You generate leads on Instagram and send them to Salesforce, but you can't connect each lead to a specific Instagram ad. Similarly, when a lead becomes a customer, there's no way to link that customer back to an exact Instagram ad.
This lack of tracking prevents you from measuring your Instagram ads' performance, making it difficult to know which ads are driving your leads and customers. As a result, you end up spending on many ads without understanding their effectiveness.
Fortunately, there's a simple way to link each lead to the specific Instagram campaign, ad set, and ad that generated it.
Let's walk through it step by step!
How to Track Instagram Ads in Salesforce
Step 1: Add Leadsources in the head tag of your website
Leadsources is a simple tool that tracks the source of your leads. Once added to your website, it tracks up to 7 lead source data for each lead you generate.
- Sign up for Leadsources.io for free.
- Insert the Leadsources tracking code into your website's head tag using this guide.
Step 2: Add the UTM parameters to your Instagram ads
In your ad URL, add UTM parameters to capture Instagram ad data, including campaign, ad set, and ad. You can use the following:
UTM_medium=paidsocialUTM_source=instagramUTM_campaign=campaign-nameUTM_term=ad-set-nameUTM_content=ad-name
The final URL should look like this:
https://www.yourdomain.com/?UTM_medium=paidsocial&UTM_source=instagram&UTM_campaign=campaign-name&UTM_term=ad-set-name&UTM_content=ad-nameNote: Leadsources collects all lead source data—even when UTM parameters aren’t used—ensuring complete tracking for every lead.
Step 3: Add the hidden fields in your form
Hidden fields are form fields that are invisible to the user but can store information that gets submitted along with the form.
Leadsources stores the lead source data in the hidden fields of your form. So when a lead submits the form, Leadsources automatically populates these fields with Instagram ad data.
Leadsources integrates with all popular form builders. For detailed steps on adding hidden fields in your form, follow this guide.
Step 4: Capture the Instagram ads data in Salesforce
When users click your ads and lands on your site, Leadsources fetches the Instagram campaign, ad set, ad data (and more).
Leadsources populates this Instagram ads data in the hidden fields of your form.
So when the form is submitted, you can view the Instagram ad data and lead details to Salesforce (This requires a connection between your form and Salesforce).
How does Leadsources work?
Leadsources fetches Instagram ad data whenever someone lands on your site, and populates it in the hidden fields of your form. Once submitted, this data goes to Salesforce, along with the lead information that you captured in your form (like name and email).
Leadsources tracks all this lead source data for each lead:
| Lead source data | Fetched automatically |
| Channel | ✅ |
| Source | ✅ |
| Campaign | ✅ OR use UTM_campaign |
| Content | UTM_content parameter is required |
| Term | UTM_term parameter is required |
| Landing page | ✅ |
| Landing page subfolder | ✅ |
As shown in the table above, in cases where UTM parameters can't be applied—like organic sources such as Google search or Instagram bio links—Leadsources still fetches some lead source data:
- Channel
- Source
- Campaign
- Landing page
- Landing page subfolder
Unlike other tools, Leadsources tracks lead source across all marketing channels, both organic and paid.
Select a channel to see what lead source data Leadsources inserts in your form.
Performance reports: Lead, sales, and revenue by source
By tracking Instagram ads data in Salesforce, you can create performance reports such as:
- Leads, sales, and revenue by channel
- Leads, sales, and revenue by source
- Leads, sales, and revenue by campaign (aka. Instagram campaign)
- Leads, sales, and revenue by term (aka. Instagram ad set)
- Leads, sales, and revenue by content (aka. Instagram ad)
This helps you adjust your Instagram budget based on the campaigns, ad sets, and ads that generate the most leads, sales, and revenue.
Let's explore some of the reports you can generate:
1. Lead source reports
Create performance reports that show the number of leads generated by:
- Channel
- Source
- Campaign (aka. Instagram campaign)
- Term (aka. Instagram ad set)
- Content (aka. Instagram ad)
- Landing page
- Landing page subfolder
Example #1: Leads by channel
This report helps you identify which channel generates the most leads.
Example #2: Leads by Instagram campaign
Now you can focus on a specific lead source (e.g., Instagram) and measure the number of leads generated by each Instagram campaign.
Example #3: Leads by Instagram ad
After identifying the Instagram campaign that drives the most leads, you can examine which specific ad group or ad generates those leads.
2. Sales and revenue source reports
Now that we know which Instagram campaign, ad set, and ad generate our leads, we need to determine if these leads are converting into sales and revenue.
To do this, connect your leads to a CRM like Salesforce. This allows you to track sales and revenue generated by various channels, sources, Instagram campaigns, ad sets, ads, landing pages, and landing page subfolders.
With this data, you can adjust your Instagram ad strategy to prioritize the channels, sources, campaigns, ad sets, and ads that generated the highest sales and revenue.
You can generate a variety of sales and revenue reports, such as:
- Sales and revenue by channel
- Sales and revenue by source
- Sales and revenue by campaign
- Sales and revenue by term (e.g., Instagram ad set)
- Sales and revenue by content (e.g., Instagram ad)
- Sales and revenue by landing page
- Sales and revenue by landing page subfolder
Example Scenario:
| Channel | Search Paid | Social Paid |
|---|---|---|
| Leads | 50 | 75 |
| Sales | 5 | 6 |
| Average Order Value | $150 | $100 |
| Revenue | $750 | $600 |
After launching ads on Google and Instagram, the initial "Leads by Channel" report showed that Social Paid ads (Instagram) generated more leads than Search Paid ads.
However, after analyzing sales and revenue data in Salesforce, you found that the Search Paid channel brought in higher revenue with fewer leads than the Social Paid channel. Based on this insight, you adjusted your budget to allocate more resources to the Search Paid channel.
