Map lead attribution to contact fields

See which campaigns brought leads to your website by saving their UTM values and original referrer in your email platform or CRM. You can keep a contact's existing attribution or let later visits update it.

You'll need a connected provider that can write custom fields, permission to edit the project, and the snippet on your website. Create suitable text fields in your provider, or use the field picker's creation option if it's available.

Choose where to save the campaign details

1. Open Project settings (the gear at the bottom of the sidebar), then Integrations. On the Email platform tab, scroll to Lead attribution.
2. Choose a custom field for UTM source, such as lead_source.
3. Map the other values you'd like to keep. The remaining rows are UTM medium, UTM campaign, UTM term, UTM content, and Referrer.
4. On each mapped row, leave Overwrite existing values off to fill the field only when it's empty. Turn it on to replace the field's value when the captured value differs.
5. Review and publish your changes.

Enlarge

Lead attribution on the Integrations Email platform tab, marked Live now, with UTM source, medium and campaign mapped to fields, UTM term, UTM content and Referrer unmapped, and an Overwrite existing values switch on each rowOriginalOriginal

Each row starts without a field selected and with Overwrite existing values off. Rows without a field aren't sent. If you haven't connected an email platform, the section asks you to connect one first instead of showing the rows. Attribution destinations use custom fields, not native contact fields.

Know which visit the data comes from

The UTM rows read utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_term, and utm_content from page URLs.

For each key, RightMessage uses the current page's value if there is one. Otherwise, it uses the most recent recorded value for that key. This means the five values can come from different pageviews. Visiting a page without UTM parameters doesn't clear them all.

Referrer comes from the first recorded pageview. It's separate from the most recent referring page or the arrival source in People.

Overwrite existing values controls whether an existing contact field can change. It doesn't choose a first-touch or last-touch session, or change which pageview supplies the value. Condition rules have their own UTM occurrence choices.

Check a contact's saved attribution

1. Open a clean browser and visit a real page on your website with UTM parameters added.
2. Complete your configured signup or identification steps with a test contact you control.
3. Find that contact in your email platform and check the mapped fields.
4. Repeat with a different campaign value for an existing test contact.
5. Check that a field with Overwrite existing values off keeps its existing value, while a field with it on accepts the changed value.

For example, WorkForge (opens in a new tab) could test https://workforge.rightmessage.com/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=remote_teams. Use a page on your own website with the campaign values you'd like to test.

When the contact record has the expected campaign values and follows your overwrite choices, attribution is working. If something is missing or different, use contact-sync troubleshooting.