I need help troubleshooting my hidden fields (utm_campaign) and AdWords

Max Classic
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1

Hi,

I came aboard a project after all the forms have been created here, and the Google AdWords created. The problem is none of the potential custom url parameters are setup properly, so my boss has little to no data telling her which AdWords campaigns are leading to which form submissions on the site. I am trying to fix this.

Some background…
Our forms from here are added via HTML code. I have added hidden fields for this purpose by

  • creating the custom hidden fields via admin > settings > “Setup custom field for”
  • made one called “utm_campaign”
  • went into one of the web forms, inside of its campaign,
  • added a hidden field
  • chose the field i had created
  • republished the campaign
  • inspected one of the pages with that form to see the hidden field (see: https://snipboard.io/FCq043.jpg )

If i understand correctly, if the url has that custom parameter like https://extraordinaryjourneys.com/?utm_campaign=Luxury_African_Safari then that field should be populated by that url parameter, right?

In this case I am testing simply by pasting in that url which goes to the homepage, which has the form, which has the field, and it does not get any value. Am i missing something?

I understand that the custom parameter is set inside the campaign or the group in AdWords which points to the page with the form with the field, but i am testing manually first, before I go in changing in AdWords. The browser itself nor the form as far as i know don’t know the difference, they only know the url.

So, can you help me see why my hidden field is not getting populated from the custom url parameter?

1 Like
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did you ever get this to work? this is exactly what I’m trying to do and wondering if the steps you outlined worked, and/or if additional changes had to be made. @Elizabeth_Gordon ?

3

You are correct that if you have UTM parameters in the URL and a hidden field set up to capture them, it should work. However, there are a few common issues that could be causing this problem.

First, most form tools (including yours) only capture UTM parameters if the user completes the form on the exact same page they initially land on. If someone clicks your ad and lands on the homepage with UTMs, but then navigates to another page before submitting the form, the UTMs will be lost from the URL and won’t be captured.

Second, I can’t tell from your screenshot exactly how the hidden field is configured, but you need to make sure it’s actually pulling the UTM parameter from the URL rather than just being a static hidden field.

If you want to test this properly, try landing on the page with UTMs in the URL and immediately submitting the form without navigating anywhere else. If that works but normal user behavior doesn’t, then you’ve confirmed the issue is UTM persistence.

The solution is to store the UTM parameters when the visitor first arrives (usually in a first-party cookie) and then write them into hidden fields when they eventually submit a form, regardless of which page they’re on. You could write custom JavaScript to handle this, or there are tools like Attributer.io that can handle it automatically. They’ll capture the UTMs when someone lands on your site, store them as they browse around, and then pass them through with each form submission.

As a bonus, tools like this also capture data on leads that come from organic channels (Organic Search, Organic Social, Direct, etc.) where UTM parameters aren’t present, plus click IDs like the GCLID from Google Ads.

You could certainly try to bridge this with custom code, but maintaining that script across different browsers and ensuring it works as your site evolves can be quite time-consuming.