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Contacts & Leads · Feature guide

Lead Sources

Where each lead came from — the label that drives automatic follow-up, tells you which channels pay off, and lets web forms post straight into the right place.

New · Updated Sep 11, 2026 · 4 min read
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1What a lead source does

A lead source is the channel a contact arrived through — a website form, a referral partner, a paid campaign, a trade show. It’s a label on the contact, but it’s a label that does work:

  • It launches automation. A Connection Plan attaches to a lead source, so every lead from that source is engaged the moment it arrives — no one has to notice it first.
  • It filters everything. The pipeline, contact lists and reports can all be cut by source, which is how you find out that one channel closes and another only fills the top of the funnel.
  • It receives leads directly. Each source carries a web key that external forms and systems use to post leads into ClientTether already labelled.

2Adding and managing sources

Lead sources live in Settings → Lead Sources. Add one by name, save it, and it becomes available everywhere a source can be chosen — on the contact, in filters, and as the attachment point for a Connection Plan.

Name them for reporting, not for today

You’ll be reading these names in reports for years. “Facebook Ads – Spring 2026” tells you something later; “FB” doesn’t. Separate sources for separate channels, even when they feel similar now — you can’t split a source’s history after the fact.

3The web key

Every lead source has a web key — a unique code shown next to it in the list. When a website form, a landing page or a partner system posts a lead using that key, ClientTether creates the contact with the right source already set, which in turn fires that source’s Connection Plan.

That’s the whole mechanism behind “a lead came in from the website and got a text within a minute.”

Regenerating a web key invalidates the old one immediately. Every form or integration still using the previous key stops delivering leads — silently. Only refresh a key if it’s been exposed, and update every place it’s used in the same sitting.

The refresh control sits beside the key in the list, and ClientTether asks you to confirm before it replaces the key for exactly this reason.

4Tracking what each source costs

Each source can carry a cost, recorded by year. Enter what you spent on a channel and ClientTether can set it against the leads and deals that channel produced — turning “which source is best?” from a feeling into a number.

Costs are per year, so a channel you scaled up in one year and cut the next is reported honestly rather than averaged away.

5In an Enterprise structure

An Enterprise account can lock lead sources across every sub-account beneath it. When sources are locked, a location can use the sources but can’t add, rename, or regenerate keys for the ones defined upstream — which keeps source names consistent, so reporting rolls up cleanly across the whole network.

6Troubleshooting

Leads from my website stopped arriving

The first thing to check is whether the source’s web key was regenerated. If it was, the form is posting with a dead key. Update the form with the current key.

New leads aren’t getting the automatic follow-up

Confirm the contact actually has the source set, then confirm a Connection Plan is attached to that source and switched from Draft to Ready.

I can’t edit or add a lead source

Your Enterprise account has locked sources. Ask the Enterprise account holder — a source added upstream is available to you automatically.