How to Track LinkedIn Ads in Google Analytics

Spending money on LinkedIn Ads but can't see what impact they're having inside Google Analytics? You're not alone. This guide is your complete roadmap to connect the dots, showing you exactly how to use tracking parameters to measure every click, conversion, and lead from your LinkedIn campaigns. We'll cover everything from building the right URLs from scratch to finding that valuable data inside GA4 so you can finally prove your ROI.

Why You Can't Afford to Skip Tracking

If you don't track your LinkedIn Ads properly, all that valuable traffic gets lumped into vague categories like "Direct" or "Social" inside Google Analytics. This is a huge problem. It means you can't tell which campaigns, audiences, or specific ad creatives are actually driving results. You're essentially spending money in the dark, hoping something works.

When you implement tracking, you unlock a completely new level of insight. You can:

• Attribute Conversions Accurately: Find out which campaigns lead directly to sign-ups, demo requests, or sales. You can finally prove the value your LinkedIn advertising brings to the bottom line.
• Optimize Your Ad Spend: Why keep putting money into a campaign that isn’t converting? Tracking allows you to see what's working and what's not, so you can confidently shift your budget from underperforming ads to your top performers, maximizing your return. To learn more about improving your ad performance, check out our guide on how to optimize LinkedIn ads for traffic.
• Understand the Full Customer Journey: See what happens after the click. Do visitors from your video ad campaign read more blog posts? Do people from your carousel ad browse your product pages? Tracking reveals how your ad audience engages with your website once they arrive.

The Secret Sauce: Understanding UTM Parameters

The solution to this tracking puzzle is a simple but powerful tool called UTM parameters. Think of them as little informational tags you add to the end of your website URL. These tags don’t change the destination page for your users, but they feed specific information back to Google Analytics, telling it exactly where that visitor came from.

Your main URL might look like this:

https://www.yourcompany.com/webinar-signup

But the URL with UTM tags will look something like this:

https://www.yourcompany.com/webinar-signup?utm_source=linkedin&,utm_medium=cpc&,utm_campaign=q4-product-launch

That extra string of text tells Google Analytics everything it needs to know. There are five standard UTM parameters, but for LinkedIn ads, you'll mainly focus on three essential ones, with a fourth being highly recommended for deeper analysis.

The Core UTM Parameters Explained:

• utm_source (Required): This tag identifies the traffic source. For all your LinkedIn ads, this should consistently be linkedin. By keeping it the same, all your data will be neatly grouped together.
• utm_medium (Required): This tag specifies the marketing medium. For paid ads, common choices are cpc (cost-per-click), ppc (pay-per-click), or paid_social. Choose one and stick with it for consistency.
• utm_campaign (Required): This is where you name your specific campaign. Your goal is to make it descriptive enough that you'll recognize it in your analytics reports later. A name like 2024-saas-demo-campaign is much better than campaign123.
• utm_content (Recommended): This is perfect for A/B testing. Use this tag to differentiate between ads within the same campaign. For example, if you're testing a video ad against a static image ad, you could label them video-ad-testimonial and image-ad-feature-list. This lets you measure which creative performs best.
• utm_term (Optional): Originally used for tracking keywords in paid search ads (like Google Ads), this parameter is less relevant for most LinkedIn campaigns. You can generally leave it blank.

Step-by-Step: Building Your Tracking URLs

You don't have to build these long URLs by hand. The easiest way is to use a free tool that does it for you. Google's own Campaign URL Builder is the most popular choice.

Step 1: Open Google’s Campaign URL Builder

Navigate to Google's GA4 Campaign URL Builder. This simple form has fields for your website URL and all the UTM parameters we just covered.

Step 2: Fill in the Fields for Your Ad

Let’s say you’re promoting a new guide for project managers with an ad that includes a video testimonial. Here’s how you would fill out the form:

• Website URL: https://www.yourcompany.com/new-guide-download
• Campaign Source (utm_source): linkedin
• Campaign Medium (utm_medium): cpc
• Campaign Name (utm_campaign): fall-guide-launch-pms
• Campaign Content (utm_content): video-testimonial-ad

Step 3: Generate and Copy Your URL

As you fill in the fields, the tool will automatically generate the full, tagged URL at the bottom of the page. It will look like this:

https://www.yourcompany.com/new-guide-download?utm_source=linkedin&,utm_medium=cpc&,utm_campaign=fall-guide-launch-pms&,utm_content=video-testimonial-ad

Simply copy this full URL. This is what you’ll use in your LinkedIn ad.

Best Practices for Clean Tracking

Before you run off to build your links, keep these simple rules in mind. Getting them right from the start will save you from major headaches later.

• Be consistent with your naming conventions. Google Analytics is case-sensitive, so linkedin, LinkedIn, and LINKEDIN would all show up as different sources in your reports. Pick a style - lowercase is the standard - and stick with it for everything.
• Use dashes instead of spaces. Spaces can cause messy URLs. Use dashes (-) or underscores (_) to separate words in your campaign and content names, like q4-new-feature instead of q4 new feature.
• Be descriptive but brief. Make your campaign names something your future self (or a new teammate) can easily understand. ebook-launch-hr-managers is clear and informative.
• Keep a master spreadsheet. Create a simple Google Sheet or Excel file to record every tracked URL you create. This document acts as your single source of truth, helping you and your team maintain consistency and avoid creating duplicate or mistyped parameters.

Placing Your Tracked URL in LinkedIn Campaign Manager

With your new, trackable URL in hand, the next step is to put it in your LinkedIn ad. The process is straightforward and only takes a moment.

1. Navigate to your account in LinkedIn Campaign Manager.
2. Either create a new campaign or locate the existing ad you want to track.
3. As you create or edit your ad creative, you’ll reach the section where you define the ad’s details, including its destination.
4. Look for the field labeled Destination URL.
5. Clear out any old URL and paste your full, UTM-tagged URL directly into this field.
6. Save your ad, and you're good to go!

Once your campaign is live, every person who clicks on that ad will land on your website with those tracking tags, and Google Analytics will record the visit perfectly.

Finding Your LinkedIn Campaign Data in Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

After your ads have been running for a day or two and getting clicks, your data will start appearing in Google Analytics 4. The platform's interface might look different if you're used to the older version, but finding your campaign data is easy once you know where to click.

Step 1: Head to the Traffic Acquisition Report

In the left-hand menu of your GA4 property, navigate to Reports >, Acquisition >, Traffic acquisition.

Step 2: Change the Primary Dimension to "Session Campaign"

The report initially shows data grouped by Session default channel group. To see your campaign-specific data, click the dropdown arrow on that default primary dimension and change it to Session campaign. You'll now see a list of all your tracked campaigns, including the LinkedIn campaign names you just created.

Step 3: Add a Secondary Dimension for More Detail

To confirm that the traffic is indeed coming from your LinkedIn ads, you can add a secondary dimension. Click the blue "+" button next to the primary dimension dropdown.

From the menu, search for and select Session source / medium. Your report will now show not only the campaign name but also the source and medium you defined in your UTM parameters (linkedin / cpc).

You can even take it one step further by adding Session manual ad content as a secondary dimension to see which ad creatives (utm_content) are driving the best results. From here, you can see key engagement metrics like Users, Sessions, Engaged sessions, and, most importantly, Conversions for each specific campaign and ad.

Final Thoughts

By systematically using UTM parameters on your LinkedIn Ads, you'll close the loop between your campaign efforts and actual website results. This data stops you from guessing and starts empowering you to make data-driven decisions that will directly improve your marketing ROI, all within your existing Google Analytics dashboard.

Of course, winning ad campaigns are often born from great organic content, and managing that across multiple social platforms takes organization. At Postbase, we believe that orchestrating your content calendar shouldn't be a chore. Our intuitive visual calendar helps you plan, schedule, and see all your organic content in one place. This makes it simple to spot your best-performing organic posts - the ones most likely to succeed as your next great, fully-tracked ad campaign - and maintain a cohesive strategy across all your marketing channels.

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