The best way to capture UTM Parameters in Tally Forms
Learn how to capture UTM parameters in Tally Forms so you can see exactly which marketing campaigns are driving your leads, customers & revenue.
Capturing UTM parameters in Tally Forms is straightforward with Attributer. You add a few hidden fields to your forms, Attributer automatically populates them with the UTM data each time someone fills out a form, and the values come through with each form submission. As a bonus, it also captures attribution data for leads from organic channels like Organic Search and Organic Social, where UTM parameters aren't present.
Do you know which marketing channels and campaigns are actually generating the leads and customers for your business?
If you don't, you're likely investing in the wrong things and missing easy opportunities to grow.
The good news? There's a solution. By capturing UTM parameters in your Tally Forms and passing them into your CRM with each new lead, you can run reports that show exactly which channels, campaigns, and ads are driving real leads and customers (not just clicks).
In this article, we'll show you how to use Attributer to capture UTM parameters in Tally Forms. We'll also share some example reports you can run once it's all set up.
4 steps for capturing UTM parameters in Tally Forms
Attributer makes it easy to capture UTM parameters in Tally Forms. Here's how to set it up in 4 simple steps:
1. Add the Attributer code to your website
The first step is to sign up for a 14-day free trial of Attributer. Once you do, you'll get a small snippet of code to add to your website (the same site where your Tally forms are embedded).
How you install the code depends on what platform your site is built on.
If you're on WordPress, you can typically add it through your theme's settings panel or with a plugin like Insert Headers and Footers Code.
On Webflow, Squarespace, and most other website builders, there's usually a "custom code" or "header/footer scripts" section in the site settings.
If you're using Google Tag Manager, you can also add it through there.
2. Add hidden fields to your forms
Next, you need to add some hidden fields to your Tally forms. These hidden fields aren't visible to your visitors, but Attributer uses them to write the UTM data into when a form is submitted.
Tally makes it easy to add hidden fields. While editing a form, just type "/hidden" and select "Hidden Field" from the menu that appears.
The six hidden fields you need to add to your forms are:
- Channel
- Channel Drilldown 1
- Channel Drilldown 2
- Channel Drilldown 3
- Landing Page
- Landing Page Group
3. Attributer automatically completes the hidden fields with UTM data
With everything in place, Attributer will start tracking where each visitor on your website came from and writing that information into the hidden fields on your Tally forms.
To make this concrete, imagine you're the marketing manager at a mortgage broker firm. You're running Google Ads to bring in first-home buyers who are shopping for the best mortgage rates.
If a potential client searches Google for "first home buyer mortgage rates", clicks one of your ads, and fills out the rate-quote form on your website, Attributer would write the following details into the hidden fields:
- Channel = Paid Search
- Channel Drilldown 1 = Google
- Channel Drilldown 2 = First Home Buyer Campaign
- Channel Drilldown 3 = Best Mortgage Rates Sydney
On top of that, Attributer also captures the visitor's first landing page and the landing page group:
- Landing Page = www.yourmortgagefirm.com/first-home-buyers/get-a-rate
- Landing Page Group = /first-home-buyers
4. UTM parameters are captured by Tally Forms
Finally, when the visitor submits the form, the UTM data Attributer wrote into the hidden fields is captured by Tally Forms alongside the lead's name, email, phone number, and any other details they entered.
From there, you can do a few different things with the data:
- See it inside Tally in the responses view for each form submission
- Include it in the new-lead notification emails Tally sends, so you instantly see where each lead came from
- Use Tally's native integrations or webhooks to send the data to Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, or others
- Use Zapier or Make to push the data into a spreadsheet, your email marketing platform, or any other tool
What is Attributer?
Essentially, Attributer is a small piece of code that lives on your website. When a visitor lands on your site, it analyses some technical details (similar to what Google Analytics looks at) to determine where they came from.
Based on that data, Attributer categorises each visitor into a series of channels (like Paid Search, Organic Search, Paid Social, etc.) and stores the information as a cookie in their browser.
Then, when that visitor fills out one of your Tally forms, Attributer automatically writes the channel data into the hidden fields. So when Tally captures the submission, the attribution information comes through alongside the lead's name, email, and any other details.
Attributer was originally built by a B2B marketing consultant who saw his clients constantly struggling to figure out which channels were actually generating leads and customers (as opposed to just driving website visitors, which Google Analytics already shows).
Why using Attributer is the best way to capture UTM parameters in Tally Forms
There are other tools out there that can capture raw UTM parameters and pass them into Tally Forms. So why use Attributer?
The short answer is that it does a lot more than just capture raw UTM parameters. Let's take a closer look at the four key things that set it apart:
1. It captures all lead sources
Attributer captures attribution data for every lead that completes a form on your website, not just the ones from your paid advertising campaigns.
That means if a visitor arrives on your site via Organic Search, Organic Social, Direct, Referral, or any other channel where UTM parameters aren't present, Attributer will still capture and pass through information about where they came from.
So you'll know where every lead comes from, not just the ones from your paid campaigns.
2. Remembers the data as visitors browse your site
Most other methods for capturing UTM parameters only work if the visitor fills out a form on the same page they originally landed on. That's a problem, because in the real world that's rarely how people behave.
Imagine someone clicks one of your Google Ads and lands on your homepage. Once they've decided you might be a good fit, they navigate over to your Contact page to fill out a form there. Because the Contact page wasn't the page they landed on, the UTM parameters from the ad would be lost.
Attributer solves this by storing the UTM parameters in the visitor's browser as soon as they land on your site. So no matter how many pages they browse (or even if they leave and come back later), the original UTM data still gets passed through when they eventually submit a form.
3. Captures Click ID's
In addition to UTM parameters, Attributer also captures the click IDs that ad platforms attach to each visit. Things like the Google Click ID (GCLID), the Microsoft Click ID (MSCLKID), and the Facebook Click ID (FBCLID).
Once those click IDs are flowing into your CRM, you can send them back to the ad platform at key moments in your sales pipeline (like when a lead becomes a paying customer). The ad platform then sees the conversion against the original click and can optimise toward generating more of those.
This is far more useful than just tracking thank-you-page visits as conversions, because you're optimizing toward actual paying customers rather than form submissions that might never convert.
4. Captures landing page data as well
Beyond channel data, Attributer also captures the specific landing page each visitor first arrived on, plus the landing page group (the subdirectory).
For example, if a visitor lands on yoursite.com/blog/best-mortgage-tips, Attributer would capture both the full URL and the landing page group (/blog).
This means you can run reports that show exactly which sections of your site (and even which individual blog posts) are driving leads and customers. Useful when you're trying to figure out what content is worth doubling down on.
4 example reports you can run when you capture UTM parameters in Tally Forms
With Attributer capturing UTM parameters in your Tally Forms and passing them into your CRM, you can run reports like the ones below to understand what's actually driving leads and revenue:
1. Leads by Channel
Because Attributer captures attribution data for every lead (not just those from paid campaigns), you can run reports that break down how many leads you got each month by channel.
This gives you a clear view of where your leads are actually coming from. It also helps you spot which channels are worth investing more in vs. which ones are underperforming.
2. Leads by Facebook Ads Network
If you're running ads across Meta's various networks (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, etc.), this report helps you see which network is generating the most leads.
That visibility lets you fine-tune your ad spend, putting more budget into the networks that are working and pulling back from the ones that aren't.
3. Customers by Google Ads campaign
This report shows how many actual paying customers you're acquiring each month from each of your Google Ads campaigns.
It's a powerful one because it goes beyond just measuring clicks or form fills. It tells you which campaigns are bringing in customers who actually convert, so you can shift budget into what's truly working.
4. Revenue by Keyword
If you include the keyword in the UTM parameters of your Google Ads (which you can easily do with tracking templates), you can run a report showing exactly how much revenue each keyword has generated.
That's useful in two ways. It tells you which keywords are worth bidding higher on in Google Ads, and it gives you a strong signal for which keywords to prioritise in your SEO efforts too.
How Harris Federal Law uses Attributer to know which Google Ads are actually winning new clients
Harris Federal Law Firm is a Washington D.C. legal practice that helps federal employees secure their benefits.
They were running Google Ads to attract new clients and could see how many website visitors each campaign was generating in Google Analytics, but they had no way to tell how many of those visitors actually became paying clients.
That changed when they installed Attributer.
Now, whenever someone fills out a form on their website, Attributer writes all the campaign details (like campaign name, ad group, ad, and search term) into hidden fields, and that data is sent to their CRM with each new lead.
With this data in their CRM, they were able to run reports that showed them how each of their campaigns was performing when it comes to the metric that matters: new clients.
They quickly discovered that some of their display campaigns were generating lots of website visitors but very few paying clients.
With that insight, they shifted budget into the search campaigns that were performing best. The result was more clients, better use of their ad spend, and confidence that every dollar was going to work in the right place.
"With Attributer we can see which campaigns are actually generating customers & revenue, rather than just website visitors. We were able to see that some of our campaigns were driving lots of visitors but few of them converted into leads and customers. Now we’re able to reinvest that budget into other campaigns that we can see are generating revenue."
Nick Child - Director of Marketing, Harris Federal Law Firm
Wrap up
If you've been wanting to know which marketing channels and campaigns are actually generating leads and customers for your business, capturing UTM parameters in Tally Forms with Attributer is a great way to do it.
It will pass the UTM data from your campaigns into Tally (and on to your CRM, email tools, and more) so you can run reports that show what's truly working. As a bonus, it also captures attribution data for leads coming from organic channels like Organic Search and Organic Social, where UTM parameters aren't present.
Best of all, it's free to get started, and setup usually takes less than 10 minutes.
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About the Author
Aaron Beashel is the founder of Attributer and has over 15 years of experience in marketing & analytics. He is a recognized expert in the subject and has written articles for leading websites such as Hubspot, Zapier, Search Engine Journal, Buffer, Unbounce & more. Learn more about Aaron here.