Original source info, original source type & original referrer - which does what?

[Anonymous]

I'm trying to get the info that all marketers want...

To be able to see where a lead has come from (direct, organic search, email, social, etc), then essentially follow them the whole way through their journey with us from unknown > known > MQL > SQL > customer.

Struggling a little with the way that Marketo presents some of the info at the front end of this journey, if at all. Pulled a lead report with the following fields - original source info, original source type & original referrer. Question 1, Which field does what? Question 2, What is the source of truth? An example (which lots of other leads follow) below seems to be somewhat contradictory:

• Original source info:  List: XYZ
• Original source type: List import
• Original referrer: http://www.bing.com/search

Question 3, Which came first? Have they come from a bing natural search as the original referrer suggests, or from a list import?!

Question 4, Then there's lead source - how does that differ?! With the same example above, that lead's source is 'Web Form'. So I'm being told 3 different things essentially...they came from a list import, a bing natural search, and a web form!?!? What?!

I can of course see this information in Google Analytics, but can't see the actual lead it relates to, it's just a count. So if people have use cases where you can somehow connect this info into Marketo then great? I won't even mention our CRM holding the final piece to the jigsaw...

A take on how others are tracking that whole journey would also be interesting...

[Josh_Hill13]

1. The field info you provided is correct understanding.
2. When they get filled in depends on how the lead was originally created. You can check the log to see which order they were entered.
3. Yes, using this System fields, you will not see clarity on which type of creation occurred. I would not use these as attribution fields because you should use Programs and other Lead Source fields for that. Using Created At and looking at the lead log will help you understand.

[Anonymous]

Hi Josh (won't let me tag you for some reason) - I know I can look in the lead log, but a lot of the time I'd also just like to see this at a high level - and obviously be able to group. Am I better off looking outside of Marketo for this info?

Still unclear as to how I can see which action came first, other than looking in the lead log each time...

[Brian_Whipple]

Hey Carly. Did you ever get any clarification on this issue? I am hoping to get the same questions answered. Any help would be much appreciated.

[SanfordWhiteman]

Brian, there's no "flat" way to tell which field was populated first because they are not Datetimes (nor accompanied by a Datetime field like Original Referrer Populated DateTime). 

You could run a daily batch to populate a custom DateTime field like this, but not sure what you're actually trying to produce from this data. If you open a new thread and lay out the exact report you're trying to deliver we can be of more help.