Refreshed and republished on May 6, 2021
This post was originally published on October 19, 2015 and has been revamped and updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.Lead source is an important data point you need to capture in order to report on the value of your marketing campaigns. This article will walk you through how to setup and track lead source within Pardot.
Where to find the Lead Source field in Pardot
The lead source field is a default field in Pardot and can be synced with Salesforce. The field can be found on the prospect’s record under additional fields.
How a prospect’s source is populated
The prospect’s source field is determined by the referring URL. The referring URL is the page the visitor was on before visiting a page. The page must have the Pardot tracking code embedded to pull in the referring URL.
For example, if a prospect’s referring URL is www.linkedin.com/profile/JennaMolby and no UTM parameters exist, Pardot populates the prospect’s source field as LinkedIn.
Here are some values that can appear in the source field:
|
|
The default sources can be extremely useful since it’s not likely all your links will have source parameters. However, try to use custom sources where you can.
How to create custom sources
To create custom lead sources in Pardot, you will need to use URL parameters in you landing page links. Pardot looks for the parameter utm_source within your URL. This will override the default Pardot lead sources, so you can use both to track lead source.
URL example
https://www.jennamolby.com/MyLandingPage.html?utm_source=WebinarThe parameter can be whatever you want, but try to have a standard way of defining your lead sources for better reporting. Here are some common lead source values:
- List Upload
- Partner
- Referral
- Phone Inquiry
- Cold Call
- Tradeshow
- Webinar
- Whitepaper
- Website
Maunually set the source field value
You can manually set the source field value by using imports, automation rules, completion actions, segmentation rules, and engagement programs.
Questions?
Send me a tweet @jennamolby, leave a comment below, or book a Peer Chat.
19 Comments
Hello Jenna,
If I use a form handler, do I have something to do to activate the pardot default source field ? (like a mapping or something)
Or will it fill automatically ?
For instance, if a lead come from linkedin (he clicked on a post without UTM), will the field automatically become “Linkedin” ?
Hi Joseph, Yes, you would need to set up your form handler to capture UTM parameters. Here’s how to set that up: https://jennamolby.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-capturing-utm-parameters-in-pardot/
Hi Jenna
Can we create custom source fields in Pardot rather than use the default field? Basically I want to create two custom source fields, one to capture the first touch_utm and second to capture the last touch utm_source
Hi Anupam, Yes, you can create custom source fields in Pardot. However, if you use a custom field, the source will not be automatically populated based on the referring URL as mentioned in this article.
Jenna, is it possible to filter campaign results by lead source using Pardot — i.e., “how many new live webinar registrants (leads) came from Twitter?”
Hi Brit, you could create a dynamic list to calculate the number or pull it using a Salesforce report.
Hi Jenna, I’ve been visiting your site for years now and it’s been a huge help.
I have a question you may have some advice on that involves Pardot/Salesforce Connected Campaigns.
I’m in the middle of building out our multi-touch attribution dashboards and do you know if it’s possible to add a Prospect/Lead to a campaign based on an event in the Pardot “Prospect Activities” feed?
Ex. I have a campaign named “Organic Search” set up to add prospects/leads to it via an automation rule. If their “Lead Source” contains “Google, Bing or Yahoo Natural Search”. Of course, this is only based on their “First-Touch” and I’d like to add them to the “Organic Search” campaign regardless if their 1st, 5th, 6th, 7th touch is “Google, Bing or Yahoo Natural Search”. Pardot collects this data in the “Prospect Activities” feed.
It doesn’t seem like we can build an automation rule based on actions in the “Prospect Activites” feed. Do you know of a way to do this?
Thanks!
Hi Paul, Great question! I don’t think that data is accessible in Salesforce other than in the “Pardot Activities” feed.
Hi Paul,
I’m having the exact same issue as you. We have an always on Automation Rule to add to an “Organic Search” campaign in Salesforce when the Source in Pardot matches, but as noted this only works for the first source activity.
It’s unbelievable, and incredibly frustrating that data from the Activity History feed is not possible to use in Automation rules, or Engagement Studio. One option we have explored, although it’s still not 100% accurate, is exporting the Visitors list from Pardot frequently as a CSV, then excluding any unknown records by filtering on the Email address, and also applying a filter on the Referrer field for Google Natural Search, or Bing Natural Search for example. Then we re-upload this sub-set, adding to a list in Pardot and applying a tag that runs them through the automation rule. But this is cumbersome, and seemingly not wholly accurate.