Introducing Conversion Tracking: Top Tips to Measure Your ROI and Optimize Your LinkedIn Ads

Phillipe HanProduct Marketing Manager,LinkedIn Marketing Solutions

Cassandra ClarkMarketing Manager,LinkedIn Marketing Solutions

Agenda for today

• Introduction to conversion tracking

• Getting started with LinkedIn conversion tracking

• Case Study: How LinkedIn Marketing Solutions uses conversion tracking

What is conversion tracking?

Why conversion tracking for LinkedIn ads?

Track all of your conversions right in Campaign ManagerRecord leads from your LinkedIn campaigns across desktop and mobile, whether members convert after clicking on—or even just viewing—your ads.

Understand your ROIMeasure the true value you’re getting from your Sponsored Content and Text Ads campaigns, including return on ad spend, conversion rate, cost per conversion, and more.

Optimize for the results that matter mostSee which specific ads, audiences, and offers are driving conversions for your business. Use this data to improve your campaigns at every stage.

Conversion tracking defined

A conversion is an action that a member takes, like filling out a webinar registration form or downloading a white paper.

Conversion tracking is the ability to measure conversions and then attribute it back to the source that provided the initial click or view.

By tracking these conversions, you can more easily gauge the ROI of your campaigns.

1 A prospect clicks on or views an ad

2 Prospect lands on your site and submits a form.

3 Prospect lands on “Thank You” page, gets counted as Conversion.

Thank You!Your download should start automatically.

If not, click here.

4 Prospect is registered as a conversion in your LinkedIn campaign reporting.

+1

Get started with LinkedIn conversion tracking

Choose where you want to track conversions

1STEP

Click button on the top right to access Conversion Tracking

 Don’t include the “http”, “https,” or “www”

Enter the domain(s) you want to track

YOU CAN SKIP THIS STEP

If you’re already using an Insight Tag.

Add the LinkedIn Insight Tag to your domain

2STEP

Copy + paste Insight Tag code into your site’s global footer, or email the instructions to your web team

PRO TIPPlace tag in your site’s global footer. If that’s not possible, tag the page(s) you want to count each hit as a conversion (for example, a “Thank You” page a member sees after submitting a form).

YOU CAN SKIP THIS STEP

If you already have a LinkedIn tag on your site.

Make sure your domain appears as Verified. You can also add new domains on this page.

PRO TIPOnce you’ve tagged your site, your domain should register as Verified in 60 mins - 24 hrs. If it’s still showing as Unverified after 24 hours, read the troubleshooting checklist, or contact your LinkedIn representative.

More on Insight Tags

1. The tag is made up of lightweight javascript code.

2. The tag transmits conversion data from your site to your LinkedIn analytics.

3. Once it’s installed, you can use the same tag indefinitely for all your campaigns (only one tag needed per domain).

 You and your teammates can use the same Insight Tag

(Optional) Grant other LinkedIn ads accounts permission to share your Insight Tag

ACCESS TYPE

Customize the level of tag access you’d like to grant to other LinkedIn ads accounts.

PRO TIPS

• First time creating an Insight Tag? In your Campaign Manager, click on the Conversion Tracking tab on the top right to generate your tag.

• Don’t do this if you already have a LinkedIn Insight Tag on the pages you want to track.

• Enter the domain where you want to track conversions. Be sure to exclude “http://” or “https://” or “www” part of the domain.

• No need to add subdomains. Just the top domain will do.

• Place the tag in your site’s global footer to automatically tag all pages.

• Make sure your domain appears as Verified. This normally takes 60 mins, but may take up to 24 hours.

Create a conversion action, add it to a campaign

3STEP

Let’s review

• A conversion is a member event like filling out a webinar registration form or downloading a white paper.

• Conversion tracking is the ability to measure conversions and then attribute it back to the source that provided the initial click or view.

• A conversion action is something you create in LinkedIn Campaign Manager. It tells the platform which user behaviors to count as a conversion event.

 Once saved, you can re-use an action indefinitely on as many campaigns as you’d like.

First, create a conversion action and give it a name

 This is an internal label to help you organize and manage the actions you’ll save.

Next, select a “Conversion type”

PRO TIPBe sure to select the correct conversion type. It’s not visible to your audience.

 This is an internal label to help you organize and manage the actions you’ll save.

Next, select a “Conversion type”

PRO TIPMost conversion types behave identically.The conversions will “de-duplicate” — counting only 1 conversion per member even if that person converts twice during the same attribution period.

The exceptions are Purchase and Add to Cart:, where each purchase or cart-add event counts as a unique conversion, even if the same person converts twice in LinkedIn’s 30-day window.

 to measure return on spend for your analytics

Enter a conversion “value”

 LinkedIn’s system will record each hit to this URL as a conversion

Enter your conversion URL

PRO TIPAdd multiple URLs to a single action.The analytics will show that a conversion has occurred whenever a member hits any of those URLs during the attribution period.

 LinkedIn’s system will record each hit to this URL as a conversion

“Thank You” pages make great URLs from which to track conversions

PRO TIPWhen to group URLs in the same conversion action vs. separate them into different actions?

Group multiple URLs into the same action if they all direct to the same or similar offers.

Alternatively, advertisers can separate their URLs into distinct actions for different offers

If you group multiple URLs in one action, you cannot track conversions separately on each URL.

If you want to track conversions separately on each URL, separate URLs into their own actions. Then, add each action to your campaign.

When to add multiple URLs to your action

 The conversion page URL must belong to the domain you entered earlier

Two ways to record your URL

“Starts with” – Counts a conversion on any page whose URL starts with these characters.

“Exact” – Counts a conversion only on pages whose URL matches these characters in their entirety.

View and edit all your saved conversion actions, or create a new one

Add an existing conversion action to a new campaign

PRO TIPAdd as many conversions as you want to campaigns.

Your account’s one Insight Tag will support all of the conversion actions. you create.

Or add conversion actions to an existing campaign

Click on the gear icon and select “Select Conversions.”

Select conversions to add them, then click “Apply”

Ensure that the conversions are “Active”

“Active” – LinkedIn’s system received data from the Insight Tag on one of this action’s conversion pages within the past 30 days. “Unverified” – LinkedIn has not yet received data from the Insight Tag on one of this action’s conversion page.

“Not working” – LinkedIn was receiving data from this conversion page, but no new data in the past 30 days.

Ensure that the conversions are “Active”

Your conversion actions should become “Active” within 60 minutes provided that you’d properly set up your domain, Insight Tag, and conversion URLs.

If after 24 hours your action are still showing as “Unverified” or “Not working,” please review the steps in our pre-launch checklist, or contact your LinkedIn representative.

View your Insight Tag anytime on the top right

Add more domains on the View Insight Tag page

Let’s review

• Pick the right conversion type for your campaign.

• Filling in a value can help you calculate Return on Ad Spend later on.

• Use two rule types to indicate where your Insight Tag will fire: Starts with and Exact.

• Add conversion actions to new or existing campaigns.

• Your conversion URL domain must match the website domain you entered when you began setup.

Measure your conversion results

4STEP

See exactly which target audiences are driving conversions

See how many conversions your campaigns drove

Click on the "Conversions" tab to access your conversion metrics

Case Study: LinkedIn Marketing Solutions

Optimization by top funnel metrics vs bottom funnel metrics

Top funnel:

Opens

Open rate

Clicks

Click-through rate

Engagement rate

Cost-per-click

Bottom funnel:

Conversions

Conversion rate

Cost per conversion

Conversion Value

Return on ad-spend

LMS Uses Conversion tracking metrics to analyze campaign performance and optimize

• We look beyond just conversions

• Post-click conversions help us optimize creative, they tell us what’s working

• View through conversions help give us an understanding of activity we are driving through our campaigns

• Conversion rate helps us isolate top performing creative and campaign targeting

How does Conversion Tracking differ from Marketing Attribution?

Conversion Tracking Attribution

● Track the number of people engaging with your ads

● Track quality of leads through MQLs, Opportunities created and closed won

● Allows for immediate optimization

● Downstream metrics take longer to see

● Ability to track a specific person to the action and the path to closed won

Not all leads are created equal

Conversion tracking by lead type puts a value on the intent or audience behind a specific conversion action and in turn allows you to optimize on metrics that matter most to the business.

Example: Optimization by Top Funnel

Example 2: Optimization by return on your ad spend

Optimizing campaign by audience demographics

Optimizing campaign by creative

marketing.linkedin.com

©2014 LinkedIn Corporation. All Rights Reserved.©2014 LinkedIn Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Questions?