How to track lead source in Salesforce

Salesforce is the system of record for most B2B sales teams, but Salesforce’s native attribution stops at a single LeadSource field with no multi-touch model and no historical journey. SourceLoop adds: first-touch and last-touch source on every Lead and Contact, the full UTM trail, the visitor’s pre-conversion journey, and multi-touch attribution models that respect Salesforce’s Lead → Contact → Opportunity flow.

This article covers the OAuth connect flow only. After connecting, see:

• Push UTMs and lead source to Salesforce fields
• Map SourceLoop stages to Salesforce Lead Status

Why connect Salesforce to SourceLoop?

Salesforce ships with one LeadSource field per Lead. SourceLoop adds:

• First-touch source / medium / campaign as separate fields, so you know the original channel even after multiple touchpoints
• Last-touch (converting session) source / medium / campaign as separate fields
• Full UTM trail with content and term, not just source and medium
• Visitor journey (every page browsed pre-conversion) viewable on the Lead / Contact record
• Multi-touch attribution models (first, last, linear, position-based, time-decay)
• Revenue-by-channel when payment integrations are connected, attributed back to the original Lead

All of this sits on standard Salesforce records, so it shows up in Salesforce reports, Lightning record pages, and any workflow / process you build against it.

Before you start

You’ll need:

• A SourceLoop workspace with the tracking pixel installed
• A Salesforce org (Sales Cloud or Service Cloud; any edition)
• A Salesforce user with System Administrator profile, or Modify All Data + API Enabled permissions, to run the OAuth connect
• Admin or Owner role in SourceLoop

Step 1: Open the CRM integrations page

1. Sign in to SourceLoop.
2. Click Setup in the left sidebar.

3. Click the CRM tab inside Setup.

4. Scroll to the Salesforce card.

Step 2: Pick sandbox or production

1. On the Salesforce card, toggle Sandbox ON if you want to connect to your sandbox org first (recommended for first-time setups).
2. Leave it OFF to connect to production.
3. Click Connect.

You’ll be redirected to Salesforce’s OAuth consent screen, either login.salesforce.com (production) or test.salesforce.com (sandbox).

Step 3: Authorise SourceLoop on Salesforce

1. Sign in to Salesforce if you aren’t already.
2. Pick the org you want to connect (if you have multiple Salesforce users).
3. Review the scopes SourceLoop is requesting (API access, refresh_token, offline_access).
4. Click Allow.

Salesforce redirects you back to SourceLoop. The connection card flips to Connected and shows your Salesforce instance URL (e.g., acme.my.salesforce.com).

Step 4: Enable sync direction

After connecting, the Salesforce drawer opens with sync settings:

1. Inbound sync (Salesforce → SourceLoop): pulls Leads, Contacts, Accounts, and Opportunities into SourceLoop so dashboards reflect your real pipeline.
2. Outbound sync (SourceLoop → Salesforce): pushes UTM, source, and journey data from SourceLoop into Salesforce fields on Lead and Contact records.

Most teams enable both. Click Save to start the first sync.

Step 5: Wait for the initial sync

The initial sync pulls Salesforce records into SourceLoop. Duration depends on volume:

• Small org (under 10k Leads + Contacts): under 5 minutes
• Mid-size (10k-100k): 10-30 minutes
• Large org (100k+): up to a few hours

The sync runs server-side, you don’t need to keep SourceLoop open. Watch the Last sync timestamp on the Salesforce card.

After the initial run, deltas sync every 15 minutes automatically.

What gets written to Salesforce

Out of the box, SourceLoop creates and writes to these custom fields on the Lead object (and mirrored on Contact via Salesforce’s lead-conversion mapping):

• sourceloop_first_source__c, sourceloop_first_medium__c, sourceloop_first_campaign__c, etc.
• sourceloop_latest_source__c, sourceloop_latest_medium__c, sourceloop_latest_campaign__c, etc.
• sourceloop_first_landing_page__c, sourceloop_latest_landing_page__c
• sourceloop_id__c — internal link (don’t delete)

These fields are created automatically on first sync, you don’t need to pre-create them in Salesforce.

For mapping to your own existing custom fields (or to standard fields like LeadSource), see Push UTMs and lead source to Salesforce fields.

What’s next

• Field mapping — by default SourceLoop maps to its own sourceloop_* fields. To map to your existing fields or push to specific custom objects, see Push UTMs to Salesforce.
• Lead Status mapping — translate SourceLoop’s internal lifecycle stages to Salesforce’s Lead Status picklist values. See Map SourceLoop stages to Salesforce Lead Status.
• Troubleshooting — if a sync looks stuck or fields aren’t writing, see Troubleshoot Salesforce sync issues.