Lead Sources and Attribution

Every lead in Rotor carries a source. This article covers where leads come from, how to set the source for each channel, how sources differ from tags, and how attribution flows through to reporting.

Written By Support Team

Last updated 4 days ago

Lead source answers one question: which channel produced this person? It's the field that lets you say "door-to-door brought us 40 leads last month, Meta brought us 90, and the door hangers brought us 12." Get it set correctly at the point of capture and the reporting takes care of itself. Get it wrong and every marketing decision you make afterward is a guess.

Lead source is required on every new lead and customer, so the only real question is whether it's accurate.

Set up your source list first

Sources are company-wide values you define once.

On desktop, go to Settings → Customization.
Find the Lead Sources section and add the channels you actually run — for example D2D, Meta Ads, Website Form, Door Hanger, Referral, Yard Sign, Google Ads.
Drag your most common source to the top of the list. The top source becomes the default on the Add Lead form, so if you're a knocking company, put D2D first.

Keep the list short. Ten clean sources you can act on beat forty overlapping ones. If you need finer detail than the channel — which specific offer, which specific door hanger batch — that's what tags are for. Full settings walkthrough: Customization.

Sources vs. tags — they are not the same thing

This trips people up constantly, especially on Meta leads, which get both.

	Lead source	Tags
How many per record	One	Many
Required	Yes, on every lead and customer	No
Answers	Which channel found them	Anything else you want to slice by
Typical values	D2D, Meta Ads, Website Form, Referral	Spring Promo, $100 Off Form, North Utah, Gutter Interest
Best used for	Channel-level ROI	Campaign audiences, automation triggers, segmentation

Rule of thumb: source is the channel, tag is the campaign, offer, or segment. A lead from your February Meta ad should have the source Meta Ads and the tags February Promo and $100 Off Form. More on tagging strategy in Tags, segments, and customer lists.

Where leads come from, and how to set the source for each

Channel	How the source gets set
Meta lead ads	Incoming leads default to a source of Meta Ads. To change it, go to Settings → Integrations, open the Meta connection, and pick a different source from your Customization list. Rotor also auto-tags each lead with the Meta form name and drops the remaining form answers into lead notes.
Web forms	In the form editor's Settings toggle, set a default lead source along with the initial stage and priority. You can also add a Source field ("How did you hear about us?") under the Fields toggle so the submitter picks it themselves — its options pull from your Customization list.
Door-to-door map pins	When a rep converts a pin into a lead or customer, or taps and holds to drop a new record, the source defaults to whatever sits at the top of your Customization list — so put `D2D` there.
Manual entry	The + New Lead form auto-fills the default source; change it with the Lead Source dropdown before saving.
Imports	Map a source column during the import mapping step, or set a fallback source at the bottom of the import screen so records missing the field still get one. Apply an import tag at the same time.
Rotor API and Zapier	Pass the source in the payload when you create the lead. This is how Google Ads leads and custom-branded forms get attributed — map a source field in your Zap so they don't all land under your default.

Setup detail for each channel lives in Meta, Web Forms, Importing Data, and the integrations Overview.

How attribution flows through to reporting

Source sticks to the record through conversion, which is what makes the whole chain work: ad click → lead → customer → signed plan → paid invoice.

Leads page. Switch to List View, click Filter, and narrow by Source. Select the results and click the download icon to export to CSV — that's your fastest source-by-source count.
Customers page. Filter by Source/Tags to see which channels are producing customers, not just leads. Compare the two counts and you have your close rate per channel.
Map. Filter pins and records by lead source to see where a channel is actually landing geographically — useful for deciding where to knock next.
Inbox. Build custom inboxes filtered by lead source so, for example, all Meta leads route to the rep who works paid traffic.
Meta analytics. Go to Analytics → Meta for cost per lead, conversions, and ROAS. Two things must be in place for the math to work: set your conversion criteria (click the gear on the Converted card and choose the pipeline stage that counts as a sale, e.g. Sold), and fill in Projected Value on leads so return on ad spend calculates automatically.

For measuring the revenue a specific promotion generated rather than a whole channel, see Campaign ROI tracking.

Habits that keep attribution honest

Give every printed asset its own source or tag. A QR code on a door hanger pointing at a dedicated form is the only reliable way to measure door hangers.
Never let reps leave the default source on a lead that came from somewhere else — one lazy dropdown makes D2D look better than it is.
Use a separate web form per channel instead of one form everywhere. Rotor tracks submissions per form, and forms are unlimited.
Fill in projected value consistently. Without it, you can count leads but you can't measure return.
Audit monthly: filter leads by each source and confirm the counts roughly match what the channel reports on its own.

Congratulations! Every lead entering Rotor can now be traced back to the channel that produced it, so you can spend your marketing budget on what's actually working.

Have additional questions? Our team is ready to help you succeed. Contact us through the chat or drop us an email at support@getrotor.com.