How I Improved Clarity of Marketing Performance Reports
Situation
When I joined Body + Soul Fitness in 2022, the organization was using a WordPress website, Google Analytics (Universal) for performance tracking, and ActiveCampaign to collect leads through website forms. ActiveCampaign then passed lead information into an internally developed CRM called Mind.
The challenge was that we had very limited visibility into lead attribution. Google Analytics, ActiveCampaign, and Mind categorized all form submissions the same way, making it impossible to distinguish between lead types or determine which marketing campaigns were driving results. Team members also lacked important context when following up with prospects, as they could not see the prospect's original message or identify whether they were interested in gym memberships, personal training, or physical therapy. As a result, conversations often had to start from scratch.
Task
My goal was to improve reporting clarity by identifying the source of each lead, determining which page generated the conversion, and ensuring that this information was available to the sales team. This would allow me to identify high- and low-performing campaigns and optimize marketing time and spend.
Action
To improve reporting transparency and lead attribution, I took four actions:
1. Standardized UTM Tracking
The quickest opportunity for improvement was implementing consistent UTM tracking across all marketing campaigns. I standardized naming conventions for source, medium, and campaign parameters. This immediately improved reporting visibility and revealed that the majority of our website traffic, leads, and purchases originated from our Google Business Profiles.
2. Created Separate Conversion Events in Google Analytics
Next, I configured separate conversion events in Google Analytics for each lead type.Combined with standardized UTM tracking, this allowed me to identify that Google Business Profiles were the primary source of personal training leads. Since personal training represented the highest-value service offering, this insight became particularly important.
Based on these findings, I focused on improving our Google Business Profiles and local search visibility. I worked with leadership teams to educate trainers on the importance of requesting Google reviews from clients, and I regularly celebrated new 5-star reviews in Microsoft Teams channels and monthly staff meetings. As review volume increased, I observed a clear trend: months with more consistent personal training reviews generated a higher volume of personal training leads.
3. Implemented Persistent UTM Tracking and Team Notification Automations
The next challenge was reducing the number of leads attributed to "(direct)/(none)," which occurred because UTM parameters were being lost as users navigated between pages.
Through my research, I determined that we needed to capture UTM parameters through Google Tag Manager and store them in cookies so attribution could persist throughout the user's session. I collaborated closely with a developer to implement this solution.
I also redesigned our ActiveCampaign notification automations. To ensure each lead type could be easily identified, I created dedicated forms and notification workflows for specific landing pages.
As a result, instead of receiving generic notifications stating that "someone completed a form," team members received detailed alerts such as "New Personal Training Lead," including the prospect's submitted information and the exact page where the conversion occurred—whether it was a general personal training page, a specialized campaign landing page, or an individual trainer profile. This provided staff with the context needed to have more informed and relevant conversations with prospects.
4. Aligned CRM Data Through Form Tagging
The final step was ensuring our internal CRM reflected the same level of reporting clarity.
I worked with the developers responsible for maintaining Mind to update form tags and align them with our Google Analytics conversion events and ActiveCampaign workflows. This created consistency across all systems and ensured leads were categorized accurately.
With cleaner and more reliable data, our development team could combine Google Analytics and ActiveCampaign data to create lifetime value reporting. We could now see what type of lead translated to highest sales.
Result
By improving lead attribution, conversion tracking, CRM data quality, and team visibility, I created a much clearer picture of lead value across the organization.
These improvements enabled me to identify which channels were generating the most valuable leads and focus resources on the highest-performing opportunities. In particular, the insights gained from attribution reporting allowed us to invest strategically in our Google Business Profiles and local search presence.
As a result, we increased lead generation by 65% in the first half of 2026 compared to the same period in 2025, while also providing staff with better information to support prospect conversations and conversions.
