Conversions API Use Case

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Conversions are actions taken by your potential or existing customer that are valuable to your business. These actions include submitting leads, downloading content, signing up for a free trial, and making purchases. With LinkedIn Conversion Tracking, you can share your conversions with LinkedIn to measure the impact of advertising on the platform.

You can create specific conversion rules and associate these with your LinkedIn ad campaigns to better understand which campaigns helped drive conversions.

Permissions

For permissions required to use the Conversions API, see Conversions API Permissions.

Apply for access

To know more about how to apply for access, see this documentation.

Use Cases

Use case 1: Using Conversions API in Conjunction with Insight Tag

LinkedIn supports three main types of conversions for Conversion Tracking:

• Insight Tag conversions
• Conversions API
• CSV conversions

To help ensure that you get the most complete view of the customer journey, we recommend that advertisers send conversions through both the Insight Tag as well as Conversions API for increased reliability. You can set up Insight Tag and then set up deduplication for Conversions API. We can then deduplicate information sent through Conversions API and Insight Tag, which means we identify if an event has been sent through both and only count it once. When you send a conversion through multiple methods, you need to create a conversion rule for each data source (browser and server). Once deduplication is implemented, Conversions API can identify and discard duplicate events. So, if a conversion event is received from both Insight Tag and Conversions API with the same event id, only the Insight tag event is counted.

Use case 2: Using Conversions API for Tracking on LinkedIn’s First-Party Click IDs

When enhanced conversion tracking is enabled on the Insight Tag, advertisers can capture LinkedIn’s First-Party Ad Tracking Click ID (li_fat_id) from ad landing page URLs. This ID, added automatically by LinkedIn, enables first-party cookie tracking. Advertisers can capture Click IDs by parsing them from landing page URLs or reading them from cookies (if the Insight Tag is implemented on the website). Once captured, include the li_fat_id as LINKEDIN_FIRST_PARTY_ADS_TRACKING_UUID when streaming conversion events via the API. This improves match rates with LinkedIn profiles by using it as a supported user match identifier idType.

Use case 3: Measurement in Campaign Manager

After streaming Conversions API events to LinkedIn, we assess signal quality to determine how effectively events match LinkedIn profiles. You can check the conversions status in Campaign Manager to validate that the conversion events were received and user identities were matched with LinkedIn profiles. If you see Low Match Rate below Active on your conversion rule, this means that the information streamed to LinkedIn has a low likelihood of successful event-to-profile matching. We recommend checking these best practices when setting up your Conversions API and ways to improve signal quality.

After conversion events have been matched with LinkedIn profiles, we look for attribution to ads in the campaigns associated with the conversion rule. Consider using the Last Touch - Each Campaign attribution model on the conversion rule, which gives credit to all campaigns that had an ad interaction within the lookback window. With this model, each conversion event counts across all campaigns that served an impression within the conversion window to the converting member.

When you view campaign metrics and performance charts in Campaign Manager, you can check the conversion tracking reporting metrics in the Conversion & Leads view. These metrics are available at the campaign groups level, campaign level, and ads level to help you understand your conversion performance.

To find your Conversions & Leads view, go to the Campaign Groups, Campaigns, or Ads tab for your account, click the Columns dropdown menu and select Conversions & Leads. To view breakdown by Conversions, click the Breakdown menu and select Conversions.

Learn more about Conversion Tracking Reporting Metrics.

Use case 4: Multiple Conversion Types

You can send multiple types of conversions together to provide the most comprehensive and accurate picture of the complete customer journey. Most conversion types count only the first instance of a repeated conversion within the configured lookback window. Example, multiple sign-up conversions from a single ad will count as one conversion. Exceptions are when you select Purchase or Add to Cart as conversion type, which are always counted individually, even if repeated by the same member within the lookback window, we’ll count each of the conversion events. Learn more about Conversion lookback window and Conversion attribution model. In order to measure unique conversions, you need to check at individual entity level (for each campaign) versus the aggregated number that you see like the campaign group aggregate because the same conversion could be attributed to multiple campaigns.

You can create multiple conversion rules to attribute the impact of ad campaigns on your different sales stages in CRM that represent both pipeline and closed won deals. For Brand Awareness and upper funnel pipeline objectives, you can calculate Cost per influenced conversion as Spend divided by Conversions. For lower funnel pipeline objectives and closed won deals, Conversion value can be passed dynamically through CRM which can help you to calculate ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) as Total Conversion Value divided by Spend.

API Workflow

Step 1: Generate a 3-Legged Access Token

Generate a 3-legged member access token to obtain user authorization for consent to create and manage conversions using rw_conversions and r_ads permissions in the scope.

For direct advertiser builds, see set up and create conversions using Direct API. For partners, see Authorization Code Flow (3-legged OAuth).

Step 2: Retrieve Authenticated User's Ad Accounts

1. Retrieve all sponsored ad accounts of the authenticated user where the user does not have a VIEWER role on the ad account.
2. Prompt the user to select one of their ad accounts where conversion events should be streamed. Save the selected ad account URN for subsequent requests. For additional details, refer to Find Ad Accounts by Authenticated User.

Step 3: Fetch Existing Conversions API Rules in the Selected Ad Account

1. Fetch all active Conversions API conversion rules available in the selected ad account.
2. Use request query parameter enabled=true to filter out deleted conversion rules, and conversionMethod=CONVERSIONS_API to filter Conversions API-specific rules.
3. Allow the user to choose whether to create a new Conversion Rule or update an existing one. If updating, prompt the user to select an existing conversion rule (based on display name, type, and status) for streaming conversion events. Save the selected conversion URN for future requests. For more information, please see Find Conversion Rules by Ad Account.

Step 4: Optional(Skip This Step if Updating an Existing Rule): Create a New Conversion Rule

1. Create a new conversion rule in the selected ad account. Each conversion rule should include conversion name, ad account URN, conversion method, and type (key conversion behavior). We recommend you to use request query parameter autoAssociationType=ALL_CAMPAIGNS to associate the conversion rule with all ad campaigns. Conversions are only attributed for the associated ad campaigns.

2. Once created, save the newly created conversion ID for subsequent requests. For more information, please see Create a Conversion Rule.

The created conversion rule should also appear on Campaign Manager > Ad Account > Measurement > Conversion Tracking.

Conversion rules can also be created directly from the Campaign Manager UI. For more information, please see Setup a Conversions API Integration in Campaign Manager.

Step 5: Stream Conversion Events to the Conversion Rule

Stream conversion events to the conversion rule previously created or fetched, and send all available user identifiers for matching with LinkedIn. For the list of supported user identifiers, see User Schema.

For more information, please see Adding Multiple Conversion Events in a Batch.
Learn more about recommended best practices, please see Conversions API Best Practices.