How to capture lead source in Freshsales CRM

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Track the source of your leads (free trial)

Are you sending your leads on Freshsales CRM, but have no idea where they are coming from?

The method below shows you how to track the lead source in Freshsales CRM (Organic Search, Social Paid, Email Marketing, Referral, etc.), along with your lead details.

In that way, you can optimize your marketing strategy based on the sources that perform best and generate performance reports such as leads by channel, source, campaign, and more.

Let’s jump in.

How to Track the Source of Leads in Freshsales CRM

How Leadsources Collects Lead Source Data

When visitors enter your website, their browser stores information about them in a cookie: which site they came from, on which landing page they landed, which keyword they clicked, etc.

Leadsources collects this data, organizes it, and passes it into your form as hidden fields.

When your visitors fill out your form, they enter data in the visible fields (name, email, etc.). Meanwhile, Leadsources .io automatically inserts lead source data into the form as hidden fields (channel, source, etc.).

When a visitor submits the form, the lead source data is sent along with their answers in Freshsales CRM. You can find the lead source along with the lead name, email, etc., in the same Freshsales CRM entry.

How Leadsources passes Lead Source Data into Freshsales CRM

Start by signing up for a Leadsources.io account. We provide you with a small code snippet to add to your website. Detailed installation instructions are available in our guide.

Next, add hidden fields to your form. Leadsources is compatible with any form builder. Our tutorial guides you through embedding these fields within your form builder.

When a visitor fills out and submits a form on your website, Leadsources populates those hidden fields with lead source information:

  • Channel
  • Source
  • Campaign
  • Term
  • Content
  • Landing Page
  • Landing Page Subfolder

With a successful form submission, the lead source details from the hidden fields are transferred to Freshsales CRM. You’ll now find this information within your leads dashboard on Freshsales CRM.

This gives you powerful insights into where each lead comes from!

How to Analyze the Lead Source Data

What data is tracked in Freshsales CRM?

As we saw briefly, you can track not only the source of your lead but also various pieces of information related to that source.

Leadsources can track 7 different data points for each lead. They are defined as follows:

  • Channel: The type of traffic. Leadsources categorizes your leads into 10 different channels: Paid Search, Organic Search, Email Marketing, Paid Social, Organic Social, Referral, Direct Traffic, Affiliates, Display Advertising, and Other UTM-tagged campaigns.
  • Source: The specific source or platform that sends the visitors. For example, in the case of “Organic Social,” the source could be Facebook, Instagram, etc.
  • Campaign: The name of the specific marketing campaign. For instance, when running several campaigns on Google Ads, you can track which exact campaign your leads came from.
  • Term: The keyword targeted by a specific campaign. Example: you run a Google Ads campaign called “Search campaign corporate lawyers.” Leadsources categorizes your leads by keyword targeted: “Corporate lawyer in New York,” “Corporate lawyer in Miami,” etc.
  • Content: The exact element of your ad that was clicked.
  • Landing Page: The URL of the landing page where the lead landed. Example: domain.com/services/corporate-lawyer-miami.
  • Landing Page Subfolder: This focuses on the subfolder of the landing page. For example, if a visitor lands on the page domain.com/services/corporate-lawyer-miami, the tracked subfolder is “services.”

How to Create Performance Reports?

Leads Source Reports

Understand better where your leads are coming from with the leads reports.

Leads by channel report

First, segment your leads by Channel to picture which channels generated the most leads.

  • Second, choose one specific channel, for example, Search Paid (aka Google Ads), and segment your Google Ads leads into campaigns to get insights on which campaign is driving most of your leads.

Third, when you want to go deeper into the performance of one specific campaign, you can segment the leads further with the “Volume of Leads by Keyword” and the “Volume of Leads by Ad” reports.

Leads by keyword report

Sales Source Reports

You’ve identified which ads and keywords are driving most of your leads. But are these ads and keywords translating into revenue?

By sending your leads to Freshsales CRM, you can generate equivalent sales reports.

Imagine the following example:

ChannelsSearch PaidSocial Paid
Leads5075
Sales56
Avg Order Value$150$100
Revenue$750$600

You ran ads on Google and Facebook, and with the initial “Leads by Channel” report, you found that Social Paid ads generated more leads than Search Paid ads.

After a few weeks, you analyze which leads transformed into paying customers, and discover that the Search Paid channel generated more revenue with fewer leads than the Social Paid channel. As a result, you decide to boost your Search Paid budget.