Lead source
Lead source: Where an enquiry came from, recorded on the lead and kept through every stage, so channels can be compared on closed business rather than on volume.
Definitions checked 4 September 2026.
A lead source is a tag applied at arrival and never overwritten. It sounds trivial and it decides where a marketing budget goes. Without it, a business can say how many enquiries it received and cannot say which of them turned into money, so spending is allocated by whichever channel produced the most memorable anecdote.
The comparison worth making is closed business per source, not enquiries per source. Channels differ enormously in quality: a source producing half as many enquiries at three times the conversion rate is the better buy, and volume reporting hides that completely. Cost per closed deal, which needs the source tag to survive to the closed stage, is the number that changes decisions.
The second use is operational. Different sources deserve different handling: a marketplace enquiry may need calling within minutes while a referral can wait a day. Telodial keeps the source on the lead from import through to outcome and lets assignment rotations differ per source, so both the reporting and the routing follow from the same tag.