Get LinkedIn Ads data in Zoho CRM in 4 easy steps
Know which leads, opportunities and customers are being generated by your LinkedIn Ads. We'll show you how to get started in this post.
When it comes to promoting b2b businesses, LinkedIn Ads are a great way to get started.
This is largely because LinkedIn's ad targeting options are extensive, allowing you to segment people by industry, job title, seniority and more. All things you can't do in other ad networks like Facebook Ads.
But the depth of the targeting and the audience size means LinkedIn ads can be expensive so it's really important to know if the ads are generating a positive ROI - meaning are they delivering leads and customers - not just site visits or clicks?
In this post, I'll show you how to use a simple tool called Attributer to track the number of leads and customers you get from your LinkedIn Ads right from inside Zoho CRM.
Track LinkedIn Ads in Zoho CRM in 4 steps
Track how many leads and customers are generated by your LinkedIn Ads in Zoho CRM in 4 steps using a tool called Attributer:
1. Install Attributer on your website
Attributer is a piece of code you install on your website in order to tracks where your visitors are coming from. It works by passing this information into Zoho CRM when a visitor completes a form on your website.
Adding Attributer to your website is easy and takes less than 10 minutes. You just adding the piece of code you're sent after you start a free 14 day trial (instructions on how to add it can be found here).
After you've added the code to your website, you need to include a number of hidden fields to your forms, including:
- Channel
- Channel Drilldown 1
- Channel Drilldown 2
- Channel Drilldown 3
- Channel Drilldown 4
Attributer works with dozens of form builders (including Zoho Forms, Gravity Forms, Jotform, Typeform, and more). You'll find a step-by-step guide for dozens of form builders can be found here.
2. Add UTM parameters to your ads
Next you need to add UTM parameters to your LinkedIn Ads.
UTM parameters are extra pieces of text that you append to the end of the URL you are sending people to from your campaigns.
What does that look like? If the page you are sending someone to is attributer.io/integrations/zoho-crm then your final URL (with UTM parameters) might look like this:
attributer.io/integrations/zoho-crm?utm_medium=paidsocial&utm_source=linkedin&utm_campaign=brand-campaign
UTM parameters help analytics tools like Attributer (and others) understand where your leads come from, which campaign it was, what ad they clicked, etc.
3. LinkedIn Ads data is sent to Zoho CRM
When Attributer is set up and UTM parameters have been added to your ads, Attributer will start tracking where your website visitors are coming from (including those from your LinkedIn Ads).
Attributer then categorizes each visitor into a series of channels (like Paid Social, Paid Search, Organic Search, etc) and stores the information in a cookie in the visitor's browser.
After a visitor completes a form on your website, Attributer writes the information on where they came from into the hidden fields and it is then captured by your form tool.
Now the data can then be sent to Zoho CRM alongside the lead's name, email, company and any of the other information you capture in your forms.
4. Run reports to see which ads are performing
When your LinkedIn Ads data is inside Zoho CRM, you can use it to run reports to see what's delivering the best ROI. You can do this using either Zoho's native reporting tools, or in a reporting tool you have connected to Zoho CRM (such as Tableau, Microsoft Power BI, Looker, etc.)
Using this data you can run reports that show how many leads you receive from your LinkedIn Ads, which campaigns are generating the most leads, what the conversion rate from lead to opportunity is, what the close rate is, and how much revenue has been generated, etc.
What is Attributer and why use it?
Attributer is a small piece of code you add to your website. Once installed it tracks where your leads and customers are coming from and writes the data into hidden fields behind your forms. When a form is submitted, this data is captured by your form tool and can be sent to Zoho CRM.
So for example, if you were running marketing activities for a company that provides pet grooming and someone clicked one of your ads, it would pass through the following information (depending on what you put in the UTM parameters):
- Channel: Paid Social
- Channel Drilldown 1: LinkedIn
- Channel Drilldown 2: Dog Campaign (or the specific campaign name)
- Channel Drilldown 3: Puppy Ad (or whatever ad creative they clicked on)
Here's why Attributer is the best way to track your LinkedIn Ads in Zoho CRM:
- Captures attribution information - Attributer captures information on all the leads who arrive on your site through other channels like Paid Search, Organic Search, Organic Social, Referral, or Direct.
- Remembers the data - Attributer stores the UTM parameters in a cookie in the user’s browser, so even if a visitor leaves your site and returns, the UTM parameters will always be passed through.
- Cleans the data - Attributer was built to expect data inconsistencies in UTM usage, such as using utm_source=linkedin in some campaigns and utm_source=LinkedIn in others. It knows to assign these leads to the correct channel (Paid Social in this case) regardless of these discrepancies.
4 example reports you can run when you track LinkedIn Ads data in Zoho CRM
Before founding Attributer, I ran marketing and analytics teams at several of technology companies for more than 15 years.
Over the years, I've spent more than $1 million in ads on LinkedIn and other advertising networks. I also spent countless hours running reports to see how those ads were performing.
Here are a few of the reports I found most useful to make better marketing decisions:
1. Leads by channel
The chart above shows how many leads you get each month broken down by the channel they originated from. It is a great way to get a high level view of where your leads are coming from.
Why is this useful? If you see that the majority of your leads are generated by Organic Search (like in the chart above) but you're spending most of your budget on LinkedIn Ads, then it might be time to rethink your strategy.
2. Opportunities by network
Many businesses run ads on multiple platforms. This report helps by showing how many customers you get from your ads on each network so you can better understand where to focus your budget to get the best ROI.
3. Customers by campaign
The above customer by campaign chart shows you how many customers you get from the various LinkedIn Ads you are actively running.
It can help you better understand which campaigns deliver customers to your business (as opposed to just bringing visitors or leads that don't convert).
4. Revenue by ad
This revenue by ad chart shows you how much revenue is generated by each of the ads you are running on LinkedIn.
It can help you better understand which of your creatives are attracting the kind of leads that ultimately become customers, and can help you improve your ad creative over time.
Wrap up
Tracking the number of leads, customers and the amount of revenue you are getting from your LinkedIn Ads is what Attributer does best.
Attributer enables you to see the exact source of every lead, right down to the exact campaign, ad set, or ad they clicked. It also let's you see it in your existing tools (I.e. Zoho CRM) rather than having to learn a whole new tool.
It's free to get started and only takes about 10 minutes to set up. So start a free 14-day trial of Attributer today to see how it can help you!
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About the Author
Aaron Beashel is the founder of Attributer and has over 15 years of experience in marketing & analytics. He is a recognized expert in the subject and has written articles for leading websites such as Hubspot, Zapier, Search Engine Journal, Buffer, Unbounce & more. Learn more about Aaron here.