Best method to track leads - unique form or tracking URL?

What's the cleanest way to track form entries back to their source?

[Opie1Canopie]

What is the best methodology to use when tracking form leads back to their source? For example, is it best to provide a unique form template based on the user's source or is it best to pass a parameter in the tracking URL (source=xyz) and somehow capture that information in the database.

If this has been discussed previously, please point me to the thread as I couldn't see anything upon searching...

Thank you.

[Receptional]

Both imho.

When a user first arrives, you should record the whole URL, and I then include the whole URL as a hidden field on forms, so that whatever changes in the future, the person with the lead can work out where it came from. But the "source=" is very good for working out larger volumes of campaign data as this will be a unique string that is easy to isolate.

[eWhisper]

[webmasterworld.com...] is a great w/ other links thread on the subject.

[cfx211]

If you can build out a sytem that records the obj_create_date, inital_url, and referring_url of every session in one database table, and then also record that session value when the form gets submitted then you have your problem solved.

Ideally you issue both a user cookie and a session cookie. If you do that, then also record the obj_create_date, initial, url and referring url when you first issue the user cookie. Make sure there is a foreign key on your session cookie table to your user cookie. With that in hand you can see if it took a user multiple visits to get around to submitting the form, and if they did you can select their min session visit date to figure out where they originally came from.