LinkedIn conversion tracking setup guide

If you're running LinkedIn Ads, tracking conversions is essential to understanding whether your campaigns are actually driving results – not just clicks and impressions, but real outcomes like form fills, purchases, and event registrations. Without it, you're optimizing blind.

In this guide, we'll walk through how to set up conversion tracking LinkedIn Ads campaigns rely on, using the Insight Tag and Google Tag Manager. We'll cover both page load and event-specific conversions, along with best practices to improve tracking accuracy.

LinkedIn advertising is a paid advertising solution primarily aimed at the B2B segment. It helps businesses connect with a professional audience through targeted ad campaigns on the platform. LinkedIn Ads is used to promote content, increase website traffic, and capture leads by reaching users based on professional attributes (e.g., job title, industry, seniority level, location).

Conversion tracking in LinkedIn is the process of monitoring and recording users' interactions with your LinkedIn campaigns. It gives an opportunity to estimate the campaign performance and adjust it according to the business needs.

There are a few ways to track conversions:

• Insight Tag conversions - a small JavaScript code snippet that you should add to your website. It allows you to track conversions, retarget website visitors, and gain audience insights by collecting data from LinkedIn members who visit your website. Insight Tag works similarly to the Meta Pixel or Google Analytics tag.
• Conversions API - a server-to-server integration that sends conversion data from your server to LinkedIn. Setting up the Conversions API will let you track the same events as with Insight Tag conversions. Additionally, Conversions API is a more flexible solution so that you can modify the ad tracking according to your strategy. This method of conversion tracking is considered to be more precise as the data is routed through the server instead of the user's browser.
• CSV conversions - a manual method that includes uploading conversion data using a CSV file into LinkedIn Campaign Manager. That's the easiest way to track conversions as it doesn't require any technical skills, but it is also the least efficient as the data can't be updated in real time.

When configuring conversion tracking in LinkedIn Ads, you'll need to select a conversion event type. The list of conversion types represents the action visitors are going to take on the website or app.

Here is the list of the most popular conversion types in LinkedIn Ads. For more events, check the LinkedIn documentation.

Yes, LinkedIn has a Conversions API (CAPI). With CAPI, you can link your online and offline data to LinkedIn. It gives an opportunity to create more advanced tracking and provides a comprehensive view of various types of conversions.

If you would like to set up LinkedIn Conversions API, please follow our guide; as in the article below, we will focus on client-side configuration.

1.1. Go to Campaign Manager → Analyze → Signals manager → click on Insight Tag.

1.2 Choose option: I will use a tag manager → copy your partner ID.

This is where Google Tag Manager LinkedIn conversion setup comes together on the client side.

2.1 Go to web GTM container → Tags → New tag → choose as tag configuration type LinkedIn Insight.

2.2 Paste your partner ID, which you copied from LinkedIn.

2.3 Add the trigger for a tag. Usually, it is All pages, but it may differ based on your needs.

Before setting up LinkedIn conversions, it is important to figure out what conversion tracking method to choose. On the configuration page, you will need to choose between page load and event-specific conversions.

• Page load conversions - the conversion will be recorded when a person visits the specific page. A common example is a thank-you page visit - for example, you collect the data about leads, and one of the funnel steps is the contact form submission. Once the form is filled out, a person sees a thank-you page.
• Event-specific conversions - the conversion is counted when a person takes a specific action on your website. It can be any action, such as clicking a particular button, using the navigation bar, or searching on the website.

3.1.1 In the Signals manager section, click Create conversion.

3.1.2 Add the settings for your conversion:

• Name
• Select category from the drop-down list
• Add the value for the conversion
• Select the timeframe when the conversion will still be counted by clicks and views
• Select the attribution model - it determines how each user interaction with an ad will be credited for conversion across different campaigns.

3.1.3 Select the source (in our case, it is Tag Manager).

3.1.4 At this point, you should choose the page load conversion method. Just add the URL of the page, click Next step → Review → Create. Now you have configured conversion and can view it in the Conversion tracking section of Campaign Manager.

3.2.1 The configuration process is basically the same, except that in the last step, instead of page load, choose event-specific conversion.

You will get the Conversion ID for the specific event you created.

3.2.2 Go to web GTM container → Tags → New tag → choose tag configuration → Community template gallery → search for LinkedIn InsightTag 2.0 and add it to your container.

3.2.3 Add your partner ID and conversion ID. Both can be found on the conversion configuration page. If you add multiple conversions, please note that commas should separate conversion IDs.

3.2.4 Add the trigger for a tag.

3.2.5 Preview and create the conversion in Campaign Manager.

The accuracy of conversion tracking on LinkedIn can be severely impacted by ad blockers and browser restrictions such as ITP, which can limit the lifetime of cookies by up to 24 hours. All these restrictions can be noticed by comparing data from different tools, for example, from LinkedIn Ads and Google Analytics 4 or your CRM system. You can also notice a significant conversion drop over a specific period of time, which can't be explained in any other way.

To overcome these challenges and make data tracking more precise, you can try setting up the Conversions API for LinkedIn. The implementation of LinkedIn CAPI allows combining client-side tracking (LinkedIn Insight Tag) and server-side tracking for more precise results. Rather than using pixels or cookies in a visitor's browser (client-side tracking), the server-side approach routes the data through your own server before sending it to LinkedIn.

We have a detailed guide on LinkedIn Conversions API setup. For a quick and straightforward guide, check our video below:

Let's say the main conversion is purchasing the item from your website. Before making a purchase, the person may need to perform some actions, such as clicking on the specific buttons and dealing with the order form. All these micro-conversions are worth tracking, as in this way, you can analyze the customer journey and figure out at what points the customers drop off.

You might run campaigns that don't bring conversions. Select the campaigns that have clicks and micro-conversions. You can start with high-intent traffic, for example, people who previously visited the page with your services, and run retargeting campaigns.

You can create a remarketing campaign by going to Audiences → Create audience → Matched audience.

As we described above, CAPI is a great solution for more accurate conversion tracking and attribution. Besides this point, LinkedIn CAPI has other benefits:

• Improved ad performance. With accurate conversion data, LinkedIn's algorithm can better optimize ad delivery by targeting the most relevant audiences.
• Lower your cost per action. Precise tracking helps businesses fine-tune targeting and campaign performance, which allows for lowering CPA and the same budget.
• Ensure data regulations compliance. Server-side tracking with CAPI gives more control over the data that is collected from users. By managing the data sent to LinkedIn, you can uphold user privacy, honor consent choices, and align with data protection standards.