Campaign Tagging — Your Booking

Ad platforms report a campaign's bookings inside their own dashboards, which you lose access to when the campaign ends, the agency changes, or the platform decides your account has seen enough. This puts the same information somewhere you own.

No patient details go anywhere. Nothing is sent to Meta, Google or to us — the campaign name is written into your practice management system, and only there.

There's nothing to switch on and nothing to configure in Your Booking. It works the moment you create a category (Optomate) or patient code (Sunix) and put a campaign code on a link.

Before You Start

You'll need to be able to add a patient category in Optomate, or a patient code in Sunix.
You'll need to be able to edit the address your ads point at — a page on your own website, or your booking page.
Optomate only: two API permissions, on the Optomate account Your Booking connects with — Patient Categories (Read) and Patient Category Links (Read + Create). You can switch these on yourself in Optomate: System Settings → API Access, then Access List next to the Your Booking account. See the installation guide step 1.2 for where these sit alongside the rest. Sunix needs nothing extra.

Step 1: Create the category or code

Whichever system you use, the name starts with YB-, followed by your campaign code. The YB- start tells us it's yours to use for campaigns, so categories and codes without it are never touched and nothing can be written into a clinical or administrative one by mistake.

Optomate

In Optomate, go to Patient Settings → Categories and add a category. Put YB- followed by your campaign code in the Name box:

Identifier	Name
`SPR`	`YB-SPRING`

The Identifier is Optomate's own short code — three characters, and it has to be one you're not already using. Pick anything free; we never read it. It's the same thing you already do for your other categories (SPP for the Spencil Kit promo, GVC for a gift voucher promo).

The Name is the one that matters. Keep the campaign code to 17 characters or fewer after the YB-.

Sunix

In Sunix, go to Maintenance → Pick Lists → Patient Code and add a code. Put YB- followed by your campaign code in the Code box, and a description your staff will recognise:

Code	Description
`YB-SPRING`	Spring campaign

Keep the campaign code to 7 characters or fewer after the YB-. Sunix lets you create longer codes, but it can't edit a patient code longer than 10 characters on the patient's record.

Step 2: Put the campaign code on your link

Add ?campaign= and the code to the address your ad, email or post points at:

https://yourpractice.com.au/book?campaign=SPRING

If the address already has a ? in it, add &campaign= instead.

Only campaign= is read. If your links already carry Google Analytics tags (utm_source, utm_campaign and so on), leave them in place and add campaign= alongside. Google Analytics reads its tags; Your Booking reads campaign=:

https://yourpractice.com.au/book?utm_source=google&utm_campaign=spring_sale&campaign=SPRING

If your booking page is embedded in your own website, or opens as a pop-over, the code is passed through to the booking flow automatically. There's nothing to add to your website beyond the code on the link.

Step 3: Check it worked

Make a test booking through the campaign link, then open that patient:

Optomate: look at their categories — YB-SPRING should be listed.
Sunix: the Code button on the patient screen is highlighted. Click it and YB-SPRING is listed with today's date.

Remember to cancel the test appointment afterwards.

A newly-created category or code can take up to ten minutes to become available.

Worth Knowing

A campaign code with no matching category or code does nothing. A typo — or in Optomate, a code typed into the Identifier box instead of the Name box — means the booking is simply untagged. It never affects the booking itself.
Optomate: nothing tells you a permission is missing. Because tagging is silent when it can't match, a missing Patient Category Links (Create) permission looks exactly like a typo: the booking works, and no tag appears. If your test booking doesn't tag and the category name is definitely right, check that permission next.
Sunix: a record open for editing isn't tagged. If staff have the patient's record open for editing at the moment the patient books online, the booking goes through but the code isn't added.
Only patients who arrive through the campaign link are tagged. Someone who books from a reminder, recall or appointment link carries no campaign code — which is correct. Those are your own links, not campaign traffic.
The code has to reach the booking page. We can see the address of the page the booking window sits on, and nothing else about your website. If a patient lands on a campaign link, browses a few other pages, then books from a page with no code on it, they arrive untagged. Whoever looks after your website can carry the code across if that matters for a particular campaign.
Only online bookings are tagged. A patient who sees your flyer and phones instead carries no code, so a campaign's count is a minimum, not a total.
The tag is permanent. Removing a category or code from a patient can only be done in Optomate or Sunix. We can add one, never take it away.
A patient can carry several. Someone who books from a spring campaign and again from a Christmas one ends up with both, which is usually what you want to see.

Reading the Results

Everything from here happens in Optomate or Sunix, not in Your Booking — the tag is an ordinary patient category or code, so anything your system can do with them works on it. Searching for one tells you who came from a campaign; the same list is a recall audience next time you run something similar. In Sunix, the Patient Code filter on Create Newsletter List gives you that list directly.

If you use a third-party marketing tool that reads categories or codes out of your system, these appear alongside every other one you keep.

Ideas and Tips

Where to use a campaign code

Every place you publish a link can carry its own code, so you can see which ones bring in bookings.

Where	Example code	Where the code goes
Google Business Profile	`GBP`	Edit profile → Business information → Contact: the Website and Appointment links
Google Ads	`GADS`	The ad's Final URL, or the Final URL suffix box: `campaign=GADS`
Facebook and Instagram ads	`META`	The URL parameters box in the ad's Tracking section: `campaign=META`
Email newsletters	`NEWS`	The link behind your Book button
Social media profiles	`INSTA`	The link in your Instagram bio or on your Facebook page
Printed material	`FLYER`	A QR code made from the campaign link, on flyers, letterbox drops, window signs or a newspaper ad
Referral partners	`SCHOOL`	A link you give a local school, GP, sports club or employer
Online directories	`BING`	The website box on a directory listing such as Bing Places or Apple Maps

Your email tool may add its own tracking tags to links. Leave them; they don't interfere.

Choosing codes

Short, one word. Letters and numbers, plus -, _ or ., and no spaces. 7 characters or fewer after YB- for Sunix, 17 for Optomate.
Capitals don't matter. spring on a link matches YB-SPRING.
Ongoing sources keep one code. Your Google profile is GBP for good, so its count builds up over time.
Promotions get a dated code. SPR26 this spring and SPR27 next, so one year's results don't merge into the next.
Create the category or code first. Bookings made before it exists stay untagged, and can't be tagged later.
Point the link at your booking page. The code has to reach the page the booking sits on (see Worth Knowing, above).