Dashboards & Reporting

davecriswell
Top Contributor

Tracking attribution on 3rd party site

SOLVE

We're trying to solve for an attribution challenge where visitors go from our website to a 3rd party site to complete their purchase (registration in our case).

 

Our current set up for recording customers in Hubspot is as follows:

  • Prospects land on our site and eventually click a CTA to register which leads to a 3rd party registration platform.
    • It's at this point I suspect that the Hubspot code snippet places a cookie in the prospect's browser and captures source data.
  • A prospect completes the registration and checkout process on the third party site
  • We have an integration built that sends the new customer data from the third party site to Hubspot.
    • In a large number of cases, the first time we capture an email address is during registration on the third party site and as a result, the Original Source value in Hubspot is Offline Sources
  • We just set up cross-domain tracking but we don't have a method (or know if it's even possible) to match the source data captured on the prospect's first visit to our website with the contact information captured during the registration process and sent to Hubspot.

Does anyone have a similar setup or know of a possible solution?

 

Thanks!

1 Accepted solution
MFrankJohnson
Solution
Thought Leader

Tracking attribution on 3rd party site

SOLVE

Sounds complicated, @davecriswell ...


Without knowing the particulars (e.g., where pages are hosted, if HubSpot campaigns are used, if URL tracking parameters are used, cross-domain tracking details, cookie policies in effect, etc.), one or more custom attribution properties may be a good starting point for now (as mentioned by @Ben_M in your thread about repeat customers).

 

Not sure of your timeframe, but the Multi-Touch Attribution Reporting (announced at INBOUND19) may go a long way to help you guys. Hard to tell. Don't recall a release date. Looks very interesting, so far.
- see [VIDEO] INBOUND19: HubSpot Product Spotlight | Christopher O'Donnell


++
Honestly, even basic accurate sources reporting (in general) can be arguably one of the most complex operations of any marketing automation ecosystem -- HubSpot included. There are a myriad of reasons why sources may be recorded/reported differently than you might expect &/or change over time -- particularly difficult to attribute.
- see Sources | Frequently Asked Questions
- see Understand 'Original source drill-down' properties
- see HubSpot's change sources in property history

- see Set up sources tracking

HubSpot Sources: ReferralsHubSpot Sources: Referrals

- see Analyze data in the sources report

 

HubSpot Tracking URL Example (from HubSpot Tracking URL Builder)

https://mfrankjohnson.com?utm_campaign=Examples%20-%20HubSpot%20Community%20Forum&utm_source=hcs-forum&utm_medium=tracking-url-example&utm_term=no-term&utm_content=no-content

 

Note: Please search for recent posts as HubSpot evolves to be the #1 CRM platform of choice world-wide.

 

Hope that helps.

 

Be well,
Frank


www.mfrankjohnson.com

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5 Replies 5
MFrankJohnson
Solution
Thought Leader

Tracking attribution on 3rd party site

SOLVE

Sounds complicated, @davecriswell ...


Without knowing the particulars (e.g., where pages are hosted, if HubSpot campaigns are used, if URL tracking parameters are used, cross-domain tracking details, cookie policies in effect, etc.), one or more custom attribution properties may be a good starting point for now (as mentioned by @Ben_M in your thread about repeat customers).

 

Not sure of your timeframe, but the Multi-Touch Attribution Reporting (announced at INBOUND19) may go a long way to help you guys. Hard to tell. Don't recall a release date. Looks very interesting, so far.
- see [VIDEO] INBOUND19: HubSpot Product Spotlight | Christopher O'Donnell


++
Honestly, even basic accurate sources reporting (in general) can be arguably one of the most complex operations of any marketing automation ecosystem -- HubSpot included. There are a myriad of reasons why sources may be recorded/reported differently than you might expect &/or change over time -- particularly difficult to attribute.
- see Sources | Frequently Asked Questions
- see Understand 'Original source drill-down' properties
- see HubSpot's change sources in property history

- see Set up sources tracking

HubSpot Sources: ReferralsHubSpot Sources: Referrals

- see Analyze data in the sources report

 

HubSpot Tracking URL Example (from HubSpot Tracking URL Builder)

https://mfrankjohnson.com?utm_campaign=Examples%20-%20HubSpot%20Community%20Forum&utm_source=hcs-forum&utm_medium=tracking-url-example&utm_term=no-term&utm_content=no-content

 

Note: Please search for recent posts as HubSpot evolves to be the #1 CRM platform of choice world-wide.

 

Hope that helps.

 

Be well,
Frank


www.mfrankjohnson.com
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davecriswell
Top Contributor

Tracking attribution on 3rd party site

SOLVE

Thanks @MFrankJohnson for all the info! Agreed on the attribution reporting that was announced - we're pretty excited about that. The dates I've been told is beta starts rolling out to Enterprise customers in early October.

 

Our main goal right now is to match the original source collected on a contact in the cookie upon landing on our Wordpress page with the resulting imported contact after conversion on the 3rd party site.

 

I think we'll need to solve for this with our without multi-touch attribution reporting. I'll take a read through the info you shared.

 

Thanks again!

ConnorSlivensky
Key Advisor | Elite Partner
Key Advisor | Elite Partner

Tracking attribution on 3rd party site

SOLVE

@MFrankJohnson Any idea why these leads would be showing up as Offline Sources instead of Referral traffic? 

 

@davecriswell for those offline source contacts are the original source drill-down (1&2) properties empty?

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davecriswell
Top Contributor

Tracking attribution on 3rd party site

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Thanks for the question @ConnorSlivensky. Re: the drill down info, it's the same with DRILL DOWN 1 = BATCH_UPDATE and DRILL_DOWN 2 = auditid=null

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MFrankJohnson
Thought Leader

Tracking attribution on 3rd party site

SOLVE

Thanks for the tag, @ConnorSlivensky ...


Referrals (in this context) are "sessions from links clicked on other websites."
- see Categorize sessions, contacts, and customers in the sources report

 

Also, HubSpot INITIALLY drops cookies on landing -- NOT just after visitor behavior or the visitor returns from a 3rd-party site visit. (important)
- see Track visitors in HubSpot

 

Note: Please search for recent posts as HubSpot evolves to be the #1 CRM platform of choice world-wide.

 

Hope that helps.

 

Be well,
Frank


www.mfrankjohnson.com
0 Upvotes