Contact Attribution in HubSpot Campaigns

[morjee]

I have a question about new contacts being attributed to HubSpot campaigns.

We created a HubSpot campaign for a set of Google ads we're running. Our team decided to use our own UTMs and not ones from the HubSpot UTM builder, so that they show up on Google Analytics. The Google Ads account is directly linked with HubSpot. In the UTM, we have 'utm_campaign=' as the name of the HubSpot campaign, which is the same way it would be in a HubSpot-generated UTM.

However, none of the contacts we're getting from these ads are being attributed to the HubSpot campaign. If I go to the Ads section on HubSpot, I can see that these contacts are coming from the Google ads. And, in the contacts' Original Source Drilldown column, I can see the specific Google ad campaign they came from. But they're still not showing up under the HubSpot campaign.

Is there a way to have the HubSpot campaign attribute contacts to it that come from Google Ads without us having to use HubSpot's UTMs? 

Thanks,

Rohan

[Aakar]

Hi @morjee It looks like you have got a unique situation. I don't know whether using the HubSpot Campaign Name in the URL with utm_campaign name would automatically add contacts to that HubSpot campaign. 

If it was working before and is not working now, then it's probably because you didn't create a tracking URL in the HubSpot campaign tool itself. HubSpot campaign shows the number of tracking URLs created for that campaign.

Maybe re-creating (registering) that tracking URL in the HubSpot campaign tool would help. 

Thanks.

[morjee]

Hi,

We've double checked our UTMs and they have been set up correctly. The utm=campaign parameter is named the exact same as the HubSpot campaign we want to attribute it to. Even then, when new contacts come in through Google ads to our site, then submit a form and enter HubSpot as a new contact, they are not attributed to that HubSpot campaign. We're not being able to figure out what the problem is here. The UTMs are fine.

[Aakar]

Hi @morjee 

Is it working for other channels such as social media, email? Are you able to capture the utm_ parameter for other channels? 

When you say, "HubSpot Campaign", are you referring to the HubSpot campaign name (HubSpot tool) or campaign name used in the URL like this? utm_campaign= abcdgoogleadscampaign (example)

Please note HubSpot Campaign and utm_campaign are two different things. If your landing page is associated with HubSpot campaign A, then all contacts created via that landing page will be attributed to that HubSpot campaign A. If you are referring to the HubSpot campaign name (and not the utm_campaign name), then please make sure the landing page is associated with that HubSpot campaign.

Thanks.

[morjee]

Hi Aakar,

Thanks for your message. We have a HubSpot Campaign created (the HubSpot feature). We don't have any landing pages associated with it. We just want it to attribute contacts that are coming in from certain Google ads we're running to a landing page on our site. If they come in through those Google ads and submit the form on the landing page, we want it to show up in the HubSpot campaign we made. The landing page itself gets traffic from many sources so we don't want to include the entire landing page in this particular HubSpot campaign.

In the past, when we have run similar campaigns, we have used UTMs built in HubSpot to track the ads and associate them with a specific HubSpot campaign. It has worked fine. 

But this time we created our own UTMs outside of HubSpot's UTM builder. However, we still want it to attribute to the HubSpot campaign we created for these Google ads. Both the HubSpot campaign and the "utm=campaign" parameter in the URL have the same exact name, which HubSpot support says should be enough for HubSpot to recognize contacts coming in from those ads and attributing to the HubSpot campaign we made for them. However, none of the contacts coming in are being attributed to it.

Our Google Ads account is linked with HubSpot. So we can go into our contacts and see if they came from this campaigns by looking at their Original Source and Orignal Source Drilldown. That's how we know that we are indeed getting new contacts from these ads. But HubSpot still isn't able to attribute them to the HubSpot campaign we created.

Hope that makes sense.

Thanks!

[Josh]

Hi @morjee,

UTM codes will be the same regardless of how you actually create them. Tracking should coordinate between GA and HubSpot if you use any of the following UTM parameters.

• utm_source
• utm_medium
• utm_campaign
• utm_term
• utm_content

Potentially there is an issue with the UTM codes or alternatively, there is an issue with attribution in which GA or Ads was able to attribute the contact through a follow-up engagement/cookie, but HubSpot isn't seeing that stored value in which it is not attributing to that campaign. Here are some other things you might want to check out.

Josh

[sharonlicari]

Hi @morjee 

Welcome to the Community!

I'm curious to know what our experts think about this and what they can advise you in this case. 

Hi @Aakar @AM8 @Josh any thoughts about @morjee 's question?

Thanks & Happy Friday

Sharon

[Aakar]

Thanks @sharonlicari 

Hi @morjee 

It's not clear whether you've created these utm_ parameter properties in HubSpot or not. I would suggest checking your contact properties first. If you don't see any utm_ parameters in your contact properties, please create the following:

• utm_source
• utm_medium
• utm_campaign
• utm_term
• utm_content

When setting up a form on a landing page, please use these utm_ parameters as a hidden field on your contact form. When a user lands on your landing page via Google Ads (with utm_ parameter) and submits the form, these values will be passed automatically to your contact properties via hidden form fields. 

If you have already setup utm_ parameters in your contact properties and are using it on the form, probably there could be some spaces in the utm_ URL, or maybe the name is slightly different or maybe something is overriding your value.

If the above thing does not solve your issue, please check this HubSpot article. 

Thanks.