calendar, or report results.

Custom Page Fields

Custom page fields allow you to make big and small changes to your pages without needing a lot of ongoing code changes. Most commonly this is used to change things like the text of submit buttons, but the sky’s the limit!

A/B Testing

A/B testing allows you to test different variations of a page to see which one gets more actions or donations. You can test changes to the layout and design, or test different versions of content to see which images or messaging are more effective.

Cloudfront

The faster your pages load, the more actions and donations you’ll get. You should be doing everything you can to make your pages load as quickly as possible, and using a tool like Cloudfront can make a big impact with just a small one-time setup.

Customize “Draft Dash”

The “Draft Dash” dashboard appears just above the Send button of your mailings and can be customized with just-in-time reminders, a checklist of things to make sure you’ve done before sending a mailing, and even automated checks for common targeting and tagging mistakes.

Suppress Spam Actions

ActionKit has built-in protection against spam bots, and it’s worth periodically checking your spam settings to make sure that everything’s configured just the way you want it.

To learn more about setting these up, check out the presentation 10 Features Every Client Should Use — and be sure to read the presenter’s notes. It’ll be like you were right there at ClientCon!

ActionKit has built-in protections against spam to ensure that actions on your pages come from actual people, not bots.

That’s important because you don’t want spambots on your list hurting your email reputation. Also, if you’re showing recent signers or their comments, you don’t want spam comments included with your legitimate signatures. 

There’s documentation with an excellent deep dive into the nuts and bolts of how everything works, but here’s a brief overview of the most important options.

Spam Check Settings

Superusers can configure a wide variety of spam settings on the bottom of the Configure ActionKit screen. By default, ActionKit will check for spam actions on Petition, Letter, and Signup pages, and can also check on Survey pages if you like.

The built-in defaults are meant to be a good level of protection without rejecting legitimate actions, but you can configure the settings in a way that works for you.  

Honeypot Check

This is the most effective option for catching spam.  Project Honeypot is a service that identifies probable spambots so that they don’t end up on your email list. ActionKit checks an action taker’s IP address against this list to determine the likelihood of an action being spam.

It’s enabled by default with a threshold of 20 — a good balance between not blocking legitimate actions and not letting too many spam actions through.

If you find that too many spam actions are getting through, you can try decreasing the threshold. Or if too many legitimate actions are getting blocked, you can raise the threshold.

Spam Check Log

ActionKit keeps a list of all of the actions that were caught by the filters you have in place as suspected spam actions.

You can view this list by going to the Pages tab, and in the Other menu in the sidebar, click Spam Check Log.

You can filter these actions by date and by which type of filter caught the action.

You should see mostly spam actions caught in the filter, but you might see some legitimate actions, too.

How can you tell if an action is legitimate? It’s mostly a judgment call — the automated filters aren’t perfect. It comes down to different patterns of behavior by spambots and real people.

What are some “tells” that make it more likely that someone is a spambot?

• If someone’s email address has their name in it, and that name is very different than the name they gave on their action. For example: Jane Doe, brenda.smith@example.com
• If someone’s state and zip code are very obviously in conflict
• Email addresses with a lot of random numbers or letters
• Lots of actions on an old page that’s not being promoted anymore

Spambots tend to appear in waves and have similar patterns, so it’s less likely that you’ll see just one or two spam actions — you’ll probably see a lot of similar actions all at once.

Typically, if an action comes from a member with an established action history, it’s usually legitimate. Sometimes, a first-time action taker might have their action marked as spam, and it’s up to you to decide whether it’s actually spam or not.

If you just see spam actions caught in the filter, great! If you see some legitimate actions caught in the filter, you can click Reverse on those actions so they aren’t marked as spam.  If you see lots of legitimate actions, you can adjust your filters.

Suppress Actions

By default, ActionKit does not suppress suspected spam actions caught by these filters — it only flags them for your review in the Spam Check Log.

If you want to automatically suppress suspected spam actions, enable Suppress Actions under Spam Check Settings on the Configure ActionKit page.

Don’t worry, if the filter marked a legitimate action as spam, you can always reverse it in the Spam Check Log or on that user’s Action History page.

Unsubscribe Users

By default, ActionKit does not unsubscribe suspected spambots caught by these filters from your lists — it only flags them for your review in the Spam Check Log.

If you want to automatically unsubscribe suspected spambots, enable Unsubscribe Users under Spam Check Settings on the Configure ActionKit page.

Don’t worry, if the filter unsubscribed a legitimate user for being a suspected spambot, you can always reverse it in the Spam Check Log or on that user’s Action History page.

Protect your reputation

Keeping your list spambot-free is important for your email reputation, and ActionKit makes it easy to stop spam actions with lots of options to configure to meet your needs. Be sure to check the Spam Check Log periodically to make sure that legitimate actions aren’t being caught and adjust your filters as needed. To your list health!

ActionKit’s staff announcements are great for reminding staff of new processes, monthly goals, and weekly priorities. And the Pre-flight dashboard can display a checklist of everything you need to do before sending a mailing and reduce mistakes by automating lots of things you’d check for manually.

You can also customize the “Your Progress” dashboard report to offer exactly this kind of valuable just-in-time help as well as running other kinds of reports that staff might find useful.

Let’s start by adding some resources to the top of the report. First, from the Reports tab, browse for and begin editing the your_progress report.

Let’s add this code just above the {% spaceless %}  tag.

<h3 style="background-color: #f3642f; color: white; padding: 10px;">ActionKit resources</h3>
<ul style="margin-left: 10px;">
<li><a href="https://roboticdogs.actionkit.com/docs/manual/guide/index.html" target="_blank"><b>Campaigner's Guide</b></a></li>
<li><a href="https://roboticdogs.actionkit.com/docs/manual/developer/wmd.html" target="_blank"><b>Database Reference</b></a></li>
<li><a href="https://roboticdogs.actionkit.com/docs/manual/faq.html" target="_blank"><b>Frequently Asked Questions</b></a></li>
<li><a href="https://roboticdogs.actionkit.com/docs/manual/tutorials/index.html" target="_blank"><b>Tutorials</b></a></li>
</ul>
<br>

Save your report and head back to the ActionKit home page to see your customized dashboard.

If you have your own staff trainings, helpful links, or resources that staff frequently use, you can add them here and customize it any way you like! Do you have a mailing calendar that all staff use? Add a link to it here!

Beyond adding resources, you could add more reporting that might be helpful. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• What are the draft mailings we have today? What’s been scheduled, and what’s already sent?
• What mailings are scheduled for this weekend?
• How many people haven’t received a mailing yet today?
• What events do we have coming up, and what do their recruitment numbers look like?

Just be sure to keep it high-level; this dashboard is best for at-a-glance information. And keep in mind that this dashboard won’t load until all of its reports have run, so don’t use this section for long-running reports.

As we saw in Customizing your Pre-flight Dashboard, having reminders built in to your normal workflow can reduce mistakes and provide just-in-time help right where you need it.

For time-sensitive or one-off reminders, announcements are a great way to do this since they appear at the top of every page in ActionKit.

In the upper-right corner of any page on ActionKit, click the gear that has your name to open the settings menu, then go to Announcements.

On the announcements page, set your title and message. You can include a link and change the severity of your message (informational, warning, or critical) which changes the color of the display box.

Once you click save, all staff members who are logged in will see your announcement at the top of every page in ActionKit. Staff members can dismiss these messages for themselves once they’ve read them by clicking the X on the right of the announcement.

Use announcements to remind staff about monthly goals, weekly priorities, changes to work processes, or anything else you can think of!

ActionKit gives you full control over the look and feel of your pages so all of your pages look exactly the way you want them, with your branding.

Sometimes you’ll want to make one-off changes to the layout and styling of one page without affecting the way your other pages look. If you’ve found yourself wanting to add custom CSS to a page to change how a page looks (especially to use with ActionKit’s built-in A/B testing!), read on.

(One-time) Create a custom page field

Custom page fields allow you to change the layout or functionality of your pages on a page-by-page basis.

From the Pages tab, choose Other > Custom Page Fields from the sidebar. You’ll then be able to see any custom page fields you have already created.

Let’s add a new custom page field. This is something that you’ll set up once — and then you’ll be able to use it again and again on lots of pages.

Here, we’ve created a custom page field with the name “Custom CSS” and the description “Add custom CSS to pages.” We’ll use the “Text” field type.

(One-time) Add the custom page field to your templateset

Like creating a custom page field above, this is a one-time setup step that will help us to customize our pages easily once we’ve set it up.

Caution: Editing templatesets will change the look and feel of every page that uses that templateset, so when making changes to your templatesets, use the Preview feature and test lots of pages to make sure everything looks correct!

From the Pages tab, choose Appearance > Templatesets from the sidebar. You’ll then see all of the templatesets your organization is using.

Find the templateset you want to change and click Edit. You’ll then see a list of all of the templates available. We want to make this custom page field available on every page, so scroll to the bottom and open wrapper.html.

Search for a closing </style> tag and add this code just above it:

 

{% if page.custom_fields.custom_css %}
  {{ page.custom_fields.custom_css }}
{% endif %}

If your wrapper.html doesn’t have a closing </style> tag, add this code just above the closing </head> tag:

<style>
  {% if page.custom_fields.custom_css %}
    {{ page.custom_fields.custom_css }}
  {% endif %}
</style>

 

Preview a handful of pages that use this templateset — they should look completely unchanged, since this code asks: “Does this page have anything in the custom page field custom_css? If so, add it in here!” But it won’t do anything until our page itself has something in the custom page field custom_css. We’ll cover that in the next step.

Once you’ve tested several pages and you’re confident that your changes to your templateset didn’t break any existing pages, go ahead and publish your changes.

Note: if you use multiple templatesets and want to add this functionality to each of them, repeat this step for each templateset.

Add the custom page field to your page

Unlike the other steps, this is one you’ll do on each page where you want to customize the styling.

Let’s start with a petition page:

On the Action Basics section of your page, scroll to the bottom and expand the Custom Page Fields, then add the field Custom CSS.

In this example I’ve added some CSS to change the color of the submit button from blue to red.

button.ak-submit-button { 
  background-color: #CF1518; 
}

 

Once you save your changes, take a look at the page.

The submit button is now red.

This example highlights a very small change, but by adding custom CSS to your templatesets, you’ll be able to change the layout and styling of any element on your page very quickly on the fly, without impacting the way any other pages look.

If you combine this with running A/B tests on your pages, you can A/B test any CSS change you want to see layout and styling changes that drive more actions and donations to your pages.