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LinkedIn Ad Analytics in B2B Marketing: Why It’s Broken and What’s The Fix9 min read

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LinkedIn Ad Analytics in B2B Marketing: Why its Broken and What's the Fix

LinkedIn ad analytics in B2B marketing is messy. Buying committees are large. Journeys are long. Clicks are rare.

Most native reports and many CRMs focus on click-throughs and last-touch views. That view hides how LinkedIn actually shapes demand across accounts.

In this post, I have discussed the problem and the fix (ZenABM). You will see what breaks LinkedIn ad analytics in B2B marketing and how to build analytics that reflect real account engagement and pipeline impact.

LinkedIn Ad Analytics in B2B Marketing: Short Summary

  • LinkedIn ad analytics breaks down when teams rely on clicks. Buyers see ads, rarely click, then convert later through other paths. Your numbers miss that exposure.
  • Why analytics fails today:
    • LinkedIn Campaign Manager: Shows company engagement but rolls it up at the ad account level. You cannot tell which company saw which campaign or ad.
    • Website deanonymization tools: Only fire on clicks. Often hover near ~40% accuracy. VPNs and shared IPs make the data unreliable.
    • Display ad networks: Depend on cookies and stale behavioral profiles. Bot activity skews engagement. Not a solid base for analytics.
    • CRMs like HubSpot: Pick up activity after a form fill. They miss the view-through influence and multi-person account behavior.
  • What you actually need:
    • Campaign-level and company-level signals that include impressions and engagements without a click.
    • Multi-touch insight across campaigns. Do not limit to the last click.
    • Direct CRM sync so analytics lives as company properties for reports, scoring, and routing.
  • How ZenABM helps:
    • Captures every company that sees or engages with each LinkedIn ad. No click required.
    • Breaks out engagement by campaign and by company, so analytics is precise.
    • Writes metrics into CRMs like HubSpot as company fields you can filter and automate on.
    • Calculates real-time engagement scores to prioritize hot accounts.
    • Tags campaigns by buyer intent and surfaces that signal to BDRs.
    • Links ad touchpoints to pipeline and revenue so ROI becomes visible in your reports.
    • Uses first-party LinkedIn API data. Fully compliant.
  • Bottom line: Click-centric stacks undervalue LinkedIn. Proper LinkedIn ad analytics in B2B marketing shows full-funnel influence across accounts.
  • Try ZenABM now to upgrade your LinkedIn ad analytics with company-level accuracy.

Why LinkedIn Ad Analytics in B2B Marketing Is Tricky (and Often Broken)

Why is LinkedIn ad analytics hard for B2B teams?

LinkedIn is great for awareness and consideration.

People do not click often.

Look at the CTR:

Infographic showing low LinkedIn CTR and its impact on B2B ad analytics

Search ads capture explicit intent. LinkedIn captures attention while buyers scroll.

They may see your ad and later Google your brand or go direct. Your analytics credits SEO or direct. LinkedIn’s role disappears.

The fix is simple to say and harder to do.

Do not anchor on clicks. Build analytics that capture view-through signals at the account level. That means impressions and engagements tied to companies, not just to individuals who submit forms.

Conventional tools fall short for several reasons.

LinkedIn Campaign Manager

LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager long offered limited account-level depth. In 2020, LinkedIn launched the “Company Engagement Report”. In late 2024, it evolved into the “Companies” tab:

LinkedIn Ads enhanced company engagement reporting feature

You can see company metrics like paid impressions and paid clicks. That goes beyond basic click tracking.

The problem. Engagement is rolled up at the ad account level. You still cannot bind which campaigns or ads a specific company saw.

Most ABM teams run many campaigns across groups and themes.

These differ by:

  • Format and creative
  • Budget, schedule, owner, frequency
  • Intent theme such as feature, use case, or benefit

Without campaign-level company data, you cannot map intent or run clean analytics.

See how layered structures look at Userpilot:

Layered ABM campaign structure that needs campaign-level company analytics

Account-level rollups are too blunt. You need impressions, clicks, and engagements by company for each campaign, campaign group, and ABM program.

Without that, you cannot compare campaigns, stop waste, or run real A/B tests.

Website Deanonymization Tools

What about reverse IP tools that claim to reveal companies on your site?

They only work after a click. View-through influence is invisible. That leaves a major gap in LinkedIn ad analytics for B2B marketing.

Even for click-through traffic, accuracy is shaky (often near 40%, per a Syft study):

Low accuracy of IP-based deanonymization for site visitors

Why does it fail?

IP mapping is brittle. VPNs and shared networks break it.

Many companies never register their IP blocks. There is nothing to match:

Many companies do not register IPs which weakens IP-based analytics

A real case. A B2B team at Userpilot tried Clearbit to identify companies from LinkedIn ad traffic.

The output.

One company revealed. Their own:

Clearbit example revealing only the source company which limits analytics value

Classic deanonymization barely moves the needle for LinkedIn ad analytics.

Display Ad Networks & Behavioural Data Matching

Display networks face bot traffic and stale profiles that distort analytics

Some teams lean on display networks such as AdRoll or Criteo for retargeting and audience matches. These systems often rely on third-party cookies and device fingerprinting. That does not solve LinkedIn analytics.

  • Third-party cookies are being phased out in Chrome. Your analytics will break if it relies on them.
  • Profiles age quickly. Job changes cause misattribution. Your reports drift.
  • Bot traffic inflates clicks and views. Your charts inherit noise.

LinkedIn Ads CRM Integration

HubSpot LinkedIn Ads integration helps but stays click centric

You can connect LinkedIn Ads inside your marketing automation or CRM. For example, HubSpot’s LinkedIn Ads integration.

Useful for management and lead forms. Limited for analytics:

  • You cannot see which companies saw each ad. Only individuals if they convert.
  • You cannot follow companies that clicked but never filled a form or converted later through another channel.
  • You cannot trend account engagement over time at the campaign layer.
  • You cannot tie campaign exposure to downstream opportunities and deals with confidence.

Does HubSpot tracking or the LinkedIn Insight Tag close these gaps? There are constraints.

  • If a visitor converts without a company name, you cannot assign them to an account.
  • If the click and the form fill happen in different sessions or devices, cookies may not link them.

    HubSpot LinkedIn ad attribution depends on same-session cookies
    Source: HubSpot Knowledge Base
  • Most influence is never clicked. In B2B, different people see the ads. One person clicks. Another submits the form. Analytics must roll up to the account.

Bottom lines.

  • CRMs and tags skew to clicks and short windows.
  • IP matching looks helpful, but accuracy is weak, and click bias remains.
  • The Companies tab brings view-through signal,s but at the ad account rollup. You still lack campaign-level clarity per company.

To get accurate LinkedIn ad analytics in B2B marketing, you need campaign-level and company-level engagement captured, even on impressions and synced into your systems.

How ZenABM Elevates LinkedIn Ad Analytics for B2B Teams

Here’s how ZenABM fixes LinkedIn ad analytics for B2B teams:

Tracks Every Company That Sees or Engages with Your Ads

Top engaged companies by LinkedIn campaign with impressions, CTR, engagements, spend, CRM deal value, and assigned BDR
ZenABM shows the top engaged companies by each LinkedIn ad campaign along with impressions, CTR, engagements, Ad spend, and deal value matched from CRM and the assigned BDR.

Company-level LinkedIn ad engagement data for each campiagn for a selected time period in ZenABM

ZenABM records companies that:

  • See your ad
  • Engage with your ad such as likes or comments
  • Click the ad
  • View the ad without visiting your site

You can give credit when there is no form fill. If Company X saw your ads repeatedly, then requested a demo via search or direct, you will still see the influence. If several ads warmed that account over time, each touch is visible.

Gives Fair Attribution Across Campaigns

All LinkedIn campaigns a company interacted with for fair attribution in analytics
ZenABM shows you all the LinkedIn ad campaigns that the company interacted with, so you can attribute the ROI to the campaigns fairly.

Last click distorts the story. Click volume does too.

ZenABM shows all campaigns an account has interacted with on the way to the pipeline. Early thought leadership gets its share. Mid-funnel product ads get theirs. Your analytics reflect the real sequence.

Pushes Engagement Data into HubSpot Automatically

Company-level impressions per LinkedIn campaign synced as HubSpot company properties
Company-level impression data per campaign in ZenABM that can be pushed as a company property into HubSpot
LinkedIn engagement per company per campaign written to HubSpot fields for analytics
ZenABM pushed the LinkedIn engagements for each company per campaign as company property into HubSpot
LinkedIn ad engagement metrics visible on HubSpot company records
Engagement metrics synced to HubSpot companies.

Manual spreadsheets go away.

ZenABM writes live engagement into CRM company properties such as “LinkedIn Ad Impressions – Last 7 Days” and “LinkedIn Ad Clicks – Last 7 Days”. Reports, scores, and workflows stay current.

Automates Lead Scoring and BDR Assignment and Identifies Buyer Intent

Engagement score per campaign and over time that powers routing and follow-ups
The current engagement score per campaign/campaign group in ZenABM helps you identify if your hottest leads are still engaged, so your BDRs contact the right leads at the right time.

ZenABM scores engagement in real time.

It weights recency, frequency, and interaction type. When a company’s score crosses a threshold, the account can be routed to a BDR automatically:

Automatic BDR assignment when engagement thresholds are met

Buyer Intent Tracking and Syncing into the CRM

Each campaign or group can be tagged by intent such as feature, use case, or pain.

ZenABM clusters companies by that intent so reps speak to what buyers care about.

Intent clusters that guide messaging and prioritization in B2B analytics

Connects LinkedIn Ads to Real Pipeline & Revenue

ABM analytics dashboard in ZenABM

Real analytics ends at revenue.

ZenABM maps campaign engagement at the company level to opportunities and deals in your CRM. You see how LinkedIn ads shape pipeline and closed-won outcomes.

Provides Plug-and-Play ABM Dashboards

LinkedIn campaign metrics dashboard in ZenABM  ABM analytics dashboard in ZenABM  ABM campaign metrics dashboard in ZenABM

Because ZenABM is built for ABM, it includes dashboards that highlight what matters. Impressions versus engagement. Pipeline influenced. ROI or ROAS. Top engaged accounts. Everything updates on schedule. No custom SQL required.

Uses Safe, First-Party Data (No Scraping)

LinkedIn continues to crack down on scraping:

LinkedIn crackdowns make scraping risky. First-party API data is safer for analytics.

 

And on automation bots:

LinkedIn flags unapproved automation tools. API-based analytics stay compliant.

ZenABM uses LinkedIn’s official API. You stay within platform rules and data privacy norms. Signals are reliable and safe.

Over to You

Good LinkedIn ad analytics in B2B marketing does not stop at clicks. It maps impressions, engagements, and clicks to the account. It follows the path to pipeline and revenue. Last-click models miss early assists and shared influence across a buying group.

Shift to company-level and campaign-level analytics that capture view-through and click-through. Sync those signals to your CRM and dashboards. ZenABM makes this practical with first-party data, fair attribution, scoring, intent tags, and ready-made ABM views. When you can see which ads move accounts forward, you can invest with confidence and scale what works.

Ready to level up your reporting and insight?

Try ZenABM now and bring LinkedIn ad analytics in B2B marketing into one reliable, account-centric view.

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