The ActiveCampaign Sales Tracking assistant records your purchases in Deadline Funnel automatically. It connects ActiveCampaign, sets the value of a sale, guides you through the automation that reports each purchase, and runs a test sale to confirm it works.
With sales tracking on, Deadline Funnel shows the revenue and conversion rate for each campaign, compares it against benchmarks, and counts units sold for Quantity campaigns.
Quick Links
Before you start
An ActiveCampaign account where you can create automations.
Your ActiveCampaign API URL and API Key, if ActiveCampaign isn't connected yet. Find them under Settings → Developer.
A campaign whose Email Platform is set to ActiveCampaign.
The price of one sale and its currency, for example 97 USD.
One price per campaign
ActiveCampaign doesn't send the order total, so every purchase records the same fixed amount that you set in step 3.
Open the assistant
From the AI Campaign Creator. When your new campaign is ready, click Set Up Sales Tracking for this campaign. For Evergreen-style campaigns, this comes after the email integration step.
From an existing campaign. In the campaign editor's sidebar, find Set Up Sales Tracking under Quick Links.
Star, not text
Click the star icon next to Set Up Sales Tracking to open the assistant. Clicking the link text opens the manual Sales Tracking window instead. That window also offers the assistant: with the ActiveCampaign tab selected, click Set up with AI.
The assistant works with every campaign type except Shopify and Announcement Bar campaigns.
1. Connect your ActiveCampaign account
If ActiveCampaign is already connected, the assistant checks the connection and moves on. If not, a form appears in the chat. Paste the URL and Key from ActiveCampaign's Settings → Developer and click Connect ActiveCampaign. Your key goes straight to Deadline Funnel. The AI never sees it, and it will never ask you to paste a key into the chat.
2. Check your setup
The assistant looks for an ActiveCampaign automation whose Webhook action already sends sales to this campaign, and checks it for problems.
Nothing found: you move on to set the sale amount and build one.
Found, with a problem: fix it in ActiveCampaign, then type done.
Already set up: choose Re-run verification to test it, or Set it up again.
3. Set the sale amount
Tell the assistant the value of one sale and its three-letter currency code, for example 97 USD or 49.99 EUR. The amount becomes part of your sales URL, so every purchase records that value.
4. Build the automation
The assistant shows a five-step guide with screenshots. Keep ActiveCampaign open in another tab and follow along.
Open Automations. In ActiveCampaign's sidebar, click Automations, then Start from Scratch.
Choose the start trigger. We recommend Makes a purchase, the most direct way to record a sale. Tag is added also works if you tag buyers; set Runs to Multiple times so you can test again.
Add a Webhook action. Click the + right after the trigger, open the Workflow tab and choose Webhook.
Paste your URL and save. Copy your campaign's sales URL from the guide and paste it into Enter the URL to post to exactly as is. The amount and currency are at the end of it. Click Save.
Switch it to Active with the switch at the top right of the automation builder.
From guide step 4 on, the assistant checks your account every 10 seconds. When it finds your automation, it moves on to the test by itself. If it stops checking, click Check now.
5. Run a test sale
Enter a test email, choose how to run the test, tick the confirmation box and click Start test. The assistant waits for a test sale to reach Deadline Funnel.
TEST METHOD | WHAT IT DOES |
Run the automation (recommended) | Puts the test contact straight into your automation, skipping the trigger. Always available. |
Add the trigger tag | Adds your trigger tag to the test contact, like a real buyer. Only offered when the automation starts with Makes a purchase or Tag is added. Every automation that starts on this tag will run |
Most tests finish within a minute or two. The assistant waits up to 5 minutes, longer if your automation has a wait before the Webhook action. If it's still waiting, choose Keep waiting or Cancel verification.
What gets cleaned up
The test sale is marked as a test and deleted once it's checked. It never counts toward your sales, revenue, benchmarks or deadline.
The trigger tag, if you used the tag method, is removed afterwards.
The test contact stays in ActiveCampaign.
Every step in your automation runs for the test email, including buyer emails and any tags or deals it creates. Those steps can't be undone, so use an address you own
6. Done
All steps turn green, and the assistant confirms the amount and currency the test sale recorded. Click Close. From now on, each purchase that goes through the automation is recorded in your campaign's sales.
What “verified” actually proves
It proves your automation's Webhook action reaches Deadline Funnel and records a sale with the right amount. With Run the automation, the test skips your trigger, so it doesn't prove real buyers trigger the automation. If live sales stay at zero, check the trigger: the purchase or tag has to actually happen in ActiveCampaign.
Troubleshooting
The test sale never registers
Check that the automation is Active, that the Webhook URL is this campaign's sales URL exactly, and that no long wait, condition or goal comes before the Webhook action. Then click Run the test again.
Verification passed but my sales numbers are still zero
The test skipped your trigger. Make sure real purchases actually start the automation, for example that your checkout adds the purchase or the tag in ActiveCampaign.
“The URL in your automation has a different amount or currency than the one you gave.”
The amount in the URL is the one that gets recorded. Edit the end of the URL in your Webhook action, or copy it again from the guide.
“The URL in your automation has no amount, so sales would record as zero.”
Part of the URL is missing. Copy the full sales URL from the guide and paste it in again.
The star icon isn't there
Check that the campaign's Email Platform is ActiveCampaign and that it isn't a Shopify or Announcement Bar campaign.
Will the test sale distort my analytics?
No. Test sales are kept out of every report and deleted afterwards.
Common questions
Can I run both the email and sales assistants on the same campaign?
Yes. They use different URLs and usually different automations: one starts deadlines, the other records purchases.
Can I change the amount later?
Yes. Edit the amount at the end of the URL in your Webhook action. The amount in the URL is what gets recorded. Run the assistant again to test it.
Will the assistant change my existing automations?
No. It only reads them. You build and edit automations yourself.
Can I remove the test contact?
Yes. Delete it in ActiveCampaign.
Related
Need help? Email help@deadlinefunnel.com.