This client was replacing an ageing website and wanted, for the first time, to know where their enquiries were coming from. We delivered the website and the measurement as a single project, so the tracking was designed alongside the pages. From the day the site went live, the client could see which marketing activity produced each enquiry, and which of those enquiries their sales team went on to qualify.
Background
Enquiries were arriving through three routes: the website form, the phone and direct email. Each was counted by a different system, and no single total was authoritative.
The previous tracking had been added to gradually over several years by several different people, and there was no written record of what any of it was meant to represent. Without that record, there is no way to tell a deliberate setting from something left over.
The question the client wanted answered was straightforward to ask and, at that point, impossible to answer: which marketing activity produces enquiries that turn into clients.
The problem
Three enquiry routes, counted three ways
Form, phone and email enquiries each landed somewhere different and were counted differently, so no total could be trusted.
Nobody could say what the existing tracking meant
It had grown over several years and several owners, and none of it was documented.
Sales and marketing used different words for the same thing
Sales tracked qualification stages. Marketing tracked form submissions. Nothing joined the two, so marketing could report how many enquiries arrived but not how good they were.
The launch date was fixed
It was set around a commercial commitment, so any plan that pushed measurement into a later phase risked missing the comparison window entirely.
Constraints we worked within
The launch date could not move
It was tied to a commitment the client had already made.
The CRM stayed as it was
The work had to fit the existing setup rather than replace it.
The sales team's process could not change
Anything connecting marketing and sales had to fit how they already worked.
One supplier
Everything built had to be maintainable afterwards without specialist knowledge.
Approach, and the usual sequence we did not follow
The usual sequence is to launch the site, let it settle, then treat measurement as a second project. It is easier to plan and easier to price, and it makes sense when the two are being done by different suppliers.
We ran them as one project instead, for two reasons. The tracking can be built into the pages rather than added on top, which keeps it working when pages change later. And the period around a launch is the most useful measurement window there is: comparing before and after only works if both sides were measured the same way, and a second project cannot go back and measure a period that has already passed.
What we built
Step 01
Agree what counts as an enquiry, before writing any code
A working session with the sales and marketing teams together, before implementation, to agree what the business considers a result. Not which technical event fires, but what actually counts. That produced one definition, written down, that both sides signed off.
Step 02
Treat the event list as part of the build
The list of events was written first, kept alongside the application code, and reviewed like any other part of it. Events that were not on the list did not go into the build.
Step 03
Make each page state what it records
Every page that mattered for measurement declared what it recorded as part of its own definition, so a change to a page shows its effect on the reporting at review time, while the change is being made.
Step 04
Connect the website to the CRM
Each enquiry is given a reference number when it is submitted, passed to the CRM with the record, and sent back when the sales team qualifies it. That closes the loop, so marketing can see which campaigns produced qualified enquiries rather than which produced the most form submissions.
Step 05
Run both measurement setups across the switchover
The old and new tracking ran side by side across the launch, so the before and after periods were measured the same way and any difference between them could be explained rather than guessed at.
How an enquiry is followed through
- Each page states what it records, as part of its own definition.
- An enquiry reference number travels to the CRM with the record, and the qualification status comes back against the same number.
- Qualified enquiries, rather than raw form submissions, are what the ad accounts are set to optimise toward.
Results
- From launch day, the client could see which marketing activity produced each enquiry.
- One definition of an enquiry, shared by the website, the CRM and the ad accounts.
- Qualified enquiries became what the ad campaigns optimised toward, in place of raw form submissions.
- The event list is kept with the code, so a change to a page shows its effect on reporting while the change is being made.
What marketing could report, before
- Form submissions, counted on the website
- Three enquiry routes, counted separately
- How many enquiries, but not how good they were
What marketing can report, after
- Qualified enquiries, confirmed in the CRM
- One definition across website, CRM and ad accounts
- Which campaign produced which qualified enquiry
How this was assessed
These are structural results rather than performance figures. What this engagement produced was a measurement setup and a shared definition, both of which can be checked by inspection rather than expressed as a percentage. Anonymised documentation is available on request.
What we would do differently
We would bring the sales team into the first session on defining an enquiry, rather than after marketing had drafted a version. The draft shaped the discussion more than it needed to, and starting from a blank page with both teams present would have reached the same answer faster.
What this means for you
If you are planning a website rebuild, that is the least expensive point at which to fix measurement, and the two pieces of work cost less together than they do separately. If you have just finished a rebuild, the next best time is now, before a quarter of ad spend has been committed against numbers nobody has checked.
This was real client work. The client's name and identifying details are withheld under a confidentiality agreement. Anonymised reports and documentation are available on request.