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How to Chain NationBuilder Pages Together [Complete Guide]

by June 12, 2022

How to Chain NationBuilder Pages Together [Complete Guide]

NationBuilder’s website platform makes it incredibly easy to chain action pages together to drive supporters to action.

But unfortunately, many NationBuilder customers don’t take advantage of this crucial step when creating their NationBuilder action pages.

If you want to effectively leverage NationBuilder’s website platform to boost your organization’s engagement and fundraising, you’ve come to the right place. Let’s get started.

What Are NationBuilder Action Pages?

NationBuilder websites are created using a combination of thirty pre-defined page types and any number of custom-designed pages (if you’re using a custom website theme).

According to NationBuilder’s official documentation:

An “action page” is a website page where your visitor is asked to take action like signing a petition, making a donation, or RSVP to an event.

There are 11 “action page” types in NationBuilder’s platform, and each offers the option of “chaining” supporters to another page after taking action.

Why Should I Chain NationBuilder Pages Together?

By chaining NationBuilder action pages together, you can encourage deeper engagement and more quickly move your supporters along your ladder of engagement.

In business, it’s far easier to make an additional sale to an existing customer than to find a new one. And in organizing, it’s much simpler to upsell a recent supporter on a chained action page than to bring that person back to the site at some future date.

Linking action pages in a logical, sequential order will increase the number and frequency of meaningful interactions with each supporter — and likely improve your fundraising, as well!

Which NationBuilder Pages Can Be Chained Together?

NationBuilder pages fall into two main categories:

  1. Pages that can be chained from; and
  2. Pages that can be chained to.

Here’s how you can spot the difference between them.

NationBuilder Pages That You Can Chain From

Using NationBuilder, you can initiate a chained page redirect from any NationBuilder page type that includes a form, including:

NationBuilder Pages That You Can Chain To

When chaining together pages in NationBuilder, you can redirect a supporter to any page on your NationBuilder website with a “page slug.” This essentially includes all pages on your website that you create yourself but excludes pre-defined pages like the login page, etc.

The three most common page types to chain supporters to are survey pages, donation pages, and redirect pages.

How To Chain Pages Together: A Step-By-Step Guide

Follow these steps to chain any action page to any other page on your NationBuilder website.

Step 1: Create the Page You Want To Chain Supporters To

Before starting, you’ll need to create the destination page (i.e., the page you are chaining supporters to) within your NationBuilder website.

For more details on creating pages in NationBuilder, visit the official documentation.

Step 2: Find The Page You Want To Chain Supporters From

In your NationBuilder control panel, navigate to the list of pages on your website.

You should see the action page from which you want to chain your supporters.

Note: If you don’t see your page on this list, it may be a subpage of another page. You can use the search box in the top right of the control panel and type the page’s name to find any page.

Each action page type has a “settings” tab specific to its page type. 

Across the top of the page, you will see a series of tabs that proceed from left to right:

  1. Dashboard
  2. Settings
  3. [Action page] settings
  4. Subpages
  5. Etc.

Click on the [Action page] settings tab. 

Note: The “[Action page] settings” tab will have different names on different page types. For example, on Petition pages, the tab will say “Petition settings.”

Scroll down until you see a field labeled “After signing up, what page should they land on next?” (the name varies slightly depending on page type). 

Then, enter the “slug” of the destination page in that field, and save your changes.

How Do I Chain Supporters to a Page on Another Website?

If you need to chain supporters to another website (or subdomain), such as an ActBlue, Anedot, or WinRed donation page, you can do so by leveraging NationBuilder’s “redirect” page type.

Repeat the steps above using your redirect page as the destination page, and your supporters will seamlessly arrive at your outside webpage after taking action on your page.

Best Practices For Chaining NationBuilder Pages

Now that you can confidently chain NationBuilder pages together in a sequence, you might be thinking of creative ways to leverage this feature to drive supporter engagement. Here are a few best practices to test on your website:

  1. Ask supporters to make a small donation after signing up.
  2. Ask donors to respond to a brief survey after giving online.
  3. Ask petition signers to recruit more supporters after adding their names.
  4. Ask recent event RSVPs to sign up to volunteer.

With NationBuilder’s action pages, the possibilities are endless. You can even chain multiple pages together in a sequence to encourage your supporters to climb the complete ladder of engagement in a single session!

Conclusion

NationBuilder’s website platform makes it simple and straightforward to chain action pages together to drive supporters to action.

Now, you’re prepared to take advantage of this important feature when creating your NationBuilder action pages.