Lead Source Attribution without UTM tags | Community
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davidn
Level 1
Jun 3, 2021 11:36 PM UTC
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Lead Source Attribution without UTM tags

Hi all,

 

I am trying to find a way to capture 'organic' vs' direct' traffic in Marketo and assign sources based on that. I have read through multiple discussions in the community but I could not find a fitting solution. Using utm tags unfortunately is not an option for this specific case. 
 
I also looked into using "Original Referrer" data but couldn't find a way to make that work to distinguish between 'organic' and 'direct' traffic.
 
This is surprising because other marketing automation tools such as  Pardot and HubSpot automatically capture that information.
 
One option I've been looking into is somehow populating Google Analytics source traffic in a custom Marketo field, however, I have not been able to find any documentation about that and am unsure if it's even possible.
 
Any ideas/input would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
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SanfordWhiteman
SanfordWhitemanAccepted solution
Level 10
Jun 4, 2021 3:36 AM UTC

The critical thing about distinguishing an Organic vs. Direct pageview of the exact same, untagged URL: you have only the Referrer header to draw on.

 

And the previous page — if there is one — is under no obligation to send that header. When there's no apparent Referrer, the pageview will look exactly like a direct pageview, regardless of whether a link was followed to get there. More details here: Here’s why your “Autofill from Referrer Parameter” setup stopped working.

 

Most sites do still send the Referrer, but they send the simple URL origin (https://www.example.com) only, not the full URL of the source page (https://www.example.com/this/is/stuff?you=wish&were=visible&in=Marketo) for security & privacy.

 

All analytics libraries have access to the same stuff in the browser for on the destination page; GA doesn't have special access to anything. Now, in the Google Console you can see which of your links were clicked in search results, for example — but that's b/c Google is the source site in this case, not the destination.

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3 replies

SanfordWhiteman
SanfordWhitemanAccepted solution
Level 10
Jun 4, 2021 3:36 AM UTC

The critical thing about distinguishing an Organic vs. Direct pageview of the exact same, untagged URL: you have only the Referrer header to draw on.

 

And the previous page — if there is one — is under no obligation to send that header. When there's no apparent Referrer, the pageview will look exactly like a direct pageview, regardless of whether a link was followed to get there. More details here: Here’s why your “Autofill from Referrer Parameter” setup stopped working.

 

Most sites do still send the Referrer, but they send the simple URL origin (https://www.example.com) only, not the full URL of the source page (https://www.example.com/this/is/stuff?you=wish&were=visible&in=Marketo) for security & privacy.

 

All analytics libraries have access to the same stuff in the browser for on the destination page; GA doesn't have special access to anything. Now, in the Google Console you can see which of your links were clicked in search results, for example — but that's b/c Google is the source site in this case, not the destination.

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    davidnAuthor
    Level 1
    Jun 7, 2021 8:07 PM UTC

    Thank you, . 

     

    So my only option to distinguish between organic and direct traffic would be to check if there is a referrer or not? If there is no referrer, then it would be considered direct traffic and if there is a referrer (but not utm tags), then it would be considered organic?

     

    I read the post you linked to and understand that the above would not be 100% accurate, but it sounds like it's the closest I can get to a solution (as long as I use utm tags for everything else, such as social, paid search, referral, etc).

     

    That being said, I would rather want to know the 'last referrer' (which is not a default field in Marketo) as opposed to 'original referrer'. I have not been able to find out a way to capture the last referrer data either though.

     

    As I mentioned, Pardot automatically categorizes traffic as organic or direct. I wonder how they make that determination.

     

     

     

     

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    SanfordWhiteman
    SanfordWhiteman
    Level 10
    Jun 12, 2021 10:12 PM UTC
    That being said, I would rather want to know the 'last referrer' (which is not a default field in Marketo) as opposed to 'original referrer'. I have not been able to find out a way to capture the last referrer data either though.

    You can store the {{trigger.referrer}} of a Visit Web Page in a field. However, it can be hard on a busy instance to do this for every pageview. Better to use logic on the client (browser) side to determine interesting new referrers and then send a special Munchkin hit in only those cases.

     

    As I mentioned, Pardot automatically categorizes traffic as organic or direct. I wonder how they make that determination.

    They guess. 🙂 For a single pageview, no platform has any more access than another. If the referrer isn't present, you can guess that it's direct — but it could just as easily be a referral from an unknown site that suppresses the referrer.

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