What are Lead Sources?
A Lead Sources is, in the simplest of terms, the first channel through which a lead visited your website or came to your business. It is a great way to track where you get clients from and how you got them so that over time you can report on Marketing Spend ROI and understand where you can fund more customers with a lower Cost Per Acquisition. They are also tools for understanding marketing trends and how to implement your strategies as you see fit.
Lead Sources vs Mediums
Before going into the detail it is first important to understand what is a Lead Source vs a Lead Source Medium and how do they relate to one another. To start with lets define each:
- Lead Source: this is the primary channel through which the lead came to your business
- Medium: this is how each lead source can be segmented or the sub categories of the Lead Source. Mediums are like the tools or channels of the Lead Sources.
Lets look at some common examples to help understand Lead Sources and Mediums. Everyone understands that Social media is a source of marketing and how people become aware of products or services, we all see it each day. However there are lots of different Social Media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Tik Tok etc. If we were to simply track Social Media as the Lead Source then it would be very hard for the Marketing team to know where they get their customers from or where to spend their marketing efforts. For this reason we also track the Lead Source Mediums for each of the Social Media Channels.
Lead Source and Mediums
So why not just track the Mediums and forget about the Lead Sources? This is a valid question, but it is easily explained when you extrapolate out all your lead sources and their respective mediums, as you will end up with a vast array of items and it can become hard to do any trend analysis on or grouping in your reporting.
How to Manage Lead Sources
In order to manage and see the list of Lead Sources, you'll need to:
- Login to your Carevision Portal Account
- Go to "Settings"
- Select "Lead Sources"
- You should now be able to see the list of Lead Sources available to the system
How to add Mediums to a Lead Source
In order to add or edit Lead Source Mediums, you'll want to view the list of Lead Sources indicated above.
After which, you will need to:
- Click on the pen icon on the Lead Source you want to edit
- Click "Add Medium" button
- You'll see a form you'll need to fill up at the bottom.
Set your new medium status to "Active" if it is currently being used as a marketing tool by your Lead Source
- The ID should align to any external marketing system you may use such as HubSpot so it flows through when the integration is turned on. However if you do not use these third party systems it can be any distinguishable variable to be used in your reporting.
- Once you're done with the form, click on the "Save" button
And now you have successfully saved a new medium ready to be tracked on your new leads and client profiles!
How to Create a new Lead Source
In order to use a Lead Source it must have at least 1 Medium Configured for each Lead Source
In order to create a new Lead Source:
- Login to your Carevision Portal Account
- Go to "Settings"
- Select "Lead Sources"
- You should know be able to see the list of Lead Sources available to the system
- On the upper right portion of the list, you should be able to see a button like this:
- Fill up the form accordingly:
Set the status of Lead Source to "Active" if it is going to be used directly into Client Profiles
- The ID should align to any external marketing system you may use such as HubSpot so it flows through when the integration is turned on. However if you do not use these third party systems it can be any distinguishable variable to be used in your reporting.
- In order to add Mediums, you may follow the above steps in "How to add Mediums to a Lead Source"
- Click on the "Save" button in order to save your new Lead Source and its Mediums
Your new Lead Source along with its new mediums should now show in the list after saving.
You may now use it as a Lead Source for new / existing Client Profiles.
How to associate Lead Sources & Mediums to Client Profiles
Assuming you have followed the above steps and created your Lead Sources & Mediums, you may follow the following steps in order to associate them into your respective Client Profiles
- Go to your list of Clients on the Carevision Portal
- Select a Client you want to associate the Lead Source & Medium to
- Click on the "Detailed Profile" tab
- On the lower right portion of the tab, you should be able to see "Lead Source Category" and "Medium" fields
You will see the same fields for creating new Client Profiles or Leads
- You may set it to the appropriate Lead Source you wish
- Click on the "Save Changes" at the bottom of the tab in order for your changes to take effect
How to view the Lead Sources/Medium Report
As of writing this article, the management portal is still subject to changes and reporting may be changed in the future
- Login using your Carevision Portal credentials
- Go to Reports
- Click on "Marketing"
- You'll be immediately redirected to the Lead Sources Report Page; otherwise, click on the dropdown on the upper portion of the page