How do I see where my leads came from?
Short answer
Attribution works when the source is captured automatically at the moment the contact is created and never overwritten afterwards. Tag every paid and email link with UTM parameters, use call tracking numbers for offline channels, store the first-touch source and the landing page on the contact record, and report on booked jobs by source rather than raw lead counts.
Before you start
- Admin access to your website and to any ad accounts you run.
- Pest AI forms or tracking script installed on the site.
- A list of every channel you spend money on, including yard signs and truck wraps.
- Agreement on what a "booked job" means for reporting.
Step by step
List every channel that produces a lead
Write them all down: Google Ads, Google Business Profile, organic search, Facebook, direct mail, yard signs, truck wraps, referrals, and repeat customers. Anything not on this list will end up in "unknown", and unknown is where marketing budgets go to be wasted.
Tag every digital link with UTM parameters
Use a consistent scheme — utm_source for the platform, utm_medium for the type, utm_campaign for the specific push. Lowercase everything, and never invent variants: "google" and "Google" become two rows in every report you run afterwards.
Tip: Keep one spreadsheet of approved UTM values. It is boring and it is the difference between usable reporting and mush.
Capture the UTMs on the form, not just in analytics
Make sure the tracking script writes the UTM parameters, referrer, click ID, and landing page into hidden fields on your forms so they arrive on the contact record. Analytics tells you about sessions; the CRM is where you can connect a source to money.
Watch out: Store first-touch values, not last-touch, and write them once. Overwriting on a later visit erases the campaign that actually generated the lead.
Put a tracking number on every offline channel
Assign a distinct tracking number to direct mail, yard signs, vehicle wraps, and each paid listing, all forwarding to your main line. Calls carry the source through to the contact record automatically, which is the only reliable way to attribute phone-driven work.
Set the source field automatically at contact creation
In the workflow that creates the contact, populate source, medium, campaign, and landing page from the captured values. Never leave it as a dropdown for a CSR to fill in — it will be blank on half the records inside a month.
Protect the source on repeat and matched contacts
When a lead matches an existing contact, the dedupe rules should preserve the original source and add the new campaign as a tag instead. That keeps your first-touch attribution intact while still recording that the customer re-engaged.
Report on booked jobs, not lead volume
Build the view by source: leads created, opportunities created, jobs booked, and revenue won. Cheap leads that never book are more expensive than costly leads that do, and this report is the only place that shows up clearly.
Audit "unknown" every month
Some unknown is unavoidable, but a rising unknown share means a link lost its tags or a form is bypassing the script. Treat it as a broken-instrument alarm rather than a rounding error.
Common mistakes
- Relying on analytics alone, which shows sessions but cannot tell you which lead turned into a paid job.
- Overwriting the original source when a returning visitor fills in a second form.
- Inconsistent UTM casing and naming, which splits one campaign across four report rows.
- Publishing untracked phone numbers on offline material, making that spend permanently unmeasurable.
Where this fits
This task lives inside PestCRM — the AI Sales System. If you would rather not build it yourself, we set it up during implementation and hand it over documented — partners run the systems, we handle the hard parts. Existing partners can also reach the team through support.
Frequently asked
Want this built for you instead? We configure it with your services, your calendar, and your data, then train your team on it.
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