Field Type and Considerations
In Salesforce, you will use a native field, called Lead Source, which comes with out-of-the-box values that you can alter to fit the needs of your business. You can adjust these values at app.swantide.com/fields on the Leads object section.
Since Lead Source is a native field, its values are standardized across the standard objects Leads, Contacts, Accounts, and Opportunities (note: on the Account object, the field is called Account Source).
Data Conversion in Salesforce
If a Lead comes into Salesforce with a Lead Source value, when that Lead is converted, it will pull through the specified values to any net new converted records as well as a few other edge cases.
Accounts & Contacts
If a Lead with a Lead Source is converted to a net new Account and Contact, both will inherit the Lead Source from the Lead
If a Lead with a Lead Source is converted to an existing Account or Contact, by default it will not override the existing Lead Source unless the existing Records have blank Source values. In that case, it will populate over the null values to match what was on the Lead.
Opportunities
If your organization works Leads to Opportunities, if an Opportunity is created directly on Lead conversion, the Opportunity will automatically inherit that Lead Source.
The only other default way for an Opportunity to inherit a Source from a record is if you are creating the Opportunity directly from a Contact record. This will automatically add the Contact's Lead Source to the new Opportunity and if you are using Contact Roles, this will also automate the creation of the relationship between the Contact and the Opportunity (*this is how Swantide recommends creating Opportunities).
If you create an Opportunity from an Account - this will never populate the Lead Source on the Oppty by default
Swantide Workflow Solve: If your users create Opportunities from Accounts, we have a Swantide Workflow for "Associate Account or Contact Lead Source to Opportunity." What this Workflow will do, based on your needs, is either take the Accounts Lead Source (when available) and pull it to a newly created Opportunity or it can take the original Contact's Lead Source and pull it through the Opportunity.
Lead Source Values
Lead Sources oftentimes vary based on your organization, and can also be impacted by integrations (see Integrations and Campaigns info below).
At Swantide, we recommend using Lead Source as a high-level overview as to what Lead Source at the first touch. We find it best to track high-level so that reporting is more meaningful, rather than higher quantities of more granular values.
Additionally, we recommend that Lead Source represents the first interaction this record had with your company, so that you can track that attribution down the funnel.
When you first start out using Salesforce, Lead Source values often operate on their own, or in tandem with Swantide Workflows like Track UTM Values however, at some point when your Leads/Contacts are interacting with your company via multiple different channels - that's when it's time to start thinking about the granularity you can get from using an integration.
Integrations & Campaigns
As mentioned above, when you have Leads/Contacts interacting with your company in multiple avenues, this is a trigger for companies to integrate with a Marketing Automation tool (like HubSpot, Marketo, etc) to feed into Campaigns in Salesforce.
Once you start using Campaigns, you'll be able to see the full picture of not only the original Lead Source, but also every touch your team has thereafter (think email respondents, webinar attendees, etc). This helps teams solve for when there are more granular details behind sources as well. For example:
A Campaign could represent a specific Email push - like Swantide for Dog Lovers Email Campaign (it's just an example!!), so your selling team could see which email they interacted with - but the Lead Source value would still be mapped to a high-level value like "Email Marketing," for reporting and attribution.
If you're interested in how Swantide can help with your SFDC <> Marketing tool integration, including standing up the Campaign association, please reach out to your CSM or check out more info on our Marketing Package here.