Question from user:
Right now for paid channels we use UTM parameters tracked through salesforce and then piped into powerBI.
My first question is when you are tracking a channel like Organic with no UTMs, how does this show up in salesforce?
Another question. Right now we are running Google ads and cookie any user who clicks our ad, following them with the paid UTM parameter for 7 days. So say a user clicks a Google ad, does not complete the lead form on our paid landing page. Then, 4 days later, they come back directly to the site to sign up and complete a lead form on the home page.
My question is, how would you handle attribution for this user? Right now my company would say Paid gets the credit because the paid UTM is still following the user. I feel differently and think it should be true “last touch” attribution and organic should get credit. Mainly because we do not have a weighted attribution system in place and we are not treating the organic traffic the same. Meaning if a user arrives at our home page after an organic query, but doesn’t convert and then four days later searches again but clicks a google ad, then paid would get the credit.
Love to get some thoughts!
Answer from Nabil:
An awesome solution involves orchestrating your core platforms: Salesforce API + Account Engagement (Pardot) API + Google Ads API + Google Analytics Data API + Google Tag Manager (GTM) + a server-side tagging solution like Stape or Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
That’s a fantastic and common set of questions when moving beyond basic attribution, especially as you integrate different systems.
Let’s break down how you’d typically handle organic traffic in Salesforce and discuss that attribution conflict.
When you are tracking a channel like Organic Search, which by its nature doesn’t use UTMs, its source data needs to be captured at the point of conversion.
For organic traffic, the browser’s referrer header is your primary indicator, showing that the visitor came from a search engine like Google, Bing, etc.
If the visitor fills out a form, you need a mechanism on your website to read this referrer information, parse it (recognizing https://www.google.com/search?q=google.com as Organic Search for instance, or direct if there’s no referrer), and then pass that data into hidden fields on your lead form.
When the lead form submits, this attribution data – Channel: Organic Search, Source: Google, etc. flows into your Salesforce Lead or Contact record, typically populating custom fields you’ve created for marketing source and medium, much like you do with your UTM data.
Regarding your second question on attribution, you’ve hit on the core debate between single-touch models.
Your company’s current setup – where the paid UTM cookie dictates the credit for 7 days – is effectively a first touch attribution model, specifically a “first paid touch” model in this scenario, if the user’s initial paid engagement sets the cookie that persists.
You feel it should be last touch attribution, which would credit the final interaction, the Organic Search, before the lead form submission.
The issue is that both models, while simple, fail to capture the reality of the customer journey, especially for B2B or complex sales cycles.
The Google Ad introduced the user to your site (valuable awareness/interest), but the Organic Search facilitated the final conversion (valuable intent/action).
Neither single touch gets the full picture, which is why your setup is feeling inconsistent by not treating organic traffic touchpoints with the same “persistence” as paid touchpoints.
This is exactly why an integrated solution leveraging multiple APIs and tools becomes necessary, moving you toward true multi-touch attribution.
An awesome solution involves orchestrating your core platforms: Salesforce API + Account Engagement (Pardot) API + Google Ads API + Google Analytics Data API + Google Tag Manager (GTM) + a server-side tagging solution like Stape or Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
GTM, potentially with server-side tagging via Stape or GCP, acts as your data layer, capturing every touchpoint (page view, scroll depth, form interaction, etc.), not just conversions, and critically, the referral data for organic and direct traffic alongside your paid UTMs and GCLIDs.
This data is enriched and standardized before it’s sent to Salesforce.
The Salesforce and Account Engagement APIs are used to link all these anonymous touchpoints to a prospect once they convert, creating a comprehensive journey history on the Lead/Contact record.
The Google Ads API and Google Analytics Data API are integrated to pull cost and session data, respectively, into a centralized reporting view (like PowerBI), allowing you to tie sales revenue back to both the ad spend and the organic/session data.
This unified data set, now containing the Paid touch (with GCLID), the Organic touch (with referrer data), and the final conversion point, enables you to build PowerBI reports that support more sophisticated attribution models beyond single-touch, such as Linear (equal credit for all touches), Time-Decay (more credit for recent touches), or W-Shaped (credit for first, lead creation, and opportunity creation).
This system ensures Organic touchpoints are treated equally in the user journey and provides the data needed for a nuanced, data-driven attribution decision, rather than relying on an arbitrary cookie persistence rule.
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