Matched Audiences - Overview

Warning

Deprecation Notice: The Marketing Version 202508 (Marketing August 2025) will be sunset on August 17, 2026. We recommend that you migrate to the latest versioned APIs to avoid disruptions. For information on all the supported versions, refer to the migrations documentation. If you haven’t yet migrated and have questions, submit a request on the LinkedIn Developer Support Portal.

LinkedIn offers a centralized Data Management Platform (DMP) platform that aggregates LinkedIn advertiser data. This enables B2B marketers to identify and reach their target audiences across different platforms and ad exchanges. This platform generates a mapping between user information from LinkedIn advertisers and LinkedIn member profiles. The platform uses this mapping to output a custom audience list in a format that can be used by an ad exchange (for example, LinkedIn) for targeted advertising. The set of APIs to programmatically manage segments, users, companies, and destinations are referred to as DMP Segment APIs.

The use of these APIs is restricted to those developers approved by LinkedIn and subject to applicable data restrictions in their agreements.

DMP Segments APIs

The following APIs are available under matched audiences program:

  • DMP Segments: DMP Segments act as staging entities, which can take in user information from a third-party provider, map them to LinkedIn member profiles, and output Ad Segments, which can then be used with other LinkedIn ads APIs. A DMP segment is tied to a sponsored account.

  • DMP Segment Destinations: DMP Segment Destinations is a sub-resource of DMP segments that allows you to add destinations (ad exchanges) to a DMP Segment.

  • DMP Segment Users: DMP Segment Users is a sub-resource of DMP segments that allows you to dynamically add users to a DMP Segment.

  • DMP Segment Companies: DMP Segment Companies is a sub-resource of DMP segments that allows you to dynamically add companies to a DMP Segment.

  • DMP Segment List Uploads: Advertisers can upload their first party data as a CSV list of companies or contacts to match with companies or members to create new audience (DMP) segments for targeting specific accounts within LinkedIn advertising campaigns.

  • Ad Segments: An Ad segment is a collection of entities (such as members or companies) to which ads can be targeted. Ad Segments are created automatically after DMP Segments are matched with LinkedIn members.

  • Website Retargeting: The LinkedIn Ads platform offers advertisers the ability to retarget visitors of their website with ad content on LinkedIn. By adding the LinkedIn Insight Tag to their website, advertisers can match website visitors to members on LinkedIn to enable further engagement. Advertisers can also use website retargeting with LinkedIn professional demographic segments for more refined targeting.

  • Predictive Audiences: Predictive Audiences allow customers to combine their first-party or third-party data with LinkedIn's predictive AI modeling to build a high-intent audience tailored just for their business.

DMP Segments act as staging entities, which can take in user information from a third-party provider, map them to LinkedIn member profiles, and output Ad Segments, which can then be used with other LinkedIn ads APIs.

DMP Segment Workflow

Use Cases

DMP Segments support three use cases:

Upload Audience Lists as CSV Files

Advertisers can upload their data as a CSV list of companies or email addresses to match with LinkedIn company pages or members to create new audience segments for targeting specific accounts within LinkedIn advertising campaigns.

Your application must have a member access token with the rw_ads permission to use this API.

See Create and Manage List Uploads for more information.

Update Audience Lists Dynamically

The DMP segments APIs allow you to programmatically and dynamically add or remove users or companies from a DMP Segment using the streaming APIs dmpSegments/id/users and dmpSegments/id/companies. After the initial processing, which could take up to 48 hours, any subsequent addition or removal of users and companies happen in near real-time.

Your application must have a member access token with the rw_dmp_segments permission to use DMP Segment APIs. DMP Segment APIs are part of the Matched Audiences API that's separate from the Advertising API. Access to the Advertising API doesn't automatically grant access to DMP Segment APIs. Developers must apply separately to be considered for access.

A typical workflow consists of the following steps:

  1. Pick one of the following sourcePlatform ENUMs that fit your organization's use case:
    • DIRECT_API - A LinkedIn advertiser that wants to use matched audiences for its own ad account(s).
    • AGENCY_API - An agency managing audiences on behalf of multiple clients.
    • PARTNER_API - A platform enabling many LinkedIn advertisers to sync audiences at scale (not an agency).
  2. Create an empty DMP Segment with some metadata such as account, type and sourcePlatform. When you create the segment, you must define whether you're adding companies or users.
  3. Optional: Add Destinations to the segment. If you don't provide a destination, the default is LinkedIn.
  4. Add or remove companies or users to the segment using the streaming APIs.
  5. Monitor processing status for each segment.
  6. When status is READY, the output adSegment can be used with other LinkedIn APIs.
  7. To add or remove users or companies from the segment, repeat steps 4-6.

To create a DMP Segment and add users or companies, see the following links.

  1. Create and Manage Segments
  2. Optional: Create and Manage Segment Destinations.
  3. Create and Manage Segment Users
  4. Create and Manage Segment Companies

Predictive Audiences

Predictive Audiences allow customers to combine their first-party or third-party data with LinkedIn's predictive AI modeling to build a high-intent audience tailored just for their business. LinkedIn's AI combines millions of engagement signals with the customer's data to identify members who are most likely to convert based on the customer's business objectives. Customers can select from company list or contact list as the data source and predictive audiences predicts the likelihood of our members to convert for a given customer, using the customer's own data as the input (think behavioral + lookalike). The most relevant members are then made available as an audience segment customers can target.

Your application must have a member access token with the rw_dmp_segments permission to use Predictive Audience APIs. It is part of the Matched Audiences API that's separate from the Advertising API. Access to the Advertising API doesn't automatically grant access to DMP Segment APIs. Developers must apply separately to be considered for access.

DMP Segment State Transition

The mapping of users to a destination (ad exchange) is a continuous process and requires a certain workflow. When users are added to a DMP segment, the initial matching process can take up to 48 hours to resolve the IDs into a destination segment. Any subsequent addition or removal of users to or from an existing DMP Segment can take up to 24 hours.

Note

A streaming segment can always be in UPDATING status if user keeps streaming to the segment, although it doesn't affect previously matched members/companies.
Empty segments will now have status updated to READY about 48 hours after creation.

The following diagram outlines the various changes to the states:

DMP Segment State Transition

A typical state transition can occur in following way:

  1. Building: When a segment is first created, the initial state is Building, which means the segment doesn't have anything to serve.
  2. Building to Failed: A segment is set to Failed status if a failure happened when uploading lists.
  3. Building to Ready: A segment is set to Ready when it's fully available to be used in a campaign. The campaign should be able to serve right away.
  4. Ready to Updating: A segment is updated either with a new list or some new users/companies have been streamed to it.
  5. Updating to Ready: The updated input is ready to be used in a campaign.
  6. Ready to Archived: A segment is not used continuously for 30 days in a draft or active campaign. Streaming updates to an unused segment don't prevent it from being archived.
  7. Archived to Building: A segment is updated or added to some active campaign before it gets expired.
  8. Archived to Expired: A segment is not used or updated for 90 days continuously. That means 60 more days after it gets archived.
  9. Expired to Building: This transition only happens for list upload segments, when an expired segment is updated with a new list.
  10. Building to Archived: A segment is not used continuously for 30 days in a draft or active campaign. Streaming updates to an unused segment don't prevent it from being archived.

Apply for Access

API product Availability How to Request
Matched Audiences Available to qualified developers vetted for Matched Audiences API with Default tier access. Refer to Getting access to Matched Audiences API for access information.

Note

Make sure you have access to Advertising API first, before submitting the form as it is an obligatory pre-requisite. You can learn more about Advertising API application here.

Postman Collection

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Versioning

LinkedIn’s Marketing API Program supports versioning so API partners can release changes over time. This document explains how to use versioned APIs, see here.

FAQ

For frequently asked questions about Matched Audiences, see Matched Audiences FAQ.

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