First Touch Attribution mapping

[Ciaron_DHL1]

Hey,

We're using a mapping model in our instance, where we are attributing UTM's from the query strings into First touch, Last touch and also Multi-touch fields within a leads profile. Mapping the MT's and LT's are fine, but when running the campaigns for the First Touch, we are encountering an issue. The issue is specifically around that when we run the First Touch campaigns, it is being overwritten from each touch point. All touch points are mapped upon submission of the form and we are taking the data in via smart lists and the 'visits web page' filter.

For example, we have the below built out to capture the UTM info in numerous smart lists relating to the UTM query structure :

Filter: Visits web page = Any

Referrer = Empty

Query Parameters = (Various UTM configurations).

The MT submissions are the same as the above, but without the referrer field included in the filter. 

When we run our smart campaign to map the query parameters into the FT Fields (Source, Medium, Campaign), the first 'Visits web Page' is taken in and then is overwritten by the first MT touch point. 

What I would like to understand is if we are able to map to the first 'Visits web page' interaction, to ensure the campaigns pull in that query string and not the other web page visits. 

[SanfordWhiteman · Accepted solution]

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Filter: Visits web page = Any

Referrer = Empty

Query Parameters = (Various UTM configurations).

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Before we continue, I want to interrogate this setup.

Referrer [is empty] is a very strange constraint for the First Touch in a given browser.

There's no guarantee whatsoever — quite the opposite, unless you are expecting only email clicks, not search/ad clicks — that the first Visit Web Page activity with recognized UTM params will have an empty Referrer. What led you to this constraint?

[Ciaron_DHL1]

Thanks Sanford, with the tests which we ran from the url's we built, we noticed in the activity log, that when the Lead is still anonymous, the referrer isn't populated, so in this case, we thought we could use it to map it to the FT, like the smart list example below.  The leads do populate in the smart list, it's just they are overwritten, should the user go onto multiple pages, before they sign up and are known to us.

[SanfordWhiteman · Accepted solution]

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Thanks Sanford, with the tests which we ran from the url's we built, we noticed in the activity log, that when the Lead is still anonymous, the referrer isn't populated

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Certainly not!

Whether there's a Referrer depends on 2 things (both must be true):

1. There's a referring site at all (direct visits, clicks from desktop apps do not have a referrer even in the potential sense)
2. The referring site allows its identity to be revealed to the target page (most search engines trim down the referrer to just the protocol and hostname, but do not remove the referrer; some highly secure sites can remove the referrer completely)

An initially anonymous pageview contains the Referrer if there is one. After the session is promoted from Anonymous to Associated, if you constrain on Referrer [is empty], you will not find that pageview in a Smart List.

[SanfordWhiteman]

As you can see now, your process is based on mistaken assumptions. Touch fields being overwritten is a secondary concern — the far bigger concern is you aren't finding touches properly.

If all you want to do is stop a field from being updated, you can block updates in Field Management.

But multitouch attribution is best done using a JS attribution plugin, not Smart Lists. You should be recording a series of touches in the browser (in cookies) then flushing them to the server on form fillout.

[Ciaron_DHL1]

Thanks Sanford, tested a few things out and it looks like the data is working correctly.