Original Source - Offline

[LDeniz]

Hi there, 

We are trying to see whether a contact was originally sourced through inbound or outbound activity. We are thinking of creating a new property with a workflow that says if a contact's original source is paid social, organic search, organic social, direct traffic etc then the contact is inbound. The problem we are having is with offline source as it includes integration (normally from our sales integrations like ZoomInfo) as well as imports (normally from events). 

How would you suggest I catgeorise outbound offline source vs inbound offline source as the two seem combined at the moment? 

[karstenkoehler]

Hi @LDeniz,

The moment you create your own custom source property and start 're-mapping' the HubSpot defaults, this is up to you and which categorization you would find most useful.

The tricky part about events and ZoomInfo is that they don't necessarily correspond to a source. An event can be the first recorded touchpoint if the person just walks into the door of the venue, but typically the actual source would be the promotion that led them there (e.g. marketing email, social post etc). So while you can add "Event" as it's own channel alongside organic, direct, paid social etc, you need to be aware of the fact that a contact can be both organic and an event contact. Events and sources don't really live on the same level of hierarchy.

Similarly, if ZoomInfo contacts are sourced through website visits, those website visits have a source (organic, direct, paid etc). While you can create a dropdown option in your custom source property for ZoomInfo (or more broadly for company intelligence or insights solutions), you need to keep in mind that a contact will have had a organic, direct, paid etc touchpoint before being captured by ZoomInfo.

From that viewpoint, I almost like the offline categorization better as it tells me that there is no prior recorded actual source - but it comes down to personal taste.

Let me know if that's helpful.

[LDeniz]

Hi there,

Thank you for your response! My question back is how you categorise whether a contact was inbound or outbound is this is not given to you by original source as it is today. We want to now what contacts of our came from inbound (marketing) vs outbound (sales calling/ emailing them). How would you differentiate this in the system as it is today.

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

@LDeniz here's how I would categorize inbound/outbound:

• Organic search = inbound
• Referrals = inbound
• Organic social = inbound
• Email marketing = inbound
• Paid search = inbound
• Paid social = inbound
• Direct traffic = inbound
• Other campaigns = inbound

For Offline sources, you would have to look at each drill-down 1 and 2 that occurs in your portal, e.g.

• INTEGRATION / ZoomInfo = inbound
• CRM_UI = outbound
• BCC_TO_CRM = outbound
• MOBILE_ANDROID = outbound
• MOBILE_IOS = outbound
• EXTENSION = outbound
• etc

The table in this article will help with that mapping: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/properties/understand-source-properties

HubSpot does not provide a full list of drill-downs as they can differ in each portal. I'd recommend building a custom report for all contacts where source is offline and then visualize drill-down 1 and 2 so you can map these to inbound / outbound.

Let me know if you have any follow-up questions.