How to tell where your enquiries come from

You can ask people how they found you, and you can measure the links you control. These are two different kinds of evidence. Record both, keep them separate, and allow "don't know" as an answer.

This guide is for owners and office leads at small UK service businesses who can't say which sources lead to useful enquiries. It shows you how to add a few fields to the record you already keep, name your campaign links consistently, and look each month at which sources led to accepted work. It includes blank record sheets and a hypothetical worked example.

It won't give you exact attribution. People forget, links get shared, and some enquiries have more than one source. The aim is an honest picture that's good enough to make decisions with.

1. Channel isn't the same as source

Two questions are easy to mix up:

• Channel: how the person contacted you, such as your form, email, phone or a message.
• Source: how they found you in the first place, such as a search, a recommendation or a directory listing.

Someone might find you through a friend's recommendation, look at your website, and then phone. The channel is phone. The source is the recommendation.

If you already keep an enquiry record, it may well have a channel field so each enquiry gets handled. Our guide to managing customer enquiries covers that record. Don't start a second one. Add the source fields from section 7 to the record you already have.

2. Ask, and record the answer the same way every time

The simplest evidence is to ask: "How did you hear about us?" Then record the answer from a short, fixed list rather than as free text, so answers can be counted later. For example:

• search engine
• recommendation
• existing customer
• social media
• directory listing
• printed material
• event
• other (say what)
• unknown

Two answers make the record honest:

• Unknown. If the person doesn't remember or doesn't say, record "unknown". Don't guess.
• More than one. If they name two things, such as a social post and a friend's recommendation, record both and mark it as multiple.

Ask the same question on the phone, in emails and in person, not just on the form. If you add it to your website form, make it optional. Our guide on what to ask on an enquiry form covers how to word and label optional questions.

Record only the answer. You don't need extra personal details to know how someone found you.

3. Measure the links you control

For links you put out yourself, you can add labels that your analytics tool can read. These are called campaign links, or UTM links. They work for links in emails, social posts, directory listings and printed QR codes.

Google's guidance on campaign URL builders says that when you add these labels, you should always use three:

• utm_source: where the link appears, such as newsletter
• utm_medium: the type of link, such as email
• utm_campaign: the name of the campaign, such as spring-newsletter

The values are case sensitive. Google gives the example that utm_source=google and utm_source=Google are treated as different values, and suggests lowercase as standard practice. In Google Analytics, campaign data appears in the Acquisition > Traffic acquisition report.

A few rules keep the names usable:

• Lowercase only, with hyphens instead of spaces.
• One name per campaign, reused everywhere it appears.
• A short record of every link you create, so nobody invents a new spelling.
• No personal data in any value. Never put names, email addresses, phone numbers or customer references into a campaign link.

Campaign links only measure the links you tagged. If an enquiry has no campaign, that doesn't prove it came from somewhere offline. It only means no tagged link was involved, or none was recorded.

4. Analytics, cookies and campaign links: read the ICO's guidance

Analytics tools and campaign links can involve storing or reading information on a visitor's device. The ICO's guidance on storage and access technologies covers cookies and similar technologies, including link decoration. The ICO says it finalised this guidance in April 2026.

Its page on what storage and access technologies are describes link decoration as adding information to a link, with the example ?referrer_source=emailnewsletter. It says the rules apply where these techniques involve storing or accessing information on a device, and that the key consideration is the purpose.

There are exceptions, and each comes with conditions. This guide doesn't tell you whether your analytics set-up or your campaign links need consent or qualify for an exception. Read the current guidance, and get advice if you're unsure. Don't change your cookie banner based on this article.

5. When what they say and what you measured disagree

Sometimes the two kinds of evidence won't match. Someone might click a link in your newsletter and also say a friend recommended you. That can happen: people can come across a business more than once before getting in touch.

Keep both. Don't overwrite what the person said with what the link recorded, or the other way round. Over time, the gaps between them can tell you something too.

6. Look each month at which sources led to work

Enquiries are only part of the picture. Once a month, look at which sources led to accepted work, not just to enquiries. Count each enquiry once, by the outcome you know:

• Became accepted work: the customer agreed and you took the job on.
• Pending: no outcome yet.
• Didn't become work: declined, no reply or not a fit.

State how you counted. One simple basis: put each enquiry in one row only. Enquiries with more than one source go in a "multiple" row, with the sources noted, so the same enquiry isn't counted twice.

Keep the "unknown" row visible. If a lot of enquiries are unknown, the answer is to ask more consistently, not to guess.

Treat the numbers as a guide. A month of a small business's enquiries is a small sample, and one month's pattern may not repeat.

7. Use the record sheets

1. Add the source fields to your existing enquiry record.
2. Write your campaign links on the naming card before you use them.
3. Fill in the monthly review from the enquiry record, using the counting basis above.
4. Keep the counting basis the same each month, so months can be compared.

Hypothetical example

Hypothetical example only: an invented two-person garden design business and invented figures. It is not data, a finding or a ScalePass client result.

The newsletter link that E-03 clicked was recorded on a naming card before it was sent. None of the values contain personal data.

Each enquiry is counted once, so the rows add up to five. Two became work, one is pending and one source was unknown. E-03 shows the two kinds of evidence disagreeing in part: the link records the newsletter, while the person said social media and a recommendation. Both are kept. This illustrates the method; it isn't a finding.

Common questions

Do I need analytics to do this?

No. Asking "How did you hear about us?" and recording the answer works without any analytics. Campaign links add a second kind of evidence for the links you control.

What if people don't remember?

Record "unknown". It's an honest answer, and the number of unknowns tells you whether to ask more consistently.

What do I put if they name two things?

Record both, mark the enquiry as having more than one source, and count it once in the "multiple" row of your monthly review.

Should the form question be required?

An optional question lets people get in touch even if they don't remember how they found you. Our guide on enquiry form questions covers optional questions.

Do campaign links need consent?

This guide doesn't make a blanket claim either way. The ICO's guidance covers link decoration, and what applies depends on whether information is stored or accessed on a device and for what purpose. Read the current guidance, or get advice.

ScalePass helps service businesses connect the forms, inboxes and records they already use, so each enquiry is recorded once with the details that matter. If you'd like help adding source tracking to how you handle enquiries, see how we approach connected systems.

In short

Keep channel and source as separate fields. Ask how people found you, record the answer from a fixed list, and allow "unknown" and "more than one". Tag the links you control with three lowercase campaign labels, and never put personal data in them. Read the ICO's current guidance on storage and access technologies rather than assuming what applies. Each month, count each enquiry once and look at which sources led to accepted work.