Tracking Source of Conversion [Google v Bing v Marketo]

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I was reviewing my sources and trying to determine how you find the "true source" of where somebody became a lead, whether it's through google, bing, or a campaign sent through Marketo. What are your best practices for how to track the source of the conversion?

Thanks!

[Guy_Goldstein6 · Accepted solution]

Hey Kristine,

I'm a big fan of using a combination of UTM and solid marketing automation governance.

The method that I've found which produces the most "accurate" source is leveraging a cookie (historically google's utmz, these days it requires a little more customization) to "store" the first digital touch and then pulling that information into Marketo at the time of conversion (it's really easy using forms 2.0 and a web developer).

Once you've got that information, I store the new data in a "first touch source" field which has updates blocked by all methods (you can do this through the field management section in Marketo), by making sure that your first touch fields can only be populated once the become a reliable source of information on the source, but still leave your standard utm fields (or source fields) open for change so that you can still trigger all of your monitoring programs based on them.

Hope this helps,

--Guy

[Anonymous]

Guy - do you have any documentation or can you point me towards some that explains how exactly you set this up (first touch fields) and the monitoring programs you use? I've already set up utm_ fields to capture the source info when available but really like your idea here so hoping you can help out.

[Mike_Reynolds2]

Kristine Yi​,

Hello! You may find this helpful as well: Tracking Lead Sources

[Anonymous]

     Thanks all! That was very helpful!