AccuLynx Lead Sources That Survive the Trip From a Google Ad to a Signed Roof

A lead source called Website answers the wrong question

Website is where the homeowner raised a hand, not why. Behind that one word hide a paid search click, an organic ranking, a tap on the map listing, a Facebook video, a yard sign someone photographed at a stoplight, and a neighbor who said "call these people." Lumping them together makes every channel look equally good, which is a polite way of saying equally unknown.

AccuLynx is built to do better. Every job carries a lead source, sources can have child sources beneath them, and the plan grid lists "Marketing expense tracking" on both Pro and Elite as of October 2026. The ledger is there. What usually goes missing is the evidence that should arrive with each lead, and that part is the website's job. This guide sits in our AccuLynx integration section, beside lead forms and dashboards and reporting.

Design the source list before the website writes to it

One rule shapes everything: the API cannot create lead sources. It reads the active sources for a location (inactive ones are not returned), each with an id, a name and any child sources, and Create Job sets the job's leadSource by that id. AccuLynx's own third-party lead guide puts it bluntly: "Do not pass configured values as free text." So an administrator builds the list in AccuLynx first, and the website maps to it.

Keep the list short enough that the office actually uses it. Twenty child sources nobody can tell apart is just Website with extra steps. Canvass leads deserve their own branch, because storm weeks fill it fast; our storm and insurance leads guide covers intake for that week.

What the form must hand to AccuLynx

AccuLynx's integrations page names no ad platform or analytics tool (we checked in October 2026), so the website does the capturing. Google assigns a Google Click ID, the GCLID, to every ad click. When a visitor lands from an ad, the site stores that ID along with the UTM tags, the landing page and the referrer, and keeps them through the visit, even if the homeowner reads five pages before filling in a form.

• Lead source id. Set at Create Job from the mapped source, or changed later with Update Job Lead Source when the office corrects it.
• GCLID. Stored in a job custom field, since text is a supported custom-field type and the API can read and write job custom fields. The notes work too, inside their 1,000-character limit, but a later process has to dig for it.
• UTM tags and landing page. A second custom field or the notes, for channels that carry no click ID.
• Form name. So a storm damage request and a commercial bid can be told apart when the report is read.
• Submission time. Kept on the website side too, because response time is a marketing number as much as a sales one. Texting that first reply is covered on our AccuLynx SMS page.

Calls need their own trail. CallRail's AppConnection, marked new on AccuLynx's site, turns tracked calls and form submissions into unassigned leads and writes the lead source, form name, tracking number and campaign name into the lead's notes. People can read notes easily; reports cannot. Either a rule parses them or the office copies the campaign into the lead source. Inspections booked online should carry the same fields, as our online booking page explains.

Sending the signed contract back to Google Ads

Google's offline conversion import rests on a simple promise. You store the GCLID with the lead, and when the lead converts, Google's help page says "you give that GCLID back to Google Ads along with a few details." Google can then bid toward roofs instead of form fills. AccuLynx will not send that conversion for you, so a small separate process does.

That process listens for AccuLynx's Job Milestone Current Changed webhook. When a job reaches the milestone your office treats as sold, for example Approved, one of the seven the API lists, it reads the job's GCLID field and its approved value from Get Job Financials, then uploads the conversion. Google's developer docs say conversion_date_time "Must be after the click time and include a timezone offset," and recommend including GCLIDs in import requests where possible.

Enhanced conversions for leads, which Google calls "an upgraded version of offline conversion import that uses user-provided data," adds hashed email and phone to the upload, and the Data Manager API also accepts mailing-address fields. Google still asks for GCLIDs whenever possible. Our conversion tracking setup builds this end to end, and our PPC advertising team bids with it.

A monthly report that fits on one printed page

The table below is a template with invented figures for a hypothetical roofer, not a client's results. Spend comes from the ad platforms or AccuLynx's marketing expenses. Everything else comes from jobs in AccuLynx, grouped by lead source and dated by the month the lead arrived.

On cost per lead, Meta looks like the bargain, at about $34 against Google search at about $83. On value per dollar the two are nearly level, and the unglamorous organic row beats both. A report that stopped at leads would have moved the budget the wrong way. That is the whole argument for carrying the evidence to the contract. If the spend side needs context, see what Google Ads costs.

Cost per lead is the coupon. Value per dollar is the receipt.

A month-one attribution setup for an AccuLynx roofer

1. 1

   Clean the lead source list

   An administrator merges duplicates, deactivates dead sources and adds the child sources the report needs. Inactive sources disappear from the API, so nothing new lands on them.

2. 2

   Create two tracking custom fields

   One text field on the job for the GCLID, and one for UTM tags and the landing page.

3. 3

   Capture on arrival, keep through the visit

   The site stores the click ID and tags when a visitor lands and attaches them to every form and booking that follows.

4. 4

   Map every form to a source id

   Each form sends a lead source id, never free text, and the server creates the contact and job in AccuLynx's documented order.

5. 5

   Give offline media numbers and links

   A tracked number for each batch of yard signs or mailers, and a short link with UTM tags behind every QR code.

6. 6

   Wire the contract upload

   A webhook listener watches for the sold milestone and sends the conversion through Google's Data Manager API, with the approved value.

7. 7

   Enter spend on a fixed day

   Ad spend and agency fees by source, in AccuLynx's marketing expenses or the dashboard, on the same day each month.

8. 8

   Read it with the sales manager

   Once a month, the owner and sales manager read the report together and change one thing, not seven.

Our AccuLynx API guide covers keys and webhooks, and the launch checklist lists every tracking test to run before a new site goes live.

Gaps that no tracking closes

Some leads will always arrive without evidence. The homeowner who saw your yard sign, forgot the number and searched your company name shows up as branded search. A neighbor's recommendation leaves no click at all. A storm job can sit in Prospect for weeks before it is signed, so the contract lands in a later month than the ad that found it. Report by lead month for channel decisions and by signed month for cash, and do not expect the two to match.

Ask "how did you hear about us?" anyway, and record the answer in its own custom field beside the tracked source, not instead of it. When the two disagree, that disagreement is information too. Strong reviews and a tidy Business Profile lift every row in the report, which is why getting more Google reviews belongs in the same plan.

Who wires it, and what that costs

We are DataCram, a web studio in San Antonio. We build contractor sites on Next.js with Athena CMS, our own content system, and we manage ads and local marketing for clients nationwide. Every integration we write answers to a short list: the field map is signed off before anyone codes, leads are checked on the server, a failed send waits in a queue and tries again, a repeated write cannot create a second record, the logs are in plain English, and the credentials stay yours. Your administrator creates the AccuLynx key; no password ever comes to us. For American Roofing & Waterproofing in Phoenix we built a site around a custom instant-quote tool that turns visitors into booked inspections, one of the projects on our work page.

Attribution on a site you already have is priced once we have reviewed it, at no charge. Our API integrations page gives one to three weeks as the usual span for joining two systems. Building fresh starts at $1,500 with online booking included per the web design pricing page, and 0% financing for websites needs 25% down. For a quick first look, run the free site audit. Contractors weighing field systems can browse our sister ServiceTitan integration section, and the roofing marketing plan shows where attribution sits in the bigger picture. Or call (210) 346-0848.