As data privacy regulations tighten and browser-based tracking becomes less reliable, marketers find it harder to measure performance and optimize effectively. Ad blockers, cookie deprecation, and mobile privacy frameworks have weakened the effectiveness of traditional methods like LinkedIn Insight Tag, leading to lost conversions and incomplete insights.
The LinkedIn Conversions API helps solve this challenge by enabling server-to-server delivery of conversion events. In this guide, we’ll show you how to set up the LinkedIn Conversions API using Hightouch so you can send real-time, consented conversion data to LinkedIn, improve attribution across the B2B funnel, and maximize your return on ad spend.
How to set up LinkedIn conversion API?
1. Connect to your data source
Start by creating a Hightouch account. Once you're logged in:
- Navigate to the Integrations, then Sources.
- Select the data source that contains your event and customer data. This could be a data warehouse like Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, or a database like Postgres or MySQL.
- Enter your configuration details, such as credentials and hostnames, to authenticate your data source.
Hightouch will validate your connection and give you access to the schema for building your data model.
2. Define your data model
Next, define the event data you want to send to LinkedIn. You can do this in three ways:
- SQL Editor: Write custom SQL to join and transform data for precise control.
- Table Selector: Choose pre-built tables and columns directly without needing SQL.
- Visual Audience Builder: Use a no-code interface to filter and segment your data based on behavior, properties, or timestamps.
This data model acts as the source of truth for what gets sent to LinkedIn. Typical fields include user identifiers (email, phone), event names (purchase, signup), and metadata (value, currency, timestamp).
3. Create a LinkedIn conversion destination
Now it’s time to connect Hightouch to LinkedIn:
- Go to the Integrations, then Destinations.
- Click Add Destination and select LinkedIn.
- Log in to LinkedIn to authorize the connection.
4. Send conversions to LinkedIn
Finally, you’ll configure your sync:
- Got to Activation, then Syncs.
- Click Add sync.
- Choose the model you created and your LinkedIn destination.
- Map the data fields in your model to LinkedIn’s expected parameters
- Run your sync.
What is the LinkedIn conversions API?
The LinkedIn Conversions API is an alternative to traditional tracking methods like the LinkedIn Insight Tag, which relies on browser-based pixels and JavaScript. It provides a more accurate, privacy-resilient way to send conversion data directly to LinkedIn by enabling a secure, server-to-server connection between your internal systems and the LinkedIn Ads platform.
This direct, server-side approach allows you to fully leverage your 1st-party data, such as CRM records, offline conversions, and web events, and control exactly what user actions and attributes are sent to LinkedIn. By bypassing browser limitations, you reduce signal loss caused by ad blockers, network interruptions, cookie restrictions, and privacy frameworks like Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) and App Tracking Transparency (ATT).
With the LinkedIn Conversions API, you can enrich your conversion events with high-quality attributes like email addresses, company names, job titles, or funnel stages, improving match rates and giving LinkedIn’s optimization algorithms better signals to work with. This leads to smarter bidding, more relevant audience targeting, and better alignment with your business outcomes.
Whether you're tracking demo requests, whitepaper downloads, in-person meetings, or multi-stage B2B sales activity, the LinkedIn Conversions API provides the flexibility and accuracy you need to optimize campaigns across the full funnel while ensuring data is handled securely and compliantly.
Benefits of using LinkedIn conversion API
The LinkedIn Conversions API offers B2B advertisers a more accurate, privacy-compliant, and resilient way to send conversion data to LinkedIn. Moving conversion tracking from the browser to the server reduces reliance on vulnerable client-side signals and enables richer, first-party data to flow directly into LinkedIn’s optimization engine.
Unlike traditional tracking methods like the LinkedIn Insight Tag, the Conversions API gives you complete control over your data, improves attribution accuracy, and helps you optimize for meaningful business outcomes, even in a privacy-first advertising landscape.
- Lower your Cost Per Result (CPR) by up to 13%: When LinkedIn receives cleaner, more complete conversion signals, it can better understand which audience segments are likely to drive results. This allows the platform to optimize bids and allocate spending more efficiently. As a result, advertisers can lower their cost per result by reducing wasted impressions and reaching higher-quality leads.
- Increase attributed conversion events by up to 19%: Browser-based tags are frequently disrupted by ad blockers, cookie restrictions, and network instability. This causes LinkedIn to undercount conversions, skewing performance data and stalling learning. The LinkedIn Conversions API delivers events directly from your server, bypassing these blockers and enabling more accurate attribution. More complete data means more conversions get counted and optimized against.
- Boost your Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): By enriching conversion events with first-party data, such as company name, job title, lead stage, or revenue value, you give LinkedIn deeper insights into which prospects are converting and why. This enables smarter audience expansion, bid optimization, and budget allocation. With more accurate signals feeding into LinkedIn’s learning models, you increase your ROAS by focusing spend on the highest-value conversions.
- Unlock better measurement and attribution: The server-side approach gives you complete control over the events and parameters you send. You can track offline conversions like closed deals, phone consults, or CRM milestones, apply deduplication logic to prevent overcounting, and enrich events with key revenue or funnel metadata. This gives you a clearer understanding of what’s actually driving ROI across multiple touchpoints.
- Future-proof campaigns against privacy changes: As browsers and operating systems limit third-party cookies and in-app identifiers, the LinkedIn Conversions API offers a more durable solution that’s not dependent on client-side tracking. Using first-party data delivered server-side, your measurement and optimization workflows stay intact even as privacy regulations and platform policies evolve.
What's the difference between a pixel & the LinkedIn conversions API?
Client-side tracking is becoming increasingly unreliable due to the rise of ad blockers, browser privacy features like Safari’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP), and operating system-level restrictions such as Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT). As a result, traditional web pixels can no longer guarantee accurate conversion tracking.
Major ad platforms, including LinkedIn, are introducing server-side Conversion APIs to address this. These APIs give advertisers a more dependable way to send conversion data, helping ensure that campaigns remain measurable and optimizable despite growing privacy constraints.
Here are a few reasons why advertisers are adopting the LinkedIn Conversions API:
- Offline conversion tracking: Capture and send conversions that don’t happen online, such as sales calls, in-person meetings, form fills collected at events, or lead progression tracked in your CRM. This is especially valuable for B2B companies running account-based marketing (ABM) or longer funnel strategies, where key activities and milestones often happen outside the browser. By sending this data via the Conversions API, you can connect real business outcomes back to your LinkedIn ads.
- Advanced matching: Improve LinkedIn’s ability to match conversion events to users by enriching your event data with first-party attributes like email address, job title, company name, and LinkedIn Click ID. Including system identifiers such as IP address or user agent can further enhance match rates. This boosts your Event Match Quality (EMQ) and ensures more conversions are accurately attributed, unlocking better campaign learning and optimization.
- Value-based bidding: Send revenue values or lead quality scores tied to each conversion so LinkedIn can optimize for volume and business value. By enabling value-based bidding, LinkedIn’s algorithms can prioritize high-intent leads, qualified accounts, or high-revenue opportunities, allowing you to invest more in prospects that are likely to deliver long-term ROI.
Why are companies switching to conversion APIs?
Client-side tracking is becoming increasingly unreliable due to the rise of ad blockers, browser privacy features like Safari’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP), and operating system-level restrictions such as Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT). As a result, traditional web pixels can no longer guarantee accurate conversion tracking.
To address this, major ad platforms, including LinkedIn, are introducing server-side Conversion APIs. These APIs give advertisers a more dependable way to send conversion data, helping ensure that campaigns remain measurable and optimizable despite growing privacy constraints.
Here are a few reasons why advertisers are adopting the LinkedIn Conversions API:
- Offline conversion tracking: Capture and send conversions that don’t happen online, such as offline purchases, phone consultations, live event signups, or sales stage progressions tracked in your CRM. This is especially valuable for B2B organizations running long sales cycles or account-based marketing (ABM) strategies, where key conversion events often occur beyond the reach of browser-based pixels. With LinkedIn’s Conversions API, these offline actions can be accurately attributed to your campaigns and included in performance optimization.
- Advanced matching: Improve LinkedIn’s ability to match conversion events to the correct users by enriching your event payloads with first-party identifiers like hashed email addresses, company names, job titles, and phone numbers. Including system-level identifiers such as IP address, user-agent, or device type further enhances your Event Match Quality (EMQ). More accurate matching improves attribution and gives LinkedIn better training data to optimize future ad delivery.
- Value-based bidding: Send monetary values tied to each conversion event, such as purchase value, deal size, or lead quality score, so LinkedIn can optimize not only for conversion volume, but also for value. This enables value-based bidding strategies, allowing LinkedIn’s algorithm to allocate budget more efficiently by bidding more on high-value leads and accounts, and less on low-impact actions. As a result, your campaigns deliver more substantial return on ad spend (ROAS) and are more aligned with your fundamental business objectives.
LinkedIn conversion API use cases
The LinkedIn Conversions API allows you to tailor your tracking and bidding strategy to align with your unique business goals. Whether you’re focused on driving lead volume, increasing total pipeline value, or maximizing downstream revenue, LinkedIn allows you to send conversion data that fuels its optimization algorithms across the full B2B and B2C funnel.
Optimize for conversion volume
To optimize for conversion volume, configure your setup to send conversion events without revenue values. These events represent actions like purchases, signups, or form submissions that aim to increase total conversions. Use LinkedIn’s Maximize Conversions or Lower CPA bidding strategies to generate the most results at the lowest cost per lead or sale.
| Industry | Optimization Goal |
|---|---|
| Retail & E-commerce | Maximize the volume of purchase events on the website, in-app, and in-store. |
| Media & Entertainment | Maximize the volume of subscription sign-ups. |
| Financial Services | Maximize the volume of loan applications submitted. |
| B2B SaaS | Maximize the volume of demo requests or product signups. |
| Travel | Maximize the number of flights or rooms booked. |
| Healthcare | Maximize the volume of health service signups. |
| Education | Maximize the volume of enrollments for a course or event. |
Optimize for conversion value
To optimize for total revenue, send the gross value of each conversion event, such as order amount or deal size. LinkedIn’s Maximize Conversion Value or Target ROAS bidding strategies will prioritize higher-value actions, helping your budget go further by focusing on conversions that drive the most revenue.
| Industry | Optimization Goal |
|---|---|
| Retail & E-commerce | Maximize the gross revenue value of each purchase. |
| Media & Entertainment | Maximize the gross revenue from the first subscription payment (e.g., bid more for premium signups). |
| Financial Services | Maximize the potential value of loan applications submitted (e.g., bid more on users with a higher likelihood of applying for large loan values). |
| B2B SaaS | Maximize the volume of qualified demo requests or product signups. |
| Travel | Maximize the gross revenue value of flights or rooms booked. |
| Healthcare | Maximize the gross revenue value of health service signups. |
| Education | Maximize the gross revenue value of enrollments for a course or event signup (e.g., bid more for premium courses or packages to increase LTV). |
Optimize for financial outcome
To optimize for profitability or customer lifetime value, calculate and send the predicted financial value of each conversion. This could include estimated margin, net revenue, or LTV. Use LinkedIn’s Maximize Conversion Value or Target ROI bidding strategies to align spend with long-term business performance.
| Industry | Optimization Goal |
|---|---|
| Retail & E-commerce | Maximize the estimated profit of purchases by subtracting the cost of goods sold, taxes, and fees (e.g., shipping). |
| Media & Entertainment | Maximize the estimated lifetime value of subscription purchases (e.g., bid more to convert users who are likely to retain them). |
| Financial Services | Maximize the predicted value of loan applications submitted (e.g., bid based on likelihood of approval and estimated interest yield). |
| B2B SaaS | Maximize the predicted revenue value of demo requests or product signups (e.g., use intent data, lead scoring, and predicted ACV). |
| Travel | Maximize the estimated profit from flights or rooms booked by subtracting all related operational costs. |
| Healthcare | Maximize the gross profit value or estimated LTV of health service signups. |
| Education | Maximize the gross profit or estimated LTV of course or event enrollments (e.g., bid based on likelihood of retention and margin). |
What events does the LinkedIn conversions API support?
The LinkedIn Conversions API allows advertisers to track user actions both online and offline and send those events directly from backend systems like CRMs, analytics platforms, and data warehouses. These conversion events help LinkedIn optimize ad delivery, improve attribution accuracy, and unlock deeper performance insights across the customer journey.
LinkedIn supports two main types of events: standard events and custom events.
Standard events are predefined conversion types that LinkedIn recommends for the most common campaign objectives across industries. LinkedIn’s optimization algorithms recognize and prioritize these events, making them the most effective option for delivering performance at scale.
Custom events offer flexibility when your business requires tracking actions that don’t fall neatly into standard categories. You can define your conversion types and send them to LinkedIn via the Conversions API. However, it’s strongly recommended to map your custom events to standard ones whenever possible. LinkedIn’s AI models are trained to optimize on standard events and will typically perform better when they receive them.
Here’s a breakdown of the most common standard and custom events supported by the LinkedIn Conversions API:
| Category | Event Type | Goal |
|---|---|---|
| Purchase Events | Purchase, Complete Registration, Donate, Place an Order | Track and optimize toward purchases |
| Checkout Flow Events | Add to Cart, Initiate Checkout, Add Payment Info | Track and optimize toward steps that lead to purchases |
| Engagement Events | Customize Product, Add to Wishlist, View Content, Search, Find Location, Click Button | Track and optimize engagement with key actions on your site or app |
| Lead Capture Events | Subscribe, Submit Application, Start Trial, Contact Captured, Lead Captured, Scheduled, Download, Submit Form | Track and optimize toward lead capture and funnel progression |
| Custom Events | Business- or industry-specific actions (e.g., Event Attended, Webinar Joined, Video Watched) | Track and optimize toward custom-defined conversion events |
FAQS
Where can I access the LinkedIn conversions API?
You can learn more about the LinkedIn Conversions API in LinkedIn’s official developer documentation. The documentation outlines setup steps, required parameters, and supported events. Depending on your implementation method, especially if you're working with a data warehouse or reverse ETL platform, you may also want to consult with a LinkedIn Marketing Solutions representative or your ad tech provider for personalized support.
How do I check if the LinkedIn conversions API is working?
To confirm that the API is functioning correctly, ensure your server receives successful response codes (e.g., HTTP 200) when sending conversion payloads to LinkedIn. Then, visit LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager or Events Manager to see if your conversion events are being registered.
Once your API is live, run a test campaign and monitor whether your ads are being attributed to conversions. Note: If no conversions appear, it may not indicate a setup issue, your ads may simply not be converting yet.
What match rate should I expect from the LinkedIn conversions API?
Match rates vary based on the quality and completeness of the identifiers included with each event. To maximize match rates, include a combination of:
- System attributes, such as IP address, user-agent, and device type
- Customer identifiers, such as hashed email addresses and phone numbers
- Pseudonymous identifiers, such as LinkedIn Click ID, Mobile Ad ID, or CRM lead IDs
LinkedIn evaluates match quality and displays insights in the Conversions Dashboard, where you can view match rate trends and identify improvement opportunities.
How often should I upload conversions?
To keep LinkedIn’s bidding engine current and reactive, it's best practice to upload conversion events daily. Timely uploads provide immediate feedback to LinkedIn’s optimization system, allowing it to adjust delivery in real time and improve ad performance based on the most recent outcomes.
What data should I include when uploading conversion events?
Each conversion event should include as much consented user data as possible to improve match rates, measurement accuracy, and bidding efficiency. The following parameters are most important:
- System Event Parameters: Define what happened and when (e.g.,
event_name,event_id,event_time) - Consent Parameters: Communicate how the data should be used, in line with user preferences and regulatory requirements
- Customer Information Parameters: Identify the user or account associated with the event (e.g.,
email,phone,device_id,click_id) - Conversion Value Parameters: Include monetary values such as
revenue,profit margin, orcustomer LTVto support value-based bidding strategies
Sending more detailed, high-quality event data results in better attribution, higher match rates, and smarter bidding.
How long does it take for your conversion data to be available in LinkedIn?
The LinkedIn Conversions API receives data in real time, but it can take up to 24 hours for conversion data to be fully processed and reflected in Campaign Manager reports. For new setups, attribution and optimization effects may take several days to ramp up as LinkedIn’s system learns from incoming data.
Does the LinkedIn conversions API have rate limits?
LinkedIn does not publicly document strict rate limits for the Conversions API, but the API documentation provides throughput performance and batching recommendations. If you're planning to send large volumes of data or operate in real-time streaming mode, coordinate with your LinkedIn technical rep to ensure you are using optimal delivery and scale practices.
