Dynamic utm_source for Facebook/Instagram Ads

[freddy1]

Hey all,

first off, I discussed the issue with Hubspot Support so there is currently no Hubspot solution for this nor is it planned. That is why I am making a proposal here.

The issue:

With the Hubspot-Facebook connection enabled, Hubspot will automatically set UTM parameters to a campaign once it is created via Facebook Ads Manager (or Meta as it is now called).

The problem is that a campaign usually runs on Facebook and Instagram at the same time. However, the utm_source that is then saved in a Hubspot property "Original Source" is always hardcoded to "facebook".

Hubspot also writes some parameters for its own integrated ads tool. These begin with "hsa_*", e.g. hsa_src which has a dynamic parameter of hsa_src=[SOURCE_SITE_NAME] which you can also read about here, Ad tracking in HubSpot.

Unfortunately this hsa_src is nowhere to be found, not in the ads tool, nor in any property - this was confirmed to me by the Hubspot support.

The idea:

What I would like to see implemented is this dynamic parameter as utm_source so that we will always have a Original Source of either Facebook or Instagram depending on the ads placement.

The workaround:

As a workaround for now one can change this (so set utm_source=[SOURCE_SITE_NAME]) manually after the campaign has been saved and the Hubspot parameters have been added automatically.

The value:

This feature will allow us to see which channel has contributed to users filling out forms after they clicked on one of our ads. Correct attribution and budget allocation will be a positive outcome.

Hope this can be done and thank you.

Freddy

[remyf]

@freddy1 and @glencornell - We are dealing with a similar issue and wonder why HubSpot doesn't create dynamic tokens for ALL of the UTM parameters so that we can pass any value we choose into HubSpot through the ad tracking template. Why does HS complicate something that could be simplified - and much more accurate? Plus, it will help us unify our ad tracking data for reporting, which would be especially beneficial.

[Otterbot]

100% agree we need dynamic tokens for all Ads tracking UTM parameters. The additional work and lack of accurate tracking caused by Hubspot's auto-tracking system overwriting ad UTMs is a huge downside.