Lead Source tracking with specific conversion events

[Awallace1]

Hey there! 

I'm a HubSpot newbie looking for some best practices around lead source tracking.

I'm interested in analyzing the source information that drove users to high-converting actions, either filling out a sales form or starting a trial. The Original/Latest Sources aren't necessarily correlated to the conversion action and get overwritten.

I'm thinking of creating new contact fields and workflows to parse UTMs and normalize the values at the point of the conversion action.

Trial Source: UTM Source

Trial Medium: UTM Medium

Trial Campaign: UTM Campaign
Trial Content: UTM Content

Sales Form Source: UTM Source

Sales Form Medium: UTM Medium

Sales Form Campaign: UTM Campaign
Sales Form Content: UTM Content

Is this a terrible idea? I don't have access to Marketing Hub, so I'm looking for ways to report using Contact/Deal objects. 

Thanks!

[Shadab_Khan · Accepted solution]

This is a sound idea considering your Hub Limitation, Two things to keep in mind:

1. Think about re-enrollments to fill your new custom properties if you are gonna use them in workflows
2. Be cognizant of your UTM URLs that you use, document first ➝ build later to save yourself some headaches later

[JonWestover801]

@Awallace1 I would not get to complicated with this. 

Original and Latest source work well for what they are. If you are going to last conversion before a deal is created. Just have a custom property called SQL Source or Deal Source and have it stamped on the Contact and the Deal from the Latest Source. 

That would be the easiest. Now I get that UTMs provide way more detail. In that situation what you are doing is fine. Create them on the Contact and then stamp the latest utm source on the Deal when the deal is created. 

You'll want to make sure you clear your latest utm fields after someone comes in and it's stamped on the deal or it could lead to misleading information on further interactions.

[Awallace1]

Thanks for the quick reply! When you say "re-enrollments," do you mean contacts in our database without a value who comes through this process? Or do you mean contacts who already have a value set and then go through the workflow again? In either case, I'm inclined to overwrite these fields with the latest value. Having a long, appended string to parse through seems like a nightmare to report against. What do you think? 

I agree with you on documenting our UTM process. Consistency will be paramount. 

I'm curious to get your thoughts about the Deal Source. If I read the documentation correctly, it's pulled from the Contact's Original Source. If I wanted to take a "last-touch" approach to attribution, could I overwrite this source when I have values in my custom UTM campaign fields?

[Shadab_Khan · Accepted solution]

Re-enrollments

• Based on your use case you can choose to have the appended string path with arrow (page A ➝ page B ➝ CTA 2 ➝ etc.) or Overriten or both (2 separate fields)

Deal Source

• I'd say let the default deal source(i.e original source) be whatever HubSpot set ist and build your own deal source and then populate it using your custom UTM fields

Self reported attribution:

• I recommend everyone to build a self reported attribution on top of what you have with a simple field like "how did you hear/learn about us?" which you can use for lots of cool stuff later

[Shadab_Khan · Accepted solution]

This is a sound idea considering your Hub Limitation, Two things to keep in mind:

1. Think about re-enrollments to fill your new custom properties if you are gonna use them in workflows
2. Be cognizant of your UTM URLs that you use, document first ➝ build later to save yourself some headaches later