Understanding 'Original Source'

What is 'Original Source'?

The 'Original Source' field tracks where your website visitors and leads come from, helping you understand which marketing channels are bringing people to your website.

Where to Find Original Source Information

You can view 'Original Source' data in:

• Your Chatsimple dashboard on the leads page

• New lead notification emails

• HubSpot or Zapier (if you've connected the integration)

'Original Source' Categories

Chatsimple identifies traffic sources in the following categories:

Source Category	Description
Organic Search	Visitors who found your site through unpaid search results (Google, Bing, etc.)
Paid Search	Visitors who clicked on your paid search ads
Email Marketing	Visitors who clicked links in your marketing emails
Organic Social	Visitors from social media platforms through unpaid posts
Paid Social	Visitors who clicked on your paid social media ads
Referrals	Visitors who came to your site by clicking links on other websites
Other Campaigns	Visitors from other marketing campaigns
Direct Traffic	Visitors who typed your URL directly or came from unknown sources

How Traffic Sources Are Classified

Chatsimple uses specific logic to determine which category a visitor belongs to:

Order	Rule	Source
1	The "utm_medium" parameter is "social" and the "utm_source" is exactly the name of a recognized social network. OR The "utm_medium" parameter is "social" and the referring domain is a social media site.	Organic social
2	The "source" parameter contains the word "adword", "ppc", or "cpc".	Paid search
3	The "gclid" parameter is present, and must be a valid Google click ID.	Paid search
4	The "utm_medium" parameter contains "paid," "ppc," or "cpc", and the "utm_source" parameter is exactly the name of a recognized social network. OR The "utm_medium" parameter contains "paid," "ppc," or "cpc", and the referring domain is a social media site. OR The "utm_source" or "utm_medium" contains "paidsocial".	Paid social
5	The "utm_source", "utm_medium", or "utm_campaign" parameter is present and the referring domain is google.com.	Paid search
6	The "utm_source", "utm_medium", or "utm_campaign" parameter is present and contains the word "adword," "ppc," or "cpc".	Paid search
7	The "utm_source", "utm_medium", "utm_campaign", or "source" parameter contains the word "email".	Email marketing
8	The "utm_source", "utm_medium", "utm_campaign", or "source" parameter is present and does not contain the word "email", "adword", "ppc", or "cpc".	Other campaigns
9	Referring domain is a social media site.	Organic social
10	Referring domain is a mail domain or RSS reader.	Direct traffic
11	Referring domain is a search engine.	Organic search
12	Referring domain is not a social media site or search engine.	Referral
13	No referring domain or tracking URL.	Direct traffic

Recognized Social Media Networks for Organic Social

Chatsimple recognizes the following social media networks for Organic Social source tracking:

• BlogCatalog

• Bluesky

• CoTweet

• Delicious

• Digg

• Facebook (also recognized as "fb")

• Fark

• Flickr

• FriendFeed

• Google+

• HackerNews

• HootSuite

• Instagram (also recognized as "ig")

• Knol

• LinkedIn

• links.hubspot.com

• LiveJournal

• Meebo

• Metacafe

• Mixx

• MyBlogLog

• MySpace

• Ning

• Orkut

• Pinterest

• Plurk

• Propeller

• Quora

• Qq (including traffic from subdomains: xw, mp, mail, and feeds of qq.com)

• Reddit

• Seesmic

• Slashdot

• Slide

• SlideShare

• Snapchat

• Sphinn

• StumbleUpon

• Squidoo

• Technorati

• TikTok

• Tip'd

• Triiibes

• Tumblr

• Twitch

• Vimeo

• WhatsApp

• Wikipedia

• X (formerly Twitter)

• Xing

• YouTube

• Zhihu

Recognized Social Media Networks for Paid Social

Chatsimple recognizes the following social media networks for Paid Social source tracking:

• BlogCatalog

• Bluesky

• CoTweet

• Delicious

• Digg

• Facebook (also recognized as "fb")

• Fark

• Flickr

• FriendFeed

• Google+

• HackerNews

• HootSuite

• Instagram (also recognized as "ig")

• Knol

• LinkedIn

• links.hubspot.com

• LiveJournal

• Meebo

• Metacafe

• Mixx

• MyBlogLog

• MySpace

• Ning

• Orkut

• Pinterest

• Plurk

• Propeller

• Quora

• Reddit

• Seesmic

• Slashdot

• Slide

• SlideShare

• Snapchat

• Sphinn

• StumbleUpon

• Squidoo

• Technorati

• TikTok

• Tip'd

• Triiibes

• Tumblr

• Twitch

• Vimeo

• WhatsApp

• Wikipedia

• X

• Xing

• YouTube