Solving the Multiple Stakeholder Problem in LinkedIn Ads
Here's a common scenario: Your LinkedIn ad drives someone to fill out a form. Great - that's clearly one conversion. But as the deal progresses, that initial contact brings in four colleagues as additional decision makers. Should you track those additional stakeholders as conversions too?
When implementing LinkedIn Conversion APIs, most marketers focus on the technical setup. But there's a more nuanced challenge that emerges once your campaigns start driving results: How do you handle attribution when one lead turns into multiple stakeholders?
The Attribution Dilemma
Many marketers face two competing needs:
- Accurate conversion metrics for ROI calculations
- Rich audience data for targeting similar decision makers
Sending all stakeholders as conversions creates misleading metrics. A campaign that generated 10 real leads might show 50 conversions if each deal involves 5 stakeholders. This skews your cost-per-conversion calculations and makes campaign optimization difficult.
But ignoring additional stakeholders means missing valuable data about who influences B2B buying decisions.
A Better Approach: Split the Difference
Instead of choosing between accurate metrics or rich data, you can have both by using a dual-tracking approach:
- Send only the original lead as a conversion to LinkedIn
- Add additional stakeholders to LinkedIn custom audiences
This approach:
- Maintains clean conversion metrics
- Captures full buying committee data for targeting
- Better reflects how B2B deals actually develop
- Enables more accurate campaign optimization
Implementation Guide
This requires setting up two separate automation flows:
Flow 1: Conversion Tracking - Trigger: Deal created in CRM - Filter: Original lead contact only - Action: Send to LinkedIn Conversions API
Flow 2: Audience Building - Trigger: New contact added to deal - Filter: Is additional stakeholder - Action: Add to LinkedIn matched audience
Why This Matters
The distinction between conversions and audience signals has real business impact. Clean conversion metrics let you accurately calculate ROI and optimize campaign spend. Meanwhile, comprehensive audience data helps you target similar decision makers in future campaigns.
This approach bridges the gap between individual-based conversion tracking and committee-based B2B buying. It's a more sophisticated way to measure and optimize your LinkedIn campaigns while building valuable audience data.
Remember: Your attribution model should reflect your actual sales process. For B2B companies, that means distinguishing between initial leads and the buying committees they create.
Need support setting this up? We can help!
Our experts can help you implement this dual-tracking solution using tools like LinkedIn Conversion APIs, your CRM, and automation platforms such as Make or Zapier. Let us streamline your attribution and audience-building process—book a call today!
