LinkedIn ad ROI monitoring isn’t simple, especially in the nuanced world of B2B with its intricate buyer journeys.
Identifying how individual LinkedIn ads contribute to revenue is challenging, particularly when traditional ROI monitoring tools, such as LinkedIn’s built-in analytics or standard CRM solutions, aren’t effective enough.
In this article, we’ll explore why typical ROI monitoring approaches don’t quite measure up on LinkedIn and present a better alternative.
How to Monitor the ROI of Each LinkedIn Ad Precisely: Quick Summary
- LinkedIn ad ROI monitoring is flawed because B2B buyers rarely click ads, yet most tools depend exclusively on clicks.
- Reasons conventional monitoring fails:
- LinkedIn Campaign Manager: Monitors impressions at the company level, but only across the entire ad account. Doesn’t specify which company viewed which particular ad.
- Website deanonymization tools: Function only on ad clicks, with just 40% reliability, often failing against VPNs and shared IP addresses.
- Display ad networks: Depend heavily on cookies and outdated behavioral data, making them susceptible to bot traffic and not suitable for future privacy standards.
- CRMs (e.g., HubSpot): Only record data after form submissions, completely missing out on view-based engagements.
- What you truly require:
- Monitoring of company-level engagement per individual campaign (even without clicks).
- Multi-touch attribution covering all campaigns, rather than solely relying on last-click.
- Real-time integration directly into your CRM to visualize engagements immediately.
- How ZenABM resolves these issues:
- Monitors every company interacting or viewing each LinkedIn ad, eliminating reliance on clicks.
- Breaks down engagement clearly by campaign and company.
- Automatically integrates this monitoring data with CRMs like HubSpot as company properties.
- Generates real-time engagement scores, highlighting priority accounts.
- Categorizes campaigns based on buyer intent, providing actionable insights directly to your BDRs.
- Associates ad touchpoints with pipeline metrics and revenue, enabling precise ROI calculation.
- Leverages safe, first-party API data directly from LinkedIn, ensuring full compliance.
- Bottom line: Click-centric solutions underestimate LinkedIn ad performance. ZenABM accurately reveals your campaigns’ impact throughout the buyer journey.
- Start using ZenABM today and finally gain precise LinkedIn ad ROI monitoring.
Why LinkedIn Ad ROI Monitoring Is Difficult (and Often Ineffective)
What makes monitoring LinkedIn ad ROI such a challenge?
Primarily, LinkedIn functions mainly as an awareness-building platform.
Users typically don’t click on ads here.
Just consider the click-through rates (CTR):
Unlike Google Search, where users actively search and click ads with clear intent, LinkedIn audiences are mostly passively scrolling.
A potential buyer might see your ad, gain interest, but later directly visit your website or search for you via Google. You’d attribute such a visit or conversion to direct traffic or SEO, entirely missing LinkedIn’s role.
The solution?
You shouldn’t depend only on click-based monitoring models. Effective ROI monitoring requires capturing view-through interactions—tracking account-level impressions and engagement rather than clicks alone.
Although many B2B marketers grasp this theoretically, practical implementation remains elusive, largely due to limitations of conventional tools:
LinkedIn Campaign Manager
LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager historically provided minimal account-specific engagement insights. Only in 2020 did LinkedIn introduce the “Company Engagement Report,” which evolved in late 2024 into the “Companies” tab:
This feature provides detailed company-level engagement data like paid clicks and impressions, surpassing mere click-through monitoring.
However, engagement isn’t linked to specific ads or campaigns. All metrics are aggregated at the ad account level.
While you see overall company engagement, you won’t know precisely which ads those companies viewed.
Most marketers run multiple simultaneous ABM campaigns, each branching into various groups containing several individual ads. Campaign differences include:
- Ad format and creative elements
- Budgets, timelines, ownership, and frequency
- Buyer intent, highlighting distinct benefits or features
Without granular, campaign-level company data, attributing revenue or accurately mapping buyer intent becomes impossible.
Consider Userpilot’s intricate campaign structure:
Aggregated account-level data isn’t sufficiently actionable. You need impressions, clicks, and engagement detailed by company for every individual campaign and group.
Without campaign-specific data, monitoring ad ROI accurately and conducting meaningful A/B tests is unfeasible.
Website Deanonymization Tools
What about external tools claiming to identify companies visiting your site?
These deanonymization solutions (reverse IP lookup services) can occasionally match visitors to companies through IP addresses.
However, they only function effectively when someone clicks an ad. This completely neglects those who merely viewed the ad without clicking. an enormous gap for LinkedIn monitoring.
Even for visitors who do click, accuracy is disappointing—typically about 40%, as shown by a Syft study:
Why?
IP-based matching is unreliable due to VPN usage and shared networks (e.g., coffee shops). Moreover, many companies haven’t registered their IP addresses, leaving nothing to match against:
For instance, a B2B firm (Userpilot) employed Clearbit, a tool reputedly more accurate for IP matching. The result?
Only one company identified—their own:
Thus, traditional deanonymization offers negligible insights for LinkedIn ad ROI monitoring.
Display Ad Networks & Behavioral Data Matching
Some marketers use display ad networks (e.g., AdRoll, Criteo) for audience retargeting and matching. These networks depend on third-party cookies and device fingerprinting to track user behaviors and infer associated companies or industries. Unfortunately, this method doesn’t effectively solve LinkedIn ROI monitoring issues either:
- Third-party cookies are being phased out (as Google’s Chrome moves towards privacy-focused solutions). Cookie-based monitoring methods are no longer sustainable.
- Behavioral data often becomes quickly outdated—someone switching jobs recently may still be incorrectly associated with their prior company.
- Display networks face significant bot traffic, inflating engagement metrics with fake interactions. Nearly a quarter of perceived engagements might not involve actual prospects.
LinkedIn Ads CRM Integration
Another frequently used strategy involves leveraging ad integrations from your marketing automation or CRM platform—for instance, HubSpot’s LinkedIn Ads integration.
HubSpot’s ads feature allows syncing your LinkedIn Ads account, importing lead form data, and even managing LinkedIn campaigns directly from within HubSpot. However, regarding precise ROI monitoring, it falls short by not providing insights into:
- Companies viewing each LinkedIn ad, showing only individual contacts upon conversion.
- Companies clicking ads without form submission, or clicking and later converting via another channel.
- Repeated engagement from target accounts over time, indicating rising interest.
- The downstream influence of LinkedIn campaigns on deals and opportunities within your CRM.
You might wonder, “Doesn’t HubSpot’s tracking script or LinkedIn Insight Tag capture this?” Unfortunately, significant limitations persist:
- If site visitors convert without specifying their company (common on general demo forms), their account identification remains unknown.
- If an individual clicks an ad but fills out a form later or via another device, cookie-based attribution might fail to link this back to the original ad click.
Source: HubSpot Knowledge Base - Additionally, any lead influenced by ads without clicks (common in B2B scenarios involving multiple stakeholders) remains completely invisible. Often, one committee member clicks while another makes contact, or no clicks occur despite impressions collectively building brand awareness. B2B influence typically extends far beyond single clicks or single individuals.
Key takeaways:
- CRMs such as HubSpot predominantly monitor click-through actions and require immediate form submissions. This limitation extends similarly to LinkedIn’s CAPI and Insight Tag.
- IP matching potentially reduces reliance on form submissions but remains theoretically effective at best, with only about 40% accuracy and is still limited by its click-centric approach.
- LinkedIn Campaign Manager’s ‘Companies’ tab offers impression-based engagement tracking at the company level but aggregates this data across the entire ad account, lacking granularity about which specific ads each company views. Thus, accurate campaign-specific ROI monitoring remains unattainable.
What’s essential for robust LinkedIn ad ROI monitoring is a solution capable of tracking detailed company-level engagement (impressions included, not just clicks) across every campaign and campaign group.
How ZenABM Facilitates Precise LinkedIn Ad ROI Monitoring
ZenABM leverages LinkedIn’s official APIs to gather detailed, company-level engagement insights from your campaigns, without relying on guesswork, cookies, or IP-based tracking.
This first-party methodology accurately captures genuine interactions with your LinkedIn ads. Here’s how ZenABM simplifies and enhances LinkedIn ad ROI monitoring and attribution:
Monitors Every Company Viewing or Interacting with Your Ads
Regardless of whether target accounts click or simply view your ads, ZenABM systematically captures their interactions, recording each company that:
- Sees your ad (impression)
- Interacts with your ad (likes, comments, shares)
- Clicks your ad
- Views ads but doesn’t click or visit your site
This comprehensive monitoring enables attribution of influence beyond immediate clicks or form submissions. For instance, if Company X views your ad repeatedly but doesn’t initially interact, yet later visits your site and requests a demo through another channel, ZenABM connects these engagements clearly.
ZenABM demonstrates precisely how these repeated ad impressions contributed to shaping interest, accurately attributing each interaction along the buyer journey. In essence, ZenABM provides true “view-through” attribution for LinkedIn campaigns, extending well beyond basic last-click methods.
Ensures Balanced Attribution Across Campaigns
Marketers often lean on last-click attribution, crediting the final ad interaction before conversion. Alternatively, some over-prioritise the campaign with the highest click volume.
ZenABM corrects this imbalance by showing every LinkedIn campaign that an account engaged with throughout its buyer journey. This allows you to fairly distribute ROI credit across all meaningful touchpoints.
For instance, a lead might first respond to a thought-leadership post, later engage with a product-specific ad, and finally convert through a demo offer. ZenABM surfaces the full engagement journey, ensuring early-stage or lower-volume campaigns also receive due credit for their influence.
Automatically Syncs Engagement Metrics to HubSpot
No more manually updating spreadsheets or aggregating data by hand.
ZenABM automates the process, pushing LinkedIn ad engagement stats straight into your CRM, such as HubSpot, as dynamic company-level properties. You’ll receive automatically updated fields like “LinkedIn Ad Impressions – Last 7 Days” or “LinkedIn Ad Clicks – Last 7 Days” per account.
This seamless data flow lets you generate reports and trigger CRM-based workflows in real time, based on up-to-date ad engagement activity.
Automates Lead Scoring and BDR Assignment and Identifies Buyer Intent
Another powerful feature of ZenABM is built-in lead scoring.
The platform calculates a real-time engagement score for each account based on factors like how many ads they’ve seen, how many times they clicked or interacted, and how recently these interactions happened. This “LinkedIn Engagement Score” acts as a proxy for intent – if an account is surging in engagement, it could be showing buying signals.
ALso, ZenABM can automatically use these scores to flag hot accounts to your sales team.
For instance, when an account’s score crosses a certain threshold, ZenABM can assign that company to a BDR in your CRM:
Buyer Intent Tracking and Syncing into the CRM
In ZenABM, you can tag every campaign or group with its underlying intent (feature, use-case, pain-point).
Then ZenABM will cluster engaged companies with that intent, so BDRs can talk about what prospects actually care about.
Links LinkedIn Ads to Real Pipeline and Revenue
Ultimately, ROI monitoring is about connecting advertising costs with tangible business outcomes.
ZenABM closes this gap by mapping engagement from LinkedIn ads directly to your CRM pipeline. It correlates account-level activity and even specific opportunities with pipeline stages and closed deals. You get an end-to-end view from ad exposure to actual revenue.
Offers Ready-to-Use ABM Dashboards
ZenABM is purpose-built for account-based marketing and includes pre-built dashboards that visualise all your key metrics. No need for technical setup or custom reporting.
These dashboards highlight exactly what matters for ROI monitoring, impressions vs. engagement, pipeline attribution, ROAS, high-intent accounts, and more.
With ZenABM, you move beyond a click-focused approach and shift to a complete, account-centric ROI analysis.
Uses Secure, First-Party Data (No Scraping Involved)
ZenABM’s data practices are 100% LinkedIn-compliant. As LinkedIn cracks down on scraping and unauthorized automation tools:
ZenABM stays fully above board by using LinkedIn’s official APIs. That means you’re getting verified first-party engagement data—accurate, reliable, and safe. No risk to your compliance or LinkedIn account.
Your Turn
LinkedIn ad ROI monitoring goes far beyond counting clicks or leads—it’s about mapping the full customer journey, from first exposure to final deal closure.
This is especially true in B2B environments, where long sales cycles and multiple decision-makers are the norm. Traditional last-click attribution doesn’t cut it. It ignores the early engagement that warms up an account.
By adopting an account-level monitoring strategy, you uncover the hidden influences that actually drive revenue. ZenABM makes this not only possible but seamless, revealing which campaigns truly generate awareness, build intent, and convert high-value prospects.
When you can identify which ads move the needle (not just those that get clicks), you can refine your entire LinkedIn strategy based on real outcomes.
Ready to stop guessing and start measuring what works?
Try ZenABM and finally gain complete clarity into your LinkedIn ad ROI.
