How a B2B Platform Restored Accurate Attribution Through a Two-Phase Cross-Domain Tracking Fix in HubSpot

Background

A growing B2B platform relied on HubSpot and Salesforce to manage inbound activity, monitor lifecycle progression, and report on campaign performance. As the organization expanded its digital footprint across multiple subdomains and a WordPress-based site, attribution accuracy began to break.

Teams observed that visitor sessions were not carrying across pages and UTMs were frequently missing from form submissions. Campaigns that were generating meaningful traffic appeared as “Direct” inside HubSpot, resulting in inconsistent reporting and unclear first-touch attribution.

The Challenge

Audit findings highlighted several issues impacting data integrity:

• UTMs were dropping when users navigated across domains, causing loss of original source.
  
• HubSpot sessions were resetting prematurely, fragmenting the visitor journey.
  
• Salesforce was overwriting UTM values with empty fields, erasing critical attribution data.
  
• Hidden UTM fields on forms were capturing inconsistent or partial values.
• Reporting dashboards lacked reliable insights into true first-touch and multi-touch performance.

The marketing and operations teams needed a stable tracking foundation to ensure that campaign data flowed consistently from the first visit through CRM synchronization.

Approach

We implemented a two-phase solution designed to rebuild accurate, durable tracking across all properties.

Phase 1: Stabilizing Core Tracking Behavior

The first phase focused on identifying root causes and restoring baseline consistency:

• Enabled HubSpot cross-domain tracking so sessions could continue across multiple subdomains.
  
• Audited Salesforce mappings and confirmed that UTM fields were being reset to empty values during sync.
  
• Introduced workflows to copy UTM parameters into dedicated “original” fields, ensuring first-touch values could not be overwritten.
• Conducted test submissions to validate whether UTMs persisted or were being cleared.

This phase resolved immediate session loss and prevented the most severe attribution gaps.

Phase 2: Ensuring UTM Persistence Across WordPress and HubSpot

With foundational tracking restored, the second phase focused on durable, long-term attribution:

• Implemented a custom WordPress cookie script to retain UTM parameters for up to a one-hour session.
  
• Standardized UTM property naming across HubSpot and Salesforce to reduce mapping conflicts.
  
• Created attribution reporting scenarios to validate that captured data aligned with expected journeys.
  
• Performed end-to-end cross-domain testing after enabling tracking across all subdomains.
• Coordinated with the Salesforce team to stop workflows that were clearing UTM fields.

Phase 2 delivered reliable UTM persistence from first touch through CRM syncing, even across multi-step navigation paths.

Results

After completing both phases, the platform achieved a stable, accurate, and reliable attribution framework:

• Cross-domain tracking was fully restored, allowing HubSpot to recognize multi-page sessions across all marketing properties.
  
• UTM values persisted across systems with no resets or null overwrites.
  
• Salesforce stopped clearing UTM fields, enabling accurate lifecycle and campaign reporting.
  
• HubSpot dashboards reflected true first-touch and multi-touch journeys, restoring confidence in performance insights.

These improvements allowed the organization to make informed decisions based on complete and accurate attribution data.

Key Takeaways

• Multi-domain environments require intentional HubSpot configuration to avoid broken sessions and dropped UTMs.
  
• Storing UTM parameters in permanent “original” properties protects them from downstream overwrites.
  
• Aligning HubSpot and Salesforce property naming reduces data conflicts.
• Consistent tracking across CMS platforms depends on both cookie persistence and workflow governance.

Best Practices

• Enable cross-domain tracking whenever traffic flows across subdomains or external CMS pages.
  
• Use a custom cookie script to maintain UTM integrity during navigation.
  
• Preserve first-touch values using locked original-source fields.
  
• Conduct routine mapping audits to prevent CRM-level resets.
  
• Validate cross-domain behavior using controlled test submissions before deployment.