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Use cases - Advertising API

Warning

Deprecation Notice
The Marketing Version 202406 (Marketing June 2024) has been sunset. We recommend that you migrate to the latest versioned APIs to avoid disruptions. See the Migration page for more details. If you haven’t yet migrated and have questions, submit a request on the LinkedIn Developer Support Portal.

LinkedIn's Advertising API enables advertisers to utilize Ad Accounts, create campaign groups, create ads using different ad formats, run ad campaigns, and gain data-driven insights through reporting APIs.

Why?

  • Advertisers need to organize their ad campaigns that they want to run on LinkedIn Network under their Ad Account.
  • Advertisers need to figure out the right Creative and Ad Formats combination to reach out to their audiences.
  • Advertisers need to extract valuable insights for the ad campaigns that they are running on LinkedIn to make a well-informed decision.

Permissions

OAuth 2.0 and Permission Scopes

Pre-requisites

  • Your developer application has access to LinkedIn Advertising APIs. If you are new to our APIs, get started by applying for Advertising API access. See Step 2: Get Started with the Advertising API.
  • Your developer application needs to be provisioned with the Media Planning API product.
  • You have access to at least one ad account with the below roles to perform relevant actions:
    • ACCOUNT_BILLING_ADMIN - To Manage billing
    • ACCOUNT_MANAGER - To Manage Account
    • CAMPAIGN_MANAGER - To Manage Campaigns
    • CREATIVE_MANAGER - To Manage Creatives
    • VIEWER - Viewer access to all components of ad accounts.

For more information on Ad Account roles and permissions:

Example of Advertising API

Advertising APIs open the gateway for customers to run digital Ad Campaigns on LinkedIn using a partner’s platform. While LinkedIn provides a native Campaign Manager UI for this purpose, the APIs offer greater flexibility, enabling customers to choose their preferred platform for managing ads. By logging into the partner portal integrated with LinkedIn’s Advertising APIs, customers can perform marketing operations seamlessly in a one-stop-shop manner. The typical flow involves the following steps:

  1. Log in to the Partner Portal.
  2. Sign in to your LinkedIn account.
  3. Select the LinkedIn Ad Account.
  4. Select the Campaign Group.
  5. Select the Campaign.
  6. Organize and Format the Creative.
  7. Publish the creative.

Use case 1: Ad Account and User Account Controls

When a user enters the Partner’s portal, they log into their LinkedIn Account. The user enters their LinkedIn credentials, which determine their access privileges as provided by the Admin of the Ad Account in the Campaign Manager Tool. To further extend the capabilities of the user access control, the /adAccountUser API lets the partner further customize the access of that user using the partner’s portal.

Based on the Ad Accounts tied to this user account, the Ad Accounts can be accessed using the /adAccounts API. Typically, the AdAccounts are retrieved on the Partner’s Portal for the user when the user logs in.

Use case 2: Campaign Groups and Campaigns

The next step is to explore the hierarchy further, starting with the Ad Account at the top. When a user chooses any Ad Account available to them on the partner's portal, a list of Campaign Groups is retrieved using a /campaignGroups API. The ID of the adAccount is required to retrieve the campaign groups underneath.

Further down in the hierarchy are the campaigns, which are accessed by passing a unique identifier of the campaign group and Ad Account. When a request is made to retrieve the campaign given a campaign group and adAccount, a list of campaigns under a campaign group is retrieved. This is where a user can create and manage their campaigns, if they have the necessary permissions provided by the admin of the adAccount.

Use case 3: Creatives and Previews

Within each campaign, the user can create multiple creatives. These creatives are the Ads that will be visible to a user on either LinkedIn’s feed or at LinkedIn’s trusted partner’s website/app through LinkedIn Audience Network (LAN). Various factors are taken into consideration while floating an ad - which includes budget, viewability, assets attached, clicks/conversion, etc. The /creatives and the /posts APIs work in conjunction to set various parameters like title, description, asset, etc., for an Ad.

Users can preview an Ad using the /adPreviews API before publishing. Using this API, the creative manager can make a well-informed decision whether to publish the ad or not.

Use case 4: Asset, Format, and Placement

A user can choose from various campaign types. However, some of the campaigns like single image ad or a video ad require an asset to be plugged into the creative. LinkedIn provides the /assets API to upload the assets to the media library, which is tied to the Ad Account the user is running the ads under. The supported assets are types of image, video, and documents.

A total of 12 ad Formats are available for the user to choose to run an ad. All these adFormats serve specific purposes depending on the audience that is targeted by the Ad Campaign. Properly curating these ad formats leads to improved conversion rates.

A user has an option to target an audience not just in LinkedIn’s first-party platform but also 3rd party platforms. This happens with the trusted partnerships that LinkedIn has invested into for displaying the ad on sites and apps that are supported. This gives advertisers a broad scope to run their ad and reach a wider audience.

Use case 5: Reporting and ROI

Once the creative has been customized as per the requirements of the campaign, formatted, previewed, and published, it is important for the analyst to measure its impact. For example, consider a creative that only had text in the form of a LinkedIn Post and was published to be displayed only on the LinkedIn feed. Compare this to a creative that included a video and was published to be viewed on both the LinkedIn feed and LAN. To analyze how these two creatives performed, the Reporting and ROI features provide clarity. The partner can pull data on the performance of the creative by utilizing the APIs for this product to show the results on the partner’s portal. The data can be sliced and diced in different ways to drill down into deeper insights, ensuring the performance of campaigns and creatives is measured accurately.