# How EventsIQ works

> The shape of the system: sources, canonical fields, routing and destinations.
> Source: https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/getting-started


EventsIQ captures leads from several places, puts them all into one shape, and then offers each one
to the destinations you have configured until somebody takes it.

If you buy traffic, it also records which ad each lead came from and reports every sale back to the
ad network, so you can see what each campaign really earns.

This page explains the shape of the system so the rest of the documentation makes sense. If you
would rather start doing than reading, go straight to [Your first website form](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/website-form).

## The five places a lead can arrive from

EventsIQ calls all of them **sources**, and treats them identically once the lead is inside.

| Source                    | Where the lead comes from                               | Where you set it up |
| ------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------- |
| **[Website form](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/website-form)** | A form you build in EventsIQ and embed on your own site | Forms → New form |
| **[Facebook Instant Form](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/facebook-instant-forms)** | A Meta Lead Ads form attached to a Page you manage      | Forms → New form |
| **[TikTok Instant Form](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/tiktok-instant-forms)** | A TikTok Lead Ads form on an advertiser account         | Forms → New form |
| **[Snapchat lead form](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/snapchat-lead-forms)** | A Snapchat Lead Ads form on an ad account | Forms → New form |
| **[Google Ads lead form](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/google-lead-forms)** | A lead form asset on a Google Ads campaign              | Forms → New form |
| **[Inbound webhook](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/inbound-webhook)** | Anything that can send an HTTP POST                     | Forms → New form |

Only the first one involves the form builder. The other four already have a form, somebody else's,
so the job there is translating their field names into yours.

## The path a lead takes

```mermaid
flowchart TD
    A[Source] --> B[Lead, normalised into canonical fields]
    B --> C{Routing}
    C --> D[Branch: preset matched]
    C --> E[Default branch]
    D --> F[Waterfall of destinations, in order]
    E --> F
    F --> G[First destination to accept wins the lead]
    G --> H[Conversion and CRM events fire]
```

Read left to right, that is: something sends a lead, EventsIQ renames its fields into a vocabulary
you control, a routing setup decides which destinations should see it and in what order, and the
first destination to say yes gets it.

## The five ideas worth learning once

**Sources are interchangeable.** A Facebook lead and a webhook lead are handled exactly
the same way once they are inside. Anything you configure downstream (presets, destinations, events)
works for all of them without being written twice.

**Canonical fields are the shared vocabulary.** Your Facebook form calls it
`field_data[phone_number]`, your website form calls it `phone_number`, and your destination expects
`primary_phone`. EventsIQ's answer is a fixed middle name, `phone`, that everything else speaks.
Translating a source's field names into canonical keys is called **field mapping**, and it is the
one piece of setup per source that nothing else can do for you. See [Fields](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/fields).

**A routing setup is reusable.** It is not owned by a form. It is a library object that holds
your routing rules, and many forms can point at the same one. Change the destination order in one
place and every form using that routing setup follows.

**A branch is a preset plus an ordered list of destinations.** Presets decide _whether_ a
group of destinations gets the lead; the order of the list decides _who gets first refusal_. That
ordered list is the **waterfall**.

**At most one sale per lead.** The waterfall stops at the first destination whose response satisfies
its accept rule. Destinations below that one are never called. There can be many outbound calls per
lead, but never two sales.

## Where to start

:::tip{title="If you are setting EventsIQ up for the first time"}
Do it in this order. Each step is useless without the one before it.

1. **[Fields](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/fields)**: check the canonical fields cover what your destinations ask for. Add
   any that are missing.
2. **[Destinations](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/destinations)**: add at least one destination, with an accept rule that describes what
   a "yes" looks like from them.
3. **[Presets](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/presets)**: only if you need to send different leads to different
   destinations. A single default waterfall needs no presets at all.
4. **[Routing](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/routing)**: put those pieces together into the routing a lead
   will actually run through, and switch it live.
5. **[Your first website form](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/website-form)** or
   **[Facebook Instant Forms](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/facebook-instant-forms)**: capture something.
   :::

You can also do it backwards: build a form first and route it later. EventsIQ will let you, and the
form's settings page will warn you clearly that leads are being stored but not sold.

## Where things live in the menu

![The sidebar](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs-media/getting-started/01-sidebar.png "Just the app sidebar, from Search down to Settings and the account card. Crop tight.")

The sidebar is grouped by what you are doing. **Search** at the top, or ⌘K, finds any page. The
arrow beside the logo switches to icons only.

| Group          | Item                                       | What it is for                                                                    |
| -------------- | ------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Overview**   | Dashboard                                  | Today's leads, sales and anything that needs attention                            |
| **Measure**    | [Reports](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/reports)                   | Spend, revenue, profit and ROAS                                                   |
|                | Activity                                   | Leads, and the [Logs](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/logs) of every call made about them                   |
| **Acquire**    | [Campaigns](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/campaigns)               | The links that go in your ads                                                     |
|                | [Traffic sources](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/traffic-sources)   | One per ad network, with its macros and currency                                  |
|                | [Integrations](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/integrations)         | Where conversions are sent and where spend is read from                           |
|                | [Connections](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/connections)           | Your Meta, TikTok, Google, Snapchat, Microsoft Ads, NewsBreak and AppLovin accounts, plus API accounts for CRMs |
| **Capture**    | Forms                                      | Every capture you have, of every type, and the button that makes new ones         |
| **Distribute** | [Routing](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/routing)                   | The routing library, with its branches, waterfalls and events                     |
|                | [Destinations](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/destinations)         | Who you sell to, and what their "accepted" response looks like                    |

**Settings** holds the rest: [Notifications](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/notifications), as **Alerts**, under **Your
account**; [Fields](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/fields) and [Presets](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/presets) under **Lead data**; and
[Domains](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/tracking-domains), [Postbacks](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/postbacks), [Events](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/global-events) and
**Form scripts** under **Delivery and tracking**.

If you run paid traffic, read [How click tracking works](https://www.eventsiq.io/docs/click-tracking) next.