A Deep Dive into HubSpot Original Source Data

Bastien Paul
Bastien Paul
·
March 25, 2024
·
5
minutes

Knowing where a lead came from is crucial for refining your marketing strategies—this is where HubSpot Original Source shines. This tool sheds light on the origin of your leads and website traffic, serving as an essential element of your marketing analysis. Our article unpacks how to interpret and apply Original Source data, equipping you with the insights to sharpen your campaigns and optimize resource allocation.

Key Takeaways

  • HubSpot’s Original Source Property is critical for marketing analytics, providing detailed insights into the effectiveness of different channels and campaigns, guiding marketing strategies and budget allocation.
  • The Original Source data in HubSpot is enriched by Drill-Downs, which offer additional context, like specific search terms or campaign names, enabling precise tracking and assessment of marketing efforts.
  • HubSpot’s tracking capabilities extend beyond digital campaigns to include offline interactions (importing contacts with chrome extension), ensuring a comprehensive view of marketing effectiveness for both online and offline channels.

Decoding the HubSpot Original Source Property

HubSpot's Original Source property

The Original Source Property is a HubSpot contact properties and plays a crucial role in the efficiency of digital campaigns. It offers significant attribution data, which, when understood in detail, aids in refining marketing strategies and identifying effective lead generation methods. It acts as a navigational system for your digital campaign, and without it, you’d be navigating blindly.

The Journey from Visitor to Contact

HubSpot operates much like an air traffic controller, keeping tabs on the anonymous visitors on your website domain, tracking their activity, and updating their Original Source property when they become a contact. This silent tracking is akin to a virtual handshake, establishing the beginnings of a relationship with the visitor.

HubSpot determines a contact’s Original Source based on their first site visit, updating it if it corresponds to previous anonymous activity. This process ensures the Original Source property reveals the contact’s initial interaction with your site. Think of it as the “first impression” your business made on the contact, and we all know how much first impressions count.

Classifying Traffic Sources

HubSpot’s Original Source property categorizes traffic sources into various sections, including:

Original Source Type Original Source Drill-Down 1 Original Source Drill-Down 2 Example
Offline Sources Trade Show Chicago Tech Fair 2023 Contacts met at a trade show
Organic Search Google Laptop Reviews Query Users who found the website via Google
Social Media Instagram #TechLovers Users who discovered your brand on Instagram
Email Marketing Newsletter March 2023 Newsletter Subscribers who clicked through from a newsletter
Paid Efforts Google Ads Ad Campaign 1 Visitors who clicked on a PPC ad
Referrals Tech Blog Best Gadgets 2023 Article Visitors referred from another website
Direct Traffic Direct Traffic NA Users who typed your URL into their browser
Other Campaigns Digital Campaign Spring Sales Event Users reached via a unique digital campaign

This categorization allows marketers to sift through the data and analyze traffic based on specific parameters like ‘utm_medium’ or ‘utm_source’.

The way HubSpot determines these traffic sources, including organic search traffic, is quite fascinating. It behaves like a detective, scrutinizing clues such as the full page URL and the referring domain, matching them against predetermined criteria. Armed with this information, marketers can analyze the effectiveness of SEO strategies and content marketing efforts in driving organic traffic, ensuring that their digital marketing machine keeps humming along smoothly.

Impact on Marketing Strategies

Interpreting the Original Source property data is like reading a roadmap of your marketing journey. It identifies the most effective initial touchpoints, enabling you to align your marketing efforts with these high-performing sources. It’s like having a compass guiding you towards the most valuable traffic.

By examining patterns in how contacts’ Original and Latest sources evolve over time, marketers can gain valuable insights into customer interaction. This information can inform strategic adjustments in lead nurturing and provide a clear direction on where to allocate marketing budgets for maximum ROI. It’s like having the ability to look into a crystal ball, enabling you to make informed decisions and strategic maneuvers in your marketing game plan.

Unwrapping the Layers: Original Source Drill-Downs

Original Source Drill-Downs

The Original Source Property offers even more insight with the introduction of Original Source Drill-Downs. These drill-downs provide a deeper understanding of how contacts first interacted with a business. It’s like peeling back the layers of an onion, each layer revealing more information about the effectiveness of various marketing channels.

Enhancing Attribution with Drill-Downs

Drill-down properties are like the magnifying glass to your Sherlock Holmes, providing additional context and specific details related to a contact’s source, enhancing attribution accuracy. Original Source Drill-down 1 can provide details as specific as the search term used in an organic search or the specific campaign names for email marketing and paid campaigns.

Original Source Drill-down 2 goes a step further and offers additional details like the search engine site for organic searches, domain referring website URL for referrals, and the specific HubSpot email name for email marketing efforts. It’s like having a private detective on your marketing team, meticulously tracking vital details to help identify the traffic source when a visitor becomes a contact, even from known search engines.

From Broad to Specific: Utilizing Drill-Down Data

One might wonder how marketers can take advantage of this wealth of Original Source Drill-down data. Quite simply, they can use this data to evaluate the effectiveness of different channels and campaigns. It’s like having a bird’s eye view of your marketing landscape, enabling you to spot the most fruitful areas.

With this detailed information, marketers can zoom in on specific marketing channels and campaigns campaign, examining campaign names and search terms linked to paid search and social media traffic. By analyzing search results, it’s like having a high-powered microscope to study your marketing efforts, revealing the tiny details that can make a big difference.

Latest Source vs. Original Source

Much like a coin has two faces, the Original Source property also has a counterpart - the Latest Source property. Comparing these two properties is like watching a film of a contact’s engagement with the business over time, revealing the evolution of their interaction.

The Original Source reflects the earliest visit, while the Latest Source may update multiple times, providing a dynamic view of the contact’s current engagement. It’s like comparing the first and latest chapters in a book to see how the story has developed. This comparison is crucial for understanding the complete journey of a contact, from their initial interaction to their most recent engagement with the business.

The Role of Offline Sources in HubSpot Tracking

Offline Sources in HubSpot Tracking

In this digital era, the significance of offline interactions, especially through specific offline medium, can easily be overlooked. However, HubSpot ensures that these interactions are not forgotten. It’s like a diligent librarian, meticulously cataloging offline interactions and attributing them to a contact’s record, ensuring the full scope of marketing efforts is understood.

Before you can learn from your data you need to check your marketing campaigns and make sure they are well tracked, you can use the HubSpot native tracking url builder.

Capturing Offline Engagements

Offline interactions are captured in HubSpot through manual input or importing data from external sources, such as spreadsheets or business card scanning apps. And yes, you heard that right, business card scanning apps! HubSpot’s mobile app provides a business card scanner feature for immediate contact creation and enrichment.

It’s as simple as opening the app, selecting ‘create contact,’ and then letting HubSpot parse the business card’s details into the correct contact properties in the contact record database. It’s like having a personal assistant at your fingertips, ready to digitize and organize your new business contacts.

Bridging the Gap Between Online and Offline

The integration of online and offline source data offers a holistic view of a contact’s history. It’s like bridging two islands, allowing you to traverse the full breadth of your marketing landscape.

This seamless integration of sources empowers marketers to accurately attribute conversions and optimize strategies. It’s like being able to see the whole picture, both the forest and the trees, enabling a holistic approach to your marketing strategy.

Advanced Applications of Original Source Data

Advanced Applications of Original Source Data

The Original Source data offers advanced applications, including:

It is the Swiss army knife of your marketing toolkit.

Lead Scoring and Segmentation

Incorporating Original Source data into lead scoring models is like adding a high-powered engine to your marketing vehicle, helping prioritize high-value prospects. With this data, lead scoring models can be refined to determine which leads are more likely to convert into deals and generate revenue.

Moreover, marketers can leverage Original and Latest source property values to segment contacts within HubSpot’s ecosystem. It’s like having a tailored suit, ensuring precise marketing strategies that fit your business perfectly.

Sales and Marketing Alignment

Sales teams can harness the power of Original Source data to trace the origin of deals and understand the marketing channels that are most effective in generating leads. It’s like having a roadmap to the treasure, guiding the sales team to the goldmine of leads.

Aligning sales and marketing goals through collaborative discussions can help use original source data more effectively for driving revenue growth. Some ways to achieve this alignment include:

  • Regular sync meetings focusing on data exchange and performance metrics
  • Improving communication and alignment between sales and marketing teams
  • Creating harmony in your sales and marketing strategies

By implementing these strategies, you can ensure that your sales and marketing efforts, as well as other campaigns, are working together towards a common goal.

Custom Reporting for Informed Decisions

Custom reports using Original Source data are like the ace up your sleeve in the game of marketing. They enable marketers to identify patterns in how contacts interact with various marketing channels, informing strategic decisions.

The detailed insights provided by custom reporting facilitate tailored campaigns and decisions, resulting in better alignment between sales and marketing efforts. It’s like having a compass and a map, guiding your marketing team to the treasure of successful campaigns and high ROI.

Leveraging HubSpot for Multi-Channel Campaign Analysis

Multi-Channel Campaign Analysis in HubSpot

HubSpot excels in the analysis of multi-channel campaigns. It’s like having a control center, providing a cohesive environment for analyzing campaigns across social media, email, and search engines, ensuring consistency in marketing communications.

Paid Search and Social Media Insights

HubSpot’s Ads tool and analytics features can be considered the secret weapons of your marketing arsenal. They allow marketers to manage and analyze paid search and social media campaigns ( (Google Ads, Meta Ads, LinkedIn Ads), offering performance data for optimization.

Custom reports leveraging Original Source fields in HubSpot can provide granular insights, such as assessing the effectiveness of LinkedIn ad campaigns and targeting criteria. It’s like having a rosetta stone to decipher the language of your campaign performance, translating the data into actionable insights.

Email Marketing Performance Tracking

Just like a pulse monitor in a hospital, the HubSpot email dashboard reveals which contacts are most engaged with your email content, enabling the creation of focused follow-up campaigns and more precise segmentation. You can use HubSpot to set up your tracking url.

Email performance data in HubSpot can be segmented to assess the effectiveness of individual emails or complete campaigns. It’s like putting your emails under a microscope, enabling you to fine-tune your future email marketing efforts.

Organic Reach and Direct Engagement

Comprehending direct traffic and organic reach can be compared to interpreting the tea leaves of your marketing efforts. It’s critical for refining a comprehensive marketing strategy, with HubSpot offering metrics such as time on page and pages per session.

Direct engagement can be measured in HubSpot by tracking direct traffic, providing invaluable insights into the behavior of your audience. With the direct traffic entrance url, it’s like having a backstage pass to your website, letting you see exactly how your audience interacts with your content.

If you liked this content, check out our 23 best HubSpot Tips and Tricks and how you can configure your lead scoring thanks to your contact sources.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does HubSpot Original Source mean?

HubSpot Original Source is a feature that identifies the first point of interaction of your contacts with your website.

How can I make the most out of HubSpot Original Source data?

By leveraging this data, you can focus on channels yielding the best results, understand audience behavior, and tailor marketing initiatives for enhanced engagement.

Bastien Paul
Bastien Paul
Bastien is the CRO of Hublead. With over 5 years in marketing and sales, using Hubspot, Bastien has written several studies and marketing guides based on data, many of which are well-known in the industry. Bastien likes to question standard marketing and sales beliefs and aims to make things simpler and more efficient.
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