Tip #13: Identify where your bookings come from with Source Tracking

Source tracking is the practice of identifying where your bookings originated. This is important, because online bookings come from a wide variety of sources like social media platforms, your website, email and ad campaigns, partner websites, organic traffic from search engines, and recommendations from previous clients. Understanding where your bookings come from enables you to make better decisions about where to focus your marketing efforts. If you can identify which channels are generating the most bookings, you can adjust your strategy accordingly and make more informed choices about pricing and promotions.

Use case

For example, if a hotel discovers that the majority of their bookings come from a certain online travel agency, they can engage in negotiations to secure better terms and discounts for their customers. This strategic move could result in more bookings from that channel, contributing to overall revenue growth.

In Zoho Bookings, you can implement source tracking by adding a hidden field to the booking form. Use a unique URL for each channel to specify the channel name in the hidden field. When customers book using those links, you'll be able to easily identify which channels are generating the most new customers and bookings.

Steps to implement source tracking:

Navigate to Services, select the required service, and click Service Booking Form.
Click Add Field in the right corner of the Fields section.
A pop-up window will appear. Enter the Field Label as "Source" (or use any name of your choice). Choose SingleLine in Field Type, as we'll be using a limited amount of text in this field. Click Save.
Click the eye icon next to the Source field that you just created and make the field hidden in the booking form.

Your source tracking is all set. When you share the service booking page link, add the source name accordingly. You can include the source value as a query parameter to the booking URL in the below format:
<service_booking_page_URL>?source=<source_name>

For example, lets say the above service Tax planning has the booking page link: https://business.zohobookings.com/#/customer/4050029000003367030.

When this link is shared on Facebook, the source name can be added at the end: https://business.zohobookings.com/#/customer/4050029000003367030?source=facebook

You can easily add additional sources, such as:
?source=official_website
?source=partner
?source=email_campaign

When an appointment is booked, the source name can be seen in the Appointment Summary under Additional Info.

Tracking the sources of your bookings can help you identify which channels are effective for acquiring new customers and contribute the most to your revenue, so you can implement more targeted marketing and customer engagement strategies.

Thanks for reading! Please watch this space for more tips about online appointment scheduling.