How to set up campaigns to identify conversion sources

This article details how RD Station Marketing classifies the sources of both leads and conversions. In addition, it also explains what settings are required for you to map the source information. To understand what conversion and lead sources are, click here.

How does RD Station Marketing classify conversion sources?

RD Station Marketing searches for information on conversion sources in 3 different ways, in the following order of priority:

1. Reading the URL parameters.
2. Using the address of the website that brought the lead that converted, deducing the channel.
3. Using Google Analytics cookie information (c_utmz).

The best way to ensure that the lead source is recorded as expected is by using URL parameters (utm_medium, utm_source, utm_campaign, utm_term). The only channels where it is possible to infer by looking only at the website that brought the lead are Organic Search and Social, since you can create a list of possibilities (such as Google, Bing and Facebook for organic search; and Instagram and Twitter for Social).

RD Station Marketing requires these parameters to be used for email, display, and paid media campaigns to be correctly identified. Otherwise, the information will not be collected. Some examples of what may occur:

1. A Google AdWords campaign with no UTM parameters will result in Organic Search conversion sources and RD Station Marketing will not have information on which campaign generated the conversion or which keyword was bought in the campaign.
2. A conversion generated by an email campaign without UTM parameters will be attributed to the Referral channel, since it is not possible to map the source (email campaigns sent by RD Station Marketing add the parameters automatically).
3. A conversion made via a Facebook Ads campaign without UTM parameters will be classified as originating from the Social channel, since, without the parameter, it is impossible to differentiate whether the click-through occurred on an organic post or on a paid link.

How to set up my campaigns

To find out exactly what is required for conversions to be attributed to the correct channel in your campaigns, the Channel analysis interface indicates which filters are being used in each case:

You can also use the table below:

The conversion is attributed to the Other channel whenever a UTM parameter value exists, but none of the above options are found.