HubSpot Ideas

mseitz

Most Recent Source Type

For each contact in our HubSpot account it tracks the Original Source Type as a property (e.g. LinkedIn, Email, etc). However, it does not currently track subsequent referrals, which would be helpful to know the success of our campaigns (especially PPC/remarketing campaigns). Is it possible to add another property called "Most Recent Source Type" or "Last Source," which would update each time the person came to a page and filled out a form. That way we aren't attributing conversions to a source that was several months (sometimes years) old? It seems the technology is there since you are tracking the original source; just want to be able to attribute to the last source type. Thanks.

41 Replies
jeckett
Member

This is absolutely needed! Glad to see it's in the roadmap.

davidgomez
Participant

Unbelievable that after 4 years since the first post Hubspot has done nothing to give us such useful information... so sad and frustrated... 😥

darshakparmar
Participant

4 years and still counting... god knows when is this going to happen. I am curious to know how other customers of HubSpot are solving this problem? 

dmastin
HubSpot Product Team

Thanks everyone for the continued feedback.

 

I've been pulling together feedback from this idea as well as others. What I'm noticing is that it's not just the most recent source people are looking for. Often times, there are other moments that marketers need to know the source of.

 

If anyone wants to provide input, I'd love to hear what you all think about the following:

 

Contact/Company property:

-Most recent source (the same logic that powers original source)

-First form submission source

-Most recent form submission source

-[Became x lifecycle stage] source

 

Events:

-For all form submissions and sessions (page views), include the source as metadata to the event

AbhiJadhav
Member | Elite Partner

@dmastin The most recent source at a lead level makes sense because it might be years after the contact was first entered that the actual conversion occurs. Once that conversion occurs, subsequent conversions from the same company are not as useful. However, I can see a scenario where the original lead goes cold/leaves and it gets picked back up by someone else. At that point, it is useful to see the most recent source by company.  But there isn't a clean answer. Often what happens is that once the contact is established, additional employees from the same company will download assets. So at that point, recent source at the company level is not very useful.

 

That said, a most recent source by lead is absolutely critical! Two thumbs up for passing source as part of the conversion event.

 

Thanks for your consideration.

dmastin
HubSpot Product Team

Thanks for sharing your feedback, @AbhiJadhav ! This makes sense to me.

ABWB
Member

YES, we need this ASAP. This would be a huge benefit to our metric reporting and spend decisions!

Tksarda
Member

Hey @dmastin, I see in your previous comments that you mentioned that Hubspot is working and set to launch this feature of "recent source drill down" end of 2020. May I request an update there? Any progress? Any ETA? Thanks. It's very very important for marketers to calculate the correct attribution and reporting.

dmastin
HubSpot Product Team

Hi, @Tksarda - Without giving away too much detail, we're still prioritizing this work. However, 'most recent source' may take on a different name and we're viewing this as one of many aspects of the 'original source' problem we want to solve for.

 

If you're free in August, we'd love to chat with you directly to hear your feedback. Let me know!

darshakparmar
Participant

@dmastin do you have any update on this? What is the timeline?

ABWB
Member

Yes, we really need this! Any ETA of launch?

dmastin
HubSpot Product Team

Our team is building a prototype now. No ETA on when it will be available for beta. Barring any unforeseen snags, we hope to have this into beta at some point soon. I'll be sure to update you all! 

terencejohncort
Participant

I upvote this suggestion so hard.

dmastin
HubSpot Product Team

This is now in a private beta!

sboug
Participant

Hi @dmastin how can we request access to this beta?

dmastin
HubSpot Product Team

Hello, all!

 

Effective early next week, be on the lookout for three new contact properties supported on all contacts:

  • Latest source
  • Latest source drill-down 1
  • Latest source drill-down 2

These properties will look, feel, and work very similarly to the Original source property.

 

What to expect when this property rolls out to all HubSpot portals:

Once we roll out the latest source contact properties next week, you may notice that not every single contact has a value. For contacts who are engaging with your website more frequently, their latest source property values will begin 'hydrating' naturally; for those who are less-engaged/still inactive, will be backfilling their values.

 

Additionally, we will be rolling out accompanying latest source properties for the deal and company object later this year. We'll update this community post, as well as send a product notification, when they're available.

thisisdatis
Contributor

Amazing news! 

 

A few questions for you @dmastin ...

 

  1. Do we have to register for a beta program, or will they be available to everyone?
  2. Will the values automatically populate?
    1. If yes, is there a way for us to use workflows to define custom values based on specific actions. IE: From submission X triggers most recent lead source to populate with Lead Source Y?
  3. Will the values populate when someone visits our site, when someone submits a form, both, or something else? 
  4. Will we be able to use these fields in other objects and functions like workflows, reports, etc? 
  5. Will this feature populate values for contacts that submit forms on external sites like Unbounce or Wordpress pages? 
  6. Lastly, will there be a date time stamp for latest source?

Thanks so much for sharing the great news! 

darshakparmar
Participant

Awesome news. Looking forward to this

dmastin
HubSpot Product Team

@thisisdatis 

 

1. No need to request access - for this specific beta, we're prioritizing access over backfilling historical data. Pending any issues, you should see the contact property in your HubSpot portal by end of day Eastern Standard Time.

 

2. Yes, they will automatically populate. Your workflow suggestion is a great one: my general recommendation is to use latest source data to trigger workflows that 'stamp' the source data onto custom properties that could in turn capture that source data for specific moments, like first form submission source, last source before xyz event, etc.

 

3. The value is tied to the most recent/latest session. Within a session, multiple views or page submissions could theoretically occur. So whatever source started the last session is what will show up.

 

4. Yes, you can use them in lists, workflows, and the advanced report builder.

 

5. Yes - as long as the HubSpot tracking code is installed, it should hydrate values.

6. Not at this time.

dmastin
HubSpot Product Team

Hi, everyone! Excited to provide an update on this beta: the team has finished backfilling this data. That means that not only will you see a Latest source value on the contact record, but you will also see it on the deal and company record, too!

 

To learn more about how these properties work, check out our knowledge doc.