Lead source

A lead source is the answer to "how did this person hear about us?" Google, a referral, a yard sign, a repeat customer, a local services ad, a truck magnet, a neighborhood group. It is a field on the lead, chosen when the lead is created, not reconstructed at the end of the month from memory.

Sources are how a small company decides where to spend attention. If referrals close and the paid listing only creates tire-kickers, the next dollar and the next hour should follow the referrals. If you never write the source down, every channel feels productive because you remember the wins. The losses were "the phone," which is not a source. The phone is the pipe. The source is what filled it.

Ask once, early, in the owner's words: "How did you find us?" Put the answer on the record before the conversation moves to the job. A form can ask the same question with a short list plus "someone referred me." Do not offer twelve options. People pick the first one, and your data becomes fiction. Five real sources you actually use are enough.

Review the list monthly, not daily. Daily numbers jump around and tempt you to kill a channel after a quiet Tuesday. Over a month you can see which sources become estimates and which become nothing. That view only exists if the source was captured on the day. Puffly stores it on the lead, next to the task and the stage.

Do not confuse source with campaign trivia. The owner needs "Google" or "referral from Dana," not a string of tracking codes. If a marketer needs the codes, they can live alongside the plain name. The person calling back should see the plain name.