Reading HubSpot’s Original Source drill-downs.
Original Source has two sub-properties, Drill-Down 1 and Drill-Down 2, that add detail under the source channel. Here is how to surface them, what they show for each channel, and where they still leave you guessing.
Two properties that sit under Original Source.
Original Source Drill-Down 1 and Original Source Drill-Down 2 are default HubSpot contact properties. They store the extra detail HubSpot could parse about the first-touch channel. What they contain depends on the channel and on how cleanly your tracking URLs were tagged when the contact first arrived. New to the parent property? Start with what HubSpot Original Source is.
Think of them as a second and third column of context: the channel, then a narrower detail, then a narrower one again where it exists.
The detail varies by source.
The drill-downs hold different things depending on the channel. These are the common patterns; the exact value depends on what HubSpot could read from the visit.
Useful for narrowing a channel. Still not the campaign name in plain language, the landing page, or the page journey.
Three places to put them to work.
The drill-down properties exist on every contact. You just have to display them. There is no special setup, only choosing where to show them.
Add them as columns to a contact list
Edit the columns on a contact list view and add Original Source Drill-Down 1 and Drill-Down 2 next to Original Source. Now the channel and its detail sit side by side for every contact.
Filter a list or active list by them
Build a list filtered on Original Source plus a Drill-Down value, for example Organic Search where Drill-Down 1 is google, to separate one engine or referring domain from the rest.
Break a report down by them
In a contacts report, group or break down by the Drill-Down property to see how each sub-source contributes, rather than stopping at the top-level channel.
A narrower channel is still a channel.
Knowing the visit came from google organic is better than knowing it came from search. It still is not the answer to which page earned the lead or which campaign paid for it.
- No campaign name in plain language, only the engine or domain
- No landing page, so you cannot see where the channel handed off to your site
- No page journey, so the page that actually converted them is invisible
Read the drill-downs. Then capture what they miss.
Keep using Drill-Down 1 and 2 for channel detail. Lead Source adds the rest: one line of JavaScript captures the real source, campaign, landing page and full page journey on every form submission and writes it to a custom HubSpot property, next to Original Source and its drill-downs.
For the full HubSpot setup, see HubSpot lead source tracking. For worked examples, see lead source examples.
Questions, answered.
What are Original Source Drill-Down 1 and Drill-Down 2?
They are default HubSpot contact properties that store extra detail under the Original Source channel. Drill-Down 1 usually holds a narrower detail such as the search engine or referring domain; Drill-Down 2 adds a further level where HubSpot could parse it.
Why is my Original Source Drill-Down 2 blank?
HubSpot only fills the drill-downs with detail it could read from the visit. For many channels there is nothing more to add beyond Drill-Down 1, so Drill-Down 2 stays empty. That is normal and does not mean tracking is broken.
Can the drill-downs show the campaign or landing page?
No. The drill-downs narrow the channel to a search engine or referring domain, but they do not record the campaign name in plain language, the landing page the contact arrived on, or the pages they read before converting. Lead Source captures those into a custom HubSpot property alongside them.
Read the drill-downs. Capture what they miss.
One line of code captures the campaign, landing page, and journey, next to Original Source.
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