How to identify lead source using UTM parameters

Do you know where your leads come from?

UTM parameters are a useful tool for measuring the performance of your marketing channels. Using the data extracted from UTM parameters you can identify your highest-performing content or campaigns, and accordingly focus more of your efforts (and budget) on the content formats, topics, and channels that drive more traffic (and more revenue).

But what happens when you execute a multi-channel marketing strategy that involves several touchpoints in the customer journey? How do you attribute your revenue to specific traffic sources accurately?

Keep track of your leads from their first visit

The first time a lead visits your website is a critical piece of information you should be tracking. Identifying the lead source of this first visit gives you a greater insight into each lead, what they engaged with initially, where, and how to retarget them in the future.

It’s particularly important to track their lead source if you’ve got multiple campaigns running that all link back to the same page. You need to be able to distinguish between leads that come from your paid campaigns, such as Facebook or Google Ads, and those that have read your blog or signed up for your newsletter.

UTM parameters are your friends

This Attributing Lead Source via UTM Parameters journey is a basic example of capturing lead sources by channel. It is designed to assign a new contact with their source location, based on their first visit to your site using UTM parameters. With this journey up and running, you’ll be able to identify the first step in each lead’s customer journey and measure the performance of your marketing campaigns by identifying the best performing lead source. For example, if a lead signs up for your free product trial through Facebook, you’ll know that your Facebook Ads campaign is running successfully and that you have the best chance of engaging them again when you want them to buy your product through a Facebook retargeting campaign.

We recommend using UTM parameters on all your campaign links, as you’ll be able to track the performance of each unique campaign and the contacts that interact with it. If you’re unfamiliar with how to set up UTM parameters, this article will get you set up to implement this simple lead source assignment journey.