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How To Use UTM Parameters to Capture Lead Source in Pardot

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You might already be using UTM parameters to track your marketing campaigns with Google Analytics, but are you capturing that information when a prospect is created in Pardot? Capturing this data is critical in order to assess the value of your marketing campaign and is a lead management best practice.

What are UTM Parameters?

UTM parameters are tags you add to a URL. Marketers use this to be able to track the traffic from a variety of sources such as email, social media, banner ads, etc. The tags can be sent back to Google Analytics and tracked which can be used to gauge the effectiveness of campaigns and identify the best ways to drive more visitors to your website.

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Create New Fields

The first thing you need to do is create 2 new fields in Salesforce and in Pardot and map them. You don’t need to create a field for utm_source, we will use the standard source field in Pardot.

  1. utm_medium
  2. utm_campaign

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Add The New Fields to Your Pardot Forms

Next, add the fields to your Pardot form. All 3 fields should be hidden and not marked as required.

Add Some Code to Your Landing Page Templates

This piece of code will parse the URL parameters and put the values into the hidden fields within your form. This code can be placed within your landing page template or within your form in the below form section.

Note: If you don’t use the field names outlined in this tutorial, you might need to update the JavaScript to include the correct field names.

Create URLs and Test

Now you’re ready to start creating URLs and testing your form. Use this handy URL builder to create your links and then fill out the form to see if the values go into Pardot.

Questions?

Send them to me via email, send me a tweet @jennamolby, or leave a comment

Author

I'm a Freelance Marketing Operations Consultant With 15 years of experience in Marketing Operations, I’ve worked with a wide range of tools including Salesforce, Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot), Marketo, and many other sales and marketing platforms. I help teams optimize their tech stacks, improve processes, and get accurate, actionable reporting. Whether it’s setting up your Marketing Automation Platform, building Salesforce reports, managing lead lifecycles, tracking attribution, or integrating your tech stack, I ensure everything is aligned to drive real results.

57 Comments

  1. RBK Reply

    Hi Jenna – I freaking love your blog. You’ve given me so many awesome, useful ideas already. My only question – I used this code and it works fine writing a value when value = NULL, but I noticed that it doesn’t update when an existing value is already there. Is that expected? I tried reconfiguring the field, but I can’t seem to figure it out.

  2. Alex Reply

    Hi Jenna,

    I have followed your instructions, but this doesn’t seem to work for me.

    I’m using the form as an iframe on the website, do I have to go about it differently in that case?

    Thanks in advance for your help.

    Best,

    Alex

  3. Ryan Reply

    Hi Jenna,

    Your work is spectacular. Thank you for charing all your knowledge. I’ve implemented this, but I’m noticing that the values are being replaced with blank values if there are no UTM parameters. Is there a way to prevent this?

  4. Justin Gregory Reply

    Jenna does the source field keep updating as I create more forms and UTM links for events and assets? I want my source field to be populated once and never change.

  5. Amy Reply

    Hi Jenna! Will this overwrite the source & utm fields each time something is submitted? I don’t mind the UTM being overwritten, but I want to maintain the source field. Your info is always so helpful!!

    • Jenna Molby Post Author

      Hi Amy, Yes, this will overwrite the fields each time the form is submitted. Cheers, Jenna

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