How attribution works (gclid and UTM)

To calculate real ROAS, Relator needs to know which campaign each sale came from. It does this in two hops: it links the won deal to the lead in the CRM, and the lead to the campaign using the tags the lead carried on arrival (gclid, fbclid and UTMs). This article explains the rules and what to set up for high coverage.

Hop 1: from deal to lead

• HubSpot: the deal is linked to its associated primary contact. Without an association, Relator tries the email.
• RD Station CRM: the deal is linked to the RD Station Marketing lead with the same email.

Hop 2: from lead to campaign

• 1st

  Tag on the lead

  gclid (Google Ads click)

  How it matches

  Relator finds the click in Google Ads and takes the exact campaign name

  Precision

  Exact

• 2nd

  Tag on the lead

  utm_campaign

  How it matches

  Compared with the names of campaigns that had spend, ignoring case, spaces, hyphens and underscores

  Precision

  Approximate

• —

  Tag on the lead

  Neither

  How it matches

  The deal goes to No attribution

  Precision

  —

UTM matching example: the campaign “Black Friday Conversion” matches utm_campaign=black-friday-conversion, black_friday_conversion or BlackFridayConversion. Accents and other symbols count: “Conversão” doesn't match “conversao”, and an em dash (—) in the name isn't the same as a hyphen.

How the channel is decided

• gclid

  Channel

  Google Ads

• fbclid

  Channel

  Meta Ads

• utm_source = google, google_ads, adwords or googleads

  Channel

  Google Ads

• utm_source = facebook, fb, instagram, ig or meta

  Channel

  Meta Ads

• Another utm_source or only utm_campaign

  Channel

  Other sources (UTM)

• No tags

  Channel

  No source / No attribution

Get tracking ready

1. 1
   Step 1

   Turn on Google Ads auto-tagging

   With auto-tagging on, every click carries the gclid in the URL. It's the most reliable match, because it doesn't depend on names.

2. 2
   Step 2

   Standardize Meta Ads UTMs

   In the ads' URL parameters, use utm_source=facebook (or instagram) and a utm_campaign equal to the campaign name. Meta's dynamic parameter for the campaign name avoids typos.

3. 3
   Step 3

   Make sure the form stores the tags in the CRM

   The form or landing page must pass the gclid and UTMs to the HubSpot contact or to the RD Station Marketing lead. Otherwise the lead reaches the CRM “clean” and falls under No source.

4. 4
   Step 4

   Check the coverage

   In CRM, look at the Leads by source card and the leads without a source item in Pending actions. In Contacts, scan for people marked Organic/direct. The smaller the no-source share, the more reliable real ROAS is.

Full example

1. 1.Mariana clicks an ad from the “Black Friday Conversion” campaign on Google Ads. The URL reaches the site with gclid=Cj0K....
2. 2.She fills in the form; the contact is created in HubSpot with the gclid stored.
3. 3.Ten days later, the salesperson closes an R$ 8,000.00 deal associated with her contact and marks it as won.
4. 4.On the next sync, Relator links the deal to the contact, finds the click by its gclid and adds R$ 8,000.00 to the revenue of the “Black Friday Conversion” campaign and the Google Ads channel.

Common problems

• Lots of deals under No attribution → contacts reach the CRM without gclid or UTM. Check the form and the landing page's integration with the CRM.
• The lead has a UTM but the campaign gets no revenue → the utm_campaign doesn't match the name of the campaign that had spend. Compare letter by letter, accents included.
• Won deal with no associated contact in HubSpot → associate the contact with the deal in HubSpot, or make sure the deal's email is the contact's email.
• RD Station CRM with everything lacking a source → connect RD Station Marketing and check that the contact's email in the CRM matches the lead's email in RD Station Marketing.