LinkedIn is not just a website where you get to show off your professional headshot or business banner. It’s also the home of 722 million users – an audience that’s up for targeting with the help of LinkedIn advertising. Part of this involves setting up your LinkedIn Insight tag or Pixel.

In this guide, we’ll explain why you should use LinkedIn pixel and how to set it up.

The LinkedIn pixel: what is it?

The LinkedIn pixel is essentially a piece of JavaScript code that you instal on your site. The code leaves a cookie in the browser of any visitor so that whenever a LinkedIn user visits your website, you can target them on your LinkedIn ad campaign (or re-targeting campaign) later on.

You can also rely on the Pixel to track conversions when potential customers click on your LinkedIn ads. It’s similar to the pixel used in Facebook ads.

Do you really need it?

In the online world, data is power, but you can’t get your hands on any if you don’t have a tracking measure set up.

One way of exactly tracking anyone and everyone who has visited your page (or clicked on your Lead Form!) as long as they have a LinkedIn account is adding an Insight tag to all the different pages of your website.

It’s capable of tracking events as well as conversions. In other words, it gives you the data to know what works and what doesn’t in your ad campaigns.

You can track their interactions with your website after they click on the ad. This allows you to easily retarget lost purchases. It also helps you to establish better ad analytics and optimisation.

To put it short, the LinkedIn Pixel turns you into an all-known Wizard of Oz in what is considered the world’s most popular business networking website.

Adding a LinkedIn pixel

You must create your pixel before installing it.

First off, fire up your campaign manager. Then, select your account and click on “website demographics”, which you can find up top. There, you’ll find a “set up your Insight Tag” button. Click it.

Once you’ve reached this point, you then have to choose between three different methods. You can set up the insight tag:

• Using the Google Tag Manager
• Using WordPress
• Manually

Google Tag Manager

Our favourite option for setting up the Pixel is the Google Tag Manager, which simplifies the process of managing your different tags and pixels.

1. First off, copy your partner ID, which can be found under the “I will use a tag manager” section.
2. Next up, select your website from your Google Tag Manager account. Then, in the tag section, click on the “new” button to add a new tag.
3. For the type, select “LinkedIn Insights.”
4. Paste your Partner ID there.
5. Once you do that, make sure to set the trigger to “all pages”. This ensures that all the subpages and blogs within your website get the pixel.
6. That’s it; you’re all set.

You only need to use one of the methods. If you went with Google Tag Manager, you can skip to the confirmation section.

WordPress

It’s super easy to add a LinkedIn Insight Tag to your WordPress website.

1. First, copy your partner ID.
2. Next, login into your website’s dashboard and look for LinkedIn tag related plugins.
3. Once you find the one, install it.
4. Activate it, then click on the “Enable LinkedIn Insight Tag” button and paste your plugin ID in there.
5. Save your settings.

Even though this is easy to do, we like to have as few plugins as possible on our website and our client’s websites. This helps with website speed.

Adding it Manually

Webmasters with HTML websites should add the insight tag manually. Here’s how to do it:

1. In the “set up your own Insight tag” section, expand the “install the tag myself” button and grab the code.
2. Next, using your code editor, copy and paste the code above the closing body tag.
3. Finally, save the file and upload it.

How to Confirm That the Tag Is Installed Properly

After you’re done with installing the plugin, you need to check whether you’ve done it correctly or not.

Inspecting the page source of any page on your site is the simplest way to do it. Here’s how that goes:

1. Right-click anywhere and choose “View Page Source”. Or, you can press Ctrl (⌘) + U to access it.
2. Next, press Ctrl (⌘) + F to turn on quick search and look for “LinkedIn Insight”.
3. Then, check whether all the necessary code is in there or not, and make sure that your partner ID is correct.

Once you’ve checked it and confirmed that all is good, click the next button on LinkedIn. After around 24 hours, you will notice a significant change in your “website demographics” section.

In order to further facilitate things, make sure to segment your visitors by their job title, qualifications, employers, etc.

How to create website retargeting lists using the LinkedIn pixel

So, your LinkedIn Pixel is all set up. What’s next?

As we’ve just shown you, the LinkedIn Pixel is basically a tool that allows you to find out exactly which LinkedIn users have visited your website. Moreover, you can target specific demographics within those people for a more elaborate, thought-out marketing campaign.

1. Go to the Campaign Manager.
2. Click on Account Assets and then Matched Audiences.
3. Click the Create Audience button, and select Website Audience.
4. Label your audience under any name of your choosing, and then add the website.
5. Click on Create.

Once your ads have amassed at least 300 people, you will get the option to set specific campaigns that target audiences of your choosing.

When it’s finally active, you can customise subsets of all the people who visit your website, including ones who focused on specific pages within it. This is feasible through using filters.

How to track conversions using the LinkedIn pixel

Another brilliant feature that the LinkedIn Pixel allows you to do is tracking conversions from your ads. You can do so by:

1. Head back to the Campaign Manager.
2. Click on Account Assets, then select Conversions.
3. Click on the Create a Conversion button.
4. Give it a name.
5. Conversion type: This basically refers to which behaviours you’ll focus on. For instance, you can check how many people downloaded your PDF, filled out a form, watched a video, and more.
6. Conversion value: This feature is optional. It allows you to see the ROI of your marketing campaign.
7. Conversion window: This refers to the time window within which your conversions will be tracked and counted. It can range from a day to a week, to a month, to three whole months.
8. Attribution model: Using this, you can define how an ad interaction will be credit for a conversion.
9. Next, using the checkboxes, select which campaign(s) you want to monitor for conversions.
10. If you don’t select them specifically, they will all be automatically monitored.
11. Select the preferred conversion type (read above) and then input in the URL of the site where you’d be tracking them.
12. Tip: In order to make this tracking process easier, you could create a sort of confirmation / Thank You page once a person completes the action.
13. Optional: You can rely on Boolean rules to specify which URLs count as conversions, including parameters like “Have this exact URL” and more.
14. Click on Create!

Let your campaign run for a while, then go back to the Campaign Manager and check the analytics to figure out how successful your whole plan has been. If it isn’t going as planned, simply change things up.

Talk with a LinkedIn expert

And that’s it. You now know what the LinkedIn Pixel is and how it can be used with your marketing campaigns.

As mentioned, again and again, LinkedIn is the gold standard when it comes to B2B marketing. That’s why you need your LinkedIn ads to run as smoothly as possible. If you need a helping hand, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.

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