HubSpot + LinkedIn Ads: lead sync, lifecycle conversions and audiences

What this integration unlocks

• LinkedIn Lead Gen Form submissions created as HubSpot contacts within about two hours
• Lifecycle stage changes sent to LinkedIn as Conversions API events, so bidding sees qualified leads
• Contact and company segments pushed to LinkedIn as audiences for targeting and exclusion
• HubSpot reporting on LinkedIn campaigns, with contacts attributed through auto-tracking
• A revenue view in LinkedIn's Revenue Attribution Report through the separate LinkedIn CRM Sync app

Setup steps

1. 1

   Connect the LinkedIn Ads account to HubSpot

   In HubSpot, open Settings, go to Marketing > Ads, click Connect account and choose LinkedIn. The HubSpot user who connects must be an Account Manager in that LinkedIn Ads account. Connecting is available on all HubSpot plans and turns on auto-tracking, which adds HubSpot tracking to your LinkedIn ads so contacts can be attributed to the ads they clicked.

   One reporting limit to know up front: HubSpot only reports on the most recent year of LinkedIn Ads data, to comply with LinkedIn's terms. Keep longer history in LinkedIn Campaign Manager or your own warehouse.

2. 2

   Turn on Lead Gen Form syncing

   Go to Settings > Marketing > Ads > Lead syncing and switch on syncing for the ad account. You need to be a Super admin, Content Admin or Lead Gen Forms Manager on the associated LinkedIn Page. Choose New & recent leads to pull in the last 90 days as well as new leads, or New Leads for future submissions only.

   Make the Email field required on every LinkedIn Lead Gen Form, because HubSpot needs it to create the contact. New leads can take up to two hours to arrive. If you change custom field mappings later, only newly synced leads use the new mapping, so settle the mapping before the campaign launches.

3. 3

   Choose the lifecycle stages LinkedIn should learn from

   HubSpot's LinkedIn conversion events are built on lifecycle stages only, so the stage definitions are the whole strategy. Pick stages that mean real progress, such as MQL and SQL, and agree the definitions with sales before anything is wired.

   On LinkedIn, an expensive click optimized to a raw form fill rewards the cheapest leads. Sending a qualified stage tells LinkedIn which members actually turned into pipeline.

4. 4

   Create Conversions API events in HubSpot

   Go to Marketing > Ads, open the Events tab and click Create event. This needs Marketing Hub Starter, Professional or Enterprise, with up to 5, 50 or 100 events respectively. HubSpot maps each lifecycle stage to the matching LinkedIn conversion type automatically, and you can edit the conversion rule in LinkedIn if you want a different mapping. You can also set a monetary value per event.

   HubSpot sends a hashed email address, first and last name, title, company and country, plus the LinkedIn click ID and lead ID. Choose whether to sync every contact that reaches the stage, which HubSpot recommends, or only contacts that interacted with your ads. The LinkedIn conversion shows as Unverified until the first data arrives, then Active.

5. 5

   Sync segments as LinkedIn audiences

   Create a contact segment audience, or a company segment audience, which HubSpot only offers for LinkedIn. Both need Marketing Hub Starter or above. HubSpot matches contacts on properties such as name, phone and email, and companies on name, domain and industry. A new audience can take 24 to 48 hours to sync.

   In Campaign Manager, select it under Audiences > Third party, then Third party contact or Third party company. A LinkedIn contact audience needs at least 300 members to serve, so a short customer list may work for exclusion before it is big enough to target.

Common issues

Common questions