I often get asked to ‘show the ROI’ of various marketing Campaigns in a Salesforce from an organization that, up to this point, hasn’t put in the rigor to actually track influence on Opportunities through their sales funnel. I’m going to detail here basic steps to implement now so that you start tracking the ROI of different programs in your Salesforce.

First, in your Salesforce go to Setup >> Campaign Influence Settings and make sure Campaign Influence is Enabled:

Just doing that is a great start. While you’re in Salesforce Setup, if you don’t already have this field add the field ‘Secondary Lead Source’ to the Lead and Contact objects – it can just be a 250 character free text field. Back on the Lead object at fields, go to Field Mappings and make sure to map Secondary Lead Source between Leads and Contacts. Every time you add or update a Lead in Salesforce, set the Secondary Lead Source to whatever source you’re using to touch the Lead (i.e. a new form fill might overwrite Secondary Lead Source with the name of the form, or a Conference List might get the name of the Conference). We have some of the basics in place now – a Secondary Lead Source field that we’ll use to write whatever the current touch point it, it’s mapped between Leads and Contacts and we have Campaign Influence on. Next, if you haven’t already, create basic Campaigns in Salesforce for your marketing activities – things like Website, Email Blast, Conference, List Import – whatever activities marketing has going on to drive Leads to Sales. Create a Flow on Leads to whenever the Secondary Lead Source on a Lead is changed, it checks the Secondary Lead Source and looks for a corresponding campaign – for example if Secondary Lead Source is a form name (‘Contact Us Form’) then look for the ‘Website’ or ‘Forms’ Campaign – if a corresponding Campaign is found, create a new Campaign Member to relate this Lead to the Campaign. The point of these changes is so that you have Campaigns that encompass all the ways marketing might drive Leads to sales – then, you use the Secondary Lead Source field on Leads to write that touch to the Lead – on the back-end the flow then uses the Secondary Lead Source value to attribute that touch to the Lead.

With the basics above in place, encourage sales to work exclusively from the Lead object until the Lead reaches a ‘conversion’ point – typically when a demo is booked. When that happens the sales rep should convert the Lead to a Contact and create an Opportunity at that time. Marketing uses the various campaigns to drive Leads to sales, sales works (ideally quality) Leads until they’re at a point of conversion – typically when a demo is set – and an Opportunity is created. From the Opportunity stage, the rep then works through the stages of the pipeline – if the demo occurs and is a good fit, the Opportunity is advanced, otherwise just close out the Opportunity.

What happens with all of these pieces above in place is this:

• Leads come in to Salesforce through various means and have a Lead Source a Secondary Lead Source and a Campaign Set.
• A Lead is typically touched more than just 1 time before it’s ready for sales – as these touches occur the Secondary Lead Source is updated and the Lead is related to additional campaigns. A Lead may come from a conference, then later fill out a form on a site – that’s 2 touches.
• The rep then converts the Lead to a Contact and creates on Opportunity on conversion. The Lead Source and Secondary Lead Source will transfer to the Contact (and Lead Source to Opportunity) – but what’s important is the Campaigns will also transfer.
• This ensures your Opportunities are related to original source and all of the various Campaign touch points that led to Opportunity creation.