List Upload Attribution

Overview

List uploads provide a crucial method for capturing Attribution data for offline interactions and events that occur outside your digital properties. While web forms track online engagement, list uploads ensure offline touchpoints are properly attributed, creating a complete picture of the customer journey. These lists are typically loaded in the Marketing Automation Platform, which handles Lead/Contact deduplication and sends the attribution info along with the other lead info to Salesforce.

This Doc Will Cover:

• When to Create Engagements from List Uploads

• Required Fields

• Example Format

• How Attribution Data Posts to Salesforce

• Activations vs. Influencing Engagements

• Verifying and Troubleshooting in Salesforce

• Fixing Mistakes

• Best Practices

When to Create Engagements from List Uploads

To maintain the value of the data in the system, it's critical to ensure that we only create Engagements for members of lists that represent a real, meaningful interaction by a prospect.

✅ Examples of list uploads that should create Engagements:

• Tradeshow booth visit

• Dinner attendance

• Webinar attendance

• Paid webinar attendance

• Content syndication downloads

❌ Examples of list uploads that should NOT create Engagements:

• List purchase

• List swap

• Outbound ABM targeted list upload

• Other administrative list uploads

Required Fields

Once you've identified that your list qualifies as meaningful prospect interactions, simply upload the list to the Marketing Automation Platform as usual, but include the following additional fields:

• IA - PROCESSING ENG DATE (Admin Only) - The date when the interaction occurred (format: YYYY-MM-DD)

• IA - PROCESSING ENG TYPE (Admin Only) - The specific type of interaction (e.g., "Tradeshow - Event Name", "Webinar - Topic Name")

• IA - PROCESSING FC UTM MED (Admin Only) - The channel through which the interaction occurred (e.g., "Tradeshow", "Webinar")

• IA - PROCESSING FC UTM SRC (Admin Only) - The specific source within the channel (e.g., event name, partner name)

• IA - PROCESSING FC UTM CMP (Admin Only) - The campaign associated with the interaction (optional)

• IA - PROCESSING FC UTM CON (Admin Only) - The specific content or asset (optional)

• IA - PROCESSING FC UTM TRM (Admin Only) - Additional categorization term (optional)

Notes:

• These must be present in the initial upload for this interaction, not added in a second upload.

  • If you upload your lead list and then do a second upload for the attribution fields, you’ll create two Engagements for any new leads on your list, and the attribution will be on the Influencing Engagement, not the Activation, where you need it.

• The values for these fields should align with your UTM Taxonomy to ensure consistent reporting.

• The Engagement Date should reflect when the actual interaction occurred, not when you upload the list.

Example Format

Here's an example of how your list might look with the required fields:

How Attribution Data Posts to Salesforce

When you upload the list to the Marketing Automation Platform, it will handle deduplication with Leads/Contacts in Salesforce and sync the attribution data to the Lead/Contact in Salesforce along with the other Lead/Contact fields in your file.

The Marketing Automation Platform writes these values to the ‘Processing Fields’ on the Lead/Contact. When that occurs, our system creates a new Engagement record, pulling those values out of the Processing Fields and into the ‘Raw Fields’ on the Engagement record. Those Raw Fields inform the ‘Reporting Fields’ on the Engagement.  

This creates a history of detailed engagement data for each interaction of a Lead/Contact over their lifetime.

Activations vs. Influencing Engagements

The system will create an Engagement for all members of your list. It will be created as an Activation or an Influencing Engagement based on the state of the Lead or Contact at the time:

• Activation Engagement - Created for new leads to your system as well as any dormant Leads/Contacts (their Current Activation Sales Journey Completion Date has a value).

• Influencing Engagement - Created for any active Leads/Contacts (their Current Activation Sales Journey Completion Date is blank)

For more info, see the Activations vs. Influencing Engagements article.

Verifying and Troubleshooting in Salesforce

For most reporting needs, we recommend using the pre-built Integrous Analytics BI reports or Salesforce Dashboards. However, there are times when you need to create an ad hoc report in Salesforce to dig into attribution or engagement information. In those cases, it’s almost always better to create an Engagement report rather than a Lead or Contact report.

Due to the one-to-many relationships between Leads/Contacts and Engagements, Lead and Contact reports will almost always undercount attribution/engagement info. Engagement reports can include all interactions or filter just to the ones that count as ‘leads’, they can include all the Lead and Contact fields you want, and have the added benefit of connecting to Opportunities generated as well.

For more information, see the Ad Hoc Lead and Contact Reports article.

❗IMPORTANT NOTE: Fixing Mistakes

If, after you load a list, you realize there were mistakes in the attribution fields, DO NOT RE-UPLOAD THE LIST WITH FIXED VALUES. This will not fix the issue. It will create additional data problems. This is because each time you upload a list with values in the 'Processing' fields, it will create a new Engagement record. So, if you upload a second list, you'll be creating more Engagement records with the correct values in addition to the ones you already created with the wrong values.

Instead, fix list upload mistakes with the Data Correction Module in the Admin Console in the Integrous Analytics App in Salesforce. Learn more about the Data Correction Module.

Best Practices

• Process lists soon after the event while details are fresh

• Use consistent naming conventions that align with your UTM taxonomy

• For recurring events, maintain consistent field values year over year for trend reporting