How to easily track Instagram Ads in Close CRM

Want to track how many leads you're getting from your Instagram Ads? Read on to learn how to do it with Attributer and Close in 4 easy steps.

While Google Analytics and tools like it are good for showing you how many visitors you receive from your campaigns, what they don’t show you is how many leads or customers you’re really getting.

If you want to actually track the ROI of your Instagram Ads (or other marketing activities), then you need track how many leads and customers you're getting from them (not just how many website visitors you get).
In this article, we'll show you how to use a tool called Attributer to track how many leads and customers you get from your Instagram Ads.

4 steps to track leads from Instagram Ads in Close CRM

Tracking the number of leads and customers you get from Instagram Ads in Close is really easy. Just follow these 4 steps:

1. Add UTM parameters to your Instagram Ads

Start by adding UTM parameters to your Instagram Ads.

UTM parameters are simply extra bits of text that you add to the end of the URL you are sending people to from your campaigns.

So if the page you are sending someone to is attributer.io/integrations/close then your final URL (with UTM parameters) would look something like this:

attributer.io/integrations/close-crm?utm_medium=paidsocial&utm_source=instagram&utm_campaign=brand-campaign

While you can structure UTM parameters however you wish, the general accepted best practice for Instagram Ads is as follows:

UTM Medium = Paid social
UTM Source = Instagram
UTM Campaign = The name of your campaign
UTM Term = The name of the ad set the ad belongs to
UTM Content = The specific ad

Tagging your URLs with UTM parameters is easy and there are plenty of free tools available on the web which can help you create them.

2. Install Attributer and add some hidden fields

Next up, you need to install Attributer on your site.

After you sign up for a free 14-day trial, we'll give you a small piece of code to add to your website (instructions on how to add it can be found here).

Once the code has been installed, you need to add a few hidden fields to the forms you have on your website. These fields are:

Channel
Channel Drilldown 1
Channel Drilldown 2
Channel Drilldown 3
Channel Drilldown 4

Attributer works with dozens of form builders (including Gravity Forms, Webflow Forms, Typeform and many more). Adding hidden fields to forms is a straightforward process and you can find step-by-step instructions for dozens of form builders here.

3. Attributer writes Instagram Ads data into hidden fields

Once Attributer is up and running it will start tracking where your website visitors are coming from (including those from your Instagram Ads).

It will then categorise each visitor into a series of channels (like Paid Social, Paid Search, Organic Search, etc) and store the information in a cookie in the visitor's browser.

After that, when a visitor completes a form on your website Attributer will include the information on where they came from in the hidden fields.

4. Instagram Ads data is captured in Close CRM

The last piece of the puzzle is when a visitor submits a form on your website, the lead source data is captured by your form tool alongside the lead's name, email, etc. and all of this data can be sent to Close.

Once the data is in Close, you can use it to:

Run reports - You can use it to run reports that show how many leads you've received from your Instagram Ads, how many have converted to customers, how much revenue you've generated, etc.
Customize your follow-up communications - Use the data to tailor your outreach to the new lead. As an example, if they came from an Instagram ad that promotes a specific product or service, you can mention that directly in your sales follow-up calls or emails.

What data gets captured in Close CRM?

With each form submission, Attributer will pass through the following information:

1. Marketing channel data

Attributer will send through information about where the lead came from.

As an example, imagine you're a marketer at a financial services firm and you're running Instagram ads to promote your financial advisory services.

If someone clicked on one of your ads and submitted a form on your site, the following information would get passed through (depending on what UTM parameters you placed behind your ads):

Channel: Paid Social
Channel Drilldown 1: Instagram
Channel Drilldown 2: Aluminium windows Campaign (or the specific campaign name)
Channel Drilldown 3: Residential Ad (or whatever ad creative they clicked on)

2. Landing page data

Additionally, Attributer sends the initial landing page (e.g., bestheadphones.com/blog/noise-types) and the landing page group (e.g., /blog).

This means you can see how many leads you're generating from various types of content on your site (like your blog for instance) as well as hone into which blog posts are generating the most leads.

Why use Attributer?

Attributer is a snippet of code that you place on your company's website.

When a visitor arrives on your site, Attributer looks at how they got there and categorizes them into a standardized set of marketing channels (I.e. Paid Social, Paid Search, Organic Search, etc) and saves the data to a cookie in the user's browser.

When the site visitor submits a form on your website, Attributer sends the marketing attribution information into the hidden fields added to your forms and the data flows into whatever backend tools you have connected to your forms, such as your CRM, email marketing tool, billing platform, analytics tools, etc.

There are several reasons why Attributer is the best way to track your Instagram Ads in Close:

Captures other attribution information - Attributer also captures information on the leads who arrive on your site through channels like Organic Search, Organic Social, Referral, or Direct. This means you can see where ALL your leads and customers are coming from, not just those from your Instagram Ads.
Remembers the data - While other tools capture landing page information, Attributer stores the UTM parameters in a cookie in the user’s browser, meaning that regardless of what page the user completes a form on, the UTM parameters will always be passed through and you’ll have more accurate data on how many leads and customers you’re receiving from your Instagram Ads.
Cleans the data - Attributer was built to expect inconsistencies in UTM usage. As an example you might have utm_source=instagram in some campaigns and utm_source=instagram.com in others. Attributer can assign these leads to the correct channel (Paid Social in this case) regardless of these inconsistencies, meaning you have more accurate data to make better marketing decisions with.

3 example reports you can run when you send Instagram Ads data to Close CRM

Before launching Attributer, I led marketing and analytics teams at a variety of companies for more than 15 years.

Over the years, I've probably spent over $1 million in ads on Instagram and other social networks and run hundreds of reports to understand which campaigns were working best.

Here are a few of the reports I found most useful:

1. Leads by channel

The above chart shows the number of leads you receive each month categorized by the channel they came from.

It’s a great way to see where your leads are coming from - albeit at a high level - and helps you to understand where you should focus your marketing activities to generate growth.

For example, if you see that a good chunk of your leads are generated by Organic Search (like in the graph above) but you're spending most of your marketing budget on Instagram Ads, then it might be time to rethink that strategy.

2. Leads by network

If you're running Instagram Ads, then chances are you're also advertising on Facebook and the other networks too.

If that's the case, then this report can help as it shows how many customers you get from your ads on each network and can help you understand where to focus your budget to get the best ROI.

3. Leads by campaign

This chart shows how much revenue has been generated by the various campaigns you have running on Instagram.

It helps you better understand which of your campaigns are generating positive ROI and which ones you should be investing more marketing budget into.

Wrap up

If you've been looking for a way to track the number of leads, customers and revenue you receive from your Instagram Ads, then Attributer is a great solution.

It enables you to see the exact source of every lead, right down to the specific campaign, ad set, or ad they clicked.

Best of all, it's free to get started and only takes about 10 minutes to set up. So start a free 14-day trial of Attributer today to see how it can help you!

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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.