LinkedIn ads server-side tracking setup guide
Key takeaways
What is LinkedIn ads server-side tracking?
LinkedIn server-side tracking is a method to send conversion data from your website, CRM, or other business systems to LinkedIn using LinkedIn's Conversions API.
Instead of relying only on information collected in a user's browser, server-side tracking creates a more reliable connection between your first-party data (information that you collect directly from your clients) and advertising platforms like LinkedIn. This tracking helps you measure campaign performance more accurately and provide LinkedIn with better signals that can be used for campaign optimization.
Why use LinkedIn's Conversions API?
In a nutshell, LinkedIn's Conversions API helps you get a more complete picture of your customer journey, and you can use this data to improve campaign performance in the future.
Important actions often can happen later in the customer journey. For a lot of businesses, such a workflow is possible before closing a deal:
Visitor submits a form via LinkedIn → Sales manager contacts the lead → The lead becomes a qualified opportunity → The deal closes weeks later
With LinkedIn's Conversions API, you can send offline conversion data to the platform when it happens.
The business impact can be significant. According to LinkedIn's Conversions API beta study across 829 campaigns (which took place from July 1 to August 2023), advertisers who used Conversions API saw impressive results compared to campaigns that did not use it:
✅ 31% increase in attributed conversions
✅ 20% decrease in cost per action
In addition, online data (like interactions with your website, purchases) is collected more precisely with limited impact of ad blockers and browsers' restrictions (such as ITPs). That's a problem that heavily impacts your data quality if you stick to client-side tracking only (have implemented just the LinkedIn Insight Tag). Below, we explain in detail how it works.
Benefits of LinkedIn's Conversions API
- Improve campaign performance. LinkedIn's Conversions API provides LinkedIn with more complete conversion data. It helps LinkedIn ad platform better understand which campaigns, ads, and audiences drive real results. As a result, you allocate the ad budget more effectively toward users who are more likely to convert.
- Lower acquisition costs. With stronger conversion signals, you can make more informed optimization decisions with your LinkedIn campaigns – improving campaign efficiency and helping reduce the cost of acquiring leads, customers, and the cost per conversion.
- Reach higher-intent audiences. Conversions API helps LinkedIn build a more complete understanding of how people interact with your business throughout the customer journey. These insights can be used to improve audience targeting, retargeting, and campaign optimization.
- Improve conversion attribution. Conversions API helps create a clearer picture of the customer journey once it collects conversion data from multiple sources, including websites, CRM systems, and other business tools. This makes it easier to understand which campaigns contribute to conversions and business growth.
- Measure online and offline conversions. In addition to website actions, LinkedIn's Conversions API can be used to track offline events such as qualified leads, sales opportunities, purchases, and closed deals conversion data that traditionally lives in CRMs.
How does LinkedIn's Conversions API work?
After a LinkedIn member clicks your ad and interacts with your business by completing an action (submitting a form, registering for an event, requesting a demo, or making a purchase), the conversion event is captured by your website (online conversions) or CRM (offline conversions).
Then, the event data is sent to LinkedIn through the Conversions API, and LinkedIn matches the conversion data with previous ad interactions. If the platform can match, a conversion is attributed to the appropriate campaign and becomes available in Campaign Manager reporting. LinkedIn can use these signals to improve campaign optimization and audience targeting.
Why is server-side tracking implementation more reliable?
In a server-side tracking architecture (when using LinkedIn's Conversions API), the server acts as a proxy between the website and external vendors (LinkedIn); the cloud server provides greater control over data processing, improves data quality, and reduces reliance on browser-based tracking mechanisms.
Client-side tracking (using only the LinkedIn Insight Tag) relies on code embedded in a website to collect user interaction data and send it directly to analytics and advertising platforms. Due to the absence of a "server-proxy," it is susceptible to ad blockers, browser restrictions, and cookie limitations, which reduce data accuracy.
Server-side tracking implementation provides a lot of benefits for businesses, such as more accurate conversion tracking, higher control over data collection (especially important if you need to comply with data regulations), better retargeting signals for LinkedIn, and others. Check the full list of server-side tracking benefits in our guide.
Choose how to set up LinkedIn's Conversions API with Stape
Stape supports two ways to start sending conversion events to LinkedIn through LinkedIn's Conversions API:
- Via Stape's GTM integration with LinkedIn advertisers
- Via Stape's LinkedIn Conversions API tag
The right setup path depends on your current tracking infrastructure.
👉 If you already have a server-side GTM container
Use Stape's LinkedIn Conversions API tag.
The tag can be added to your existing server GTM container and configured to send conversion events to LinkedIn. This is the recommended option if you already have server GTM infrastructure configured and need to add one more platform (LinkedIn) to the list.
👉 If you don't have a server-side GTM container yet
Use Stape's GTM integration for LinkedIn advertisers.
This integration starts from LinkedIn Campaign Manager and automatically creates and connects a server-side GTM container hosted by Stape, making the initial setup much simpler.
It is a good option if you:
- are new to server-side tracking;
- do not have a server-side GTM setup;
- look for the fastest way to start using LinkedIn's Conversions API.
For more details on GTM integration with LinkedIn advertisers, see our overview guide.
Before starting
✅ Configure LinkedIn Insight tag
Regardless of the configuration method you opt for, the configuration of the LinkedIn Insight tag is recommended to capture the most complete conversion data for your business.
What's the LinkedIn Insight tag?
The LinkedIn Insight tag is a small JavaScript snippet that enables website retargeting, audience insights, and conversion tracking. It starts collecting visitor data immediately, but conversion tracking requires separate event tags. If you're using both client-side and server-side tracking, include an event_id to ensure proper deduplication (we'll cover this later).
The tag sets first-party cookies and a LinkedIn Ads ID to measure user activity and attribution. Features like enhanced matching and automatic website actions tracking help improve campaign performance while protecting user privacy through data pseudonymization and retention policies.
If you don't have the LinkedIn Insight tag configured yet, please follow LinkedIn's official documentation.
If you don’t have configured sending events via the LinkedIn Insight tag, please click on the collapsed element below and follow the instructions:
How to send events via LinkedIn Insight tag
1. Please make sure to use the latest version of the official LinkedIn Insight tag, which supports reporting of the event ID.
2. When you send a conversion through multiple methods, you need to create a conversion rule for each data source (browser and server). For the browser source, the conversion rule ID will be available to you during the conversion creation process in the user interface.
3. To create a conversion that will be reported from the server GTM, please click Create conversion → Conversions API. On the Sources step, you may select Direct API integration. Once you are done, select the newly created conversion, and the Conversion Rule ID will be available to you in the URL right after conversions.
4. That's pretty much it. Make sure to add the identical event_id sent from the web and any user data that is available for better event matching. li_fat_id cookie value will be automatically added to the payload if received in the incoming request cookie header.
5. To verify your setup, you may trigger your conversion event. The status for your conversions should change to Active. If your deduplication is properly set up, after a while, you'll see a message confirming it if you click on a status for the CAPI conversion.
Integrate LinkedIn's Conversions API using the selected method
Based on the approach you've selected (LinkedIn Conversions API tag or Stape's GTM integration with LinkedIn), click on the collapse element below to see the guidelines:
Via LinkedIn Conversions API tag
Add LinkedIn's Conversions API from the server GTM Template Gallery.
The tag itself is very easy to use; we've added the ability to enter explicit variables that will be reported to LinkedIn in a proper format. Tag configuration consists of the event types - PageView and Conversion events.
- PageView method has been added to a tag to make your LinkedIn tracking resistant to various ad blockers. If you are using Stape's Custom Loader with a patched gtag and/or Data Tag/Data Client to send data from the web to the server container, the PageView method fired on a
page_viewevent will store the LinkedIn click ID URL parameter into ali_fat_idcookie, even if the LinkedIn browser pixel has been blocked. - Conversion method is intended to report conversion events to LinkedIn's CAPI.
To send an event via LinkedIn's CAPI, you require an access token, a conversion rule ID, and one of the 4 first-party parameters LinkedIn requires you to send (hashed email, LinkedIn click ID value, Acxiom ID, or Moat ID).
As already mentioned, the process for obtaining a CAPI access token has been greatly simplified - all you need to do now is the following:
- In your Campaign Manager, click Data on the left menu → Signals manager → under the Sources category, click Google Tag Manager → then click Generate token, pass the authentication, and the provided key will be your way to send events to the Conversions API.
Don't forget to add the trigger for an event (specify the condition when you want your tag to fire). The trigger must contain the event name and client name; here is an example:
Below is an example of a configured LinkedIn Conversions API tag:
Via Stape's GTM integration with LinkedIn
| Note: to start, you need to have a GTM account with a web container configured. If you're new to GTM, please refer to Google's documentation on how to configure a web GTM container. Also, set up a trigger in the web container that fires the GA4 event you want to use as a conversion. |
1. Go to your Campaign Manager → click on Measurement → Conversion tracking → click Create conversion → select Conversions API as data source.
2. On the first step, select the configuration based on needs and proceed to the next step.
As a source, select Google Tag Manager, log into the account that has editing access to the target container.
Set up the data from Google Tag Manager to send to Campaign Manager.
- In the Google Tag Manager account section, click the Select the account dropdown menu and select your account name.
- In the Containers section, click the dropdown menus to select:
- Your existing web container.
- A workspace for the web container.
- In the Server-side tracking section, select the option Automatic setup with Stape. Click the Set up now button and follow the on-screen instructions to connect your account.
- In the Token section, paste your LinkedIn API access token. If you don't have a token, you can generate one by clicking the Generate token button. Then click Next step.
5. Review and update the ad sets selected for your conversion.
6. After you set up your conversion, LinkedIn automatically selects ad sets to associate with your conversion (or offers to create an ad set if you don't have one yet). You can review, add, or remove ad sets as needed. Learn how to review and update the ad sets selected for your conversion.
7. Review the configuration and click Create.
Once done, in your web GTM container, a tag will be automatically added:
As well as in the server GTM container:
Test the configuration
1. Be sure to disable ad blockers if you have some installed in your browser, since they will block the preview in GTM.
2. Click Preview in both web and server GTM containers.
3. Trigger the event you've specified while configuring LinkedIn's Conversions API and check whether the event was triggered in both containers.
Here's how it looks in the web GTM container:
And in the server GTM container:
Click on the tags and check the mapping of matching parameters, such as email and the LinkedIn First-Party Ad Tracking ID (displayed as li_fat_id).
4. Get back to the LinkedIn interface. If everything works, the status must be Active.
5. Publish the container in both web and server GTM by clicking Submit.
Event deduplication
When you use both the LinkedIn Insight tag and the Conversions API (which is recommended to ensure you are capturing all relevant conversion events), the same action can be reported twice: once from the browser and once from the server.
To keep your reports accurate, LinkedIn applies deduplication rules. These rules decide when multiple events should be treated as one conversion and when they should be counted separately.
| Conversion Scenario | Deduplicated? |
|---|---|
| Same conversion type, same campaign | ✅ Yes — deduplicated (except Purchase/Add to Cart events) |
| Same conversion type, different campaigns | ⚠️ Counted based on the attribution model |
| Different conversion types, same campaign | ❌ No deduplication |
| Different conversions, different campaigns | ❌ No deduplication |
| Repeat conversions (e.g., multiple Sign Ups) | ✅ Only the first instance is counted (lookback window) |
| Repeat Purchase or Add to Cart conversions | ❌ All counted individually |
LinkedIn web + CAPI event reporting is designed in a way commonly called "redundant event setup." This means that a single conversion event can be sent through both the LinkedIn Insight Tag (web event) and LinkedIn's Conversions API tag (server event). To avoid double-counting, you must include a shared event ID across both methods.
The web event has a higher priority and will be counted as a conversion, and if the same conversion with the same event ID is delivered via the CAPI tag, such an event will be discarded. Please be sure to handle this process properly for accurate LinkedIn Ads conversion tracking.
Features you can use after setting up CAPI
After you set up CAPI, you can use the conversion data to improve your LinkedIn campaigns in more advanced ways to improve performance and targeting. For example:
- Retargeting Audiences: Create a retargeting audience using Conversions API seed data based on their buying intent and journey stage.
- Predictive Audiences: Combine AI with your high-quality Conversions API seed data (online, offline, and CRM) to build audiences likely to convert using conversion CAPI data, so LinkedIn finds members/people who behave like your best prospects, and creates Matched Audiences to retarget visitors or contacts who have already shown interest.
- Qualified Leads Optimization: Deliver ads to members that are most likely to fit your definition of a "qualified lead."
- Conversion Value Optimization: Deliver ads to members most likely to return the greatest value per conversion, such as revenue or lifetime value.
- Conversion Lift tests: Measure the incremental conversions driven by your LinkedIn campaigns.
- Measurement Insights: See where people are in your sales funnel over the last 180 days.
Some examples of what you can track include demo requests, trial sign-ups, lead qualification updates, content downloads, and pricing information requests.
LinkedIn Offline Conversions tracking
With LinkedIn's CAPI, you can report offline conversion events, which may significantly help in measuring the performance of your LinkedIn campaigns. See our related blog posts for more instructions on offline conversion tracking:
LinkedIn server-side tracking: real users' problems solved
A user in Stape's community struggled with LinkedIn server-side tracking because the platform now requires connecting a Google Tag Manager account or using their API, and events only register if they include a click ID or email. The user didn't want to give full GTM access for security reasons, and their events weren't being verified.
The solution was to create first-party variables for LinkedIn Click ID and/or email, pass them with each event, and optionally use a dummy GTM container to enable server-side tracking without exposing sensitive access.
Final words
As advertising platforms continue to rely more on first-party data, implementing LinkedIn's Conversions API is highly important for accurate measurement and effective campaign optimization. Whether you're looking to improve attribution, track qualified leads, measure offline conversions, or simply provide LinkedIn with more reliable conversion signals, server-side tracking can help you get more value from your advertising data.
With Stape's solutions for LinkedIn's Conversions API, you can choose the implementation method that best fits your current setup!
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