How does Sense Forms know where a lead came from?

A 4 KB first-party script reads the referring URL and any UTM parameters when a visitor arrives, classifies the traffic source, and records each page they view. When they submit a form, all of it is attached to the entry.

Do I need to add hidden fields to capture UTM parameters?

No. Sense Forms captures UTM parameters automatically through its tracking script. You do not add hidden fields, paste snippets, or configure anything.

Where does Sense Forms store tracking data?

All data is stored in custom tables in your own WordPress database. Nothing is sent to an external service and no third-party cookies are used.

How attribution works

What Sense Forms records about each visitor, how it decides where they came from, and where the data is stored.

Analytics tells you 500 people came from organic search. Your form tells you Sarah got in touch. Neither tells you that Sarah was one of those 500.

Sense Forms records both halves on the same row.

What gets captured

Fourteen data points, on every submission:

Data point	Example
Traffic source	`organic`
UTM source	`google`
UTM medium	`cpc`
UTM campaign	`spring-sale`
UTM term	`wordpress form plugin`
UTM content	`headline-b`
Referrer	`google.com`
Landing page	`/blog/utm-tracking/`
Pages viewed	4 pages before submitting
Device type	`Mobile`
Browser	`Safari 17`
Operating system	`iOS`
Screen resolution	`390 x 844`
Language	`en-GB`

How traffic source is decided

When a visitor arrives, the script checks UTM parameters first, then falls back to the referring URL. Every visit is classified as one of:

Source	Meaning
`organic`	Arrived from a search engine’s unpaid results
`paid` / `cpc`	UTM medium indicates advertising
`social`	Referrer is a social network
`email`	UTM medium indicates an email campaign
`referral`	Any other external site
`direct`	No referrer — typed the URL, used a bookmark, or the referrer was stripped

UTM parameters take priority because they are explicit. If you tag a newsletter link with utm_medium=email, it is classified as email even though the referrer might suggest otherwise.

The visitor journey

Sense Forms records each page a visitor views during their session, not just the one holding the form. On the entry you see the landing page, the number of pages viewed before submitting, and the sequence itself.

This answers a question plain form data cannot: which content actually produces enquiries. A blog post that never hosts a form can still be the reason someone converted.

Sessions

A session begins when a visitor arrives and ends after a period of inactivity you control in Settings → Session timeout. Returning later starts a new session but keeps the same visitor identity, so repeat visits are recognisable.

Visitor and session identifiers are stored in a first-party cookie whose lifetime you set with Cookie duration.

No third-party anything

Data is stored in custom tables in your WordPress database
Nothing is sent to Sense Forms, Paramount Tech Network, or any other service
No third-party cookies — attribution is derived first-party from the referrer and URL
The script is 4 KB gzipped, served from your own domain, and loads asynchronously

Because there are no third-party cookies, attribution keeps working in browsers that block them.

Turning tracking off

Settings → Enable tracking stops the script running. Forms continue to work; submissions simply arrive without attribution.

Track logged-in administrators is off by default, so your own visits do not pollute the data while you are editing the site.