LinkedIn Ads connection

What it reads

For each connected ad account, Growth Dept MTA reads spend, impressions and landing page clicks by creative and day. LinkedIn's campaign groups, campaigns and creatives map to campaigns, ad sets and ads. Dates are in UTC.

LinkedIn's website conversions and conversion value come in with each day's spend, and its post-view conversions, which have no value, are read as view-through conversions.

A pull runs about once an hour and re-reads the last 7 days, and a nightly pull re-reads the last 30. Each pull replaces the rows for its window, so days that LinkedIn restates end up matching LinkedIn. Spend is converted to the brand's currency as it arrives, at the European Central Bank rate for each day.

Connecting

1. Sign in to Growth Dept MTA as an owner or admin of the brand's organization. Other members can see Settings > Connections but cannot change it.
2. Open Settings > Connections and click Connect on the LinkedIn Ads card.
3. LinkedIn shows its own sign-in and permission screen. Sign in as a LinkedIn user who can see the ad accounts you want, and approve the request. The user needs at least the Viewer role on each ad account. The request is for r_ads and r_ads_reporting.
4. Back in Growth Dept MTA, the page lists every ad account that login reaches. Tick the ones that belong to this brand and click Connect.
5. Each account you chose appears on the card, and a backfill starts over the brand's lookback window (Settings > Lookback window), or as far back as LinkedIn keeps data if that is shorter. Scheduled pulls take over from there.

To add accounts later, click Connect beside Link an additional ad account on the same card. If the list comes up empty, the login you used reaches no ad accounts: connect again as a user who has access to them.

If you have been sending LinkedIn Ads spend through the spend API or a spreadsheet, remove those rows before you connect. They carry their own account ID, so they would be counted on top of the connected account's spend. Settings > Data Spreadsheets lists each upload. Once the connection is live, the spend API and spreadsheets refuse new LinkedIn Ads rows.

If the card says “LinkedIn Ads connection is not set up on this server yet.”, the Connect button stays off until Growth Dept registers its LinkedIn app. Email support@growthdept.ai if you see it.

Tracking parameters

The UTM guide has no LinkedIn entry. Tag LinkedIn ads with the guide's template for other platforms, and use a paid medium (paid, cpc or display) so the visits count as paid traffic.

utm_source=<platform>&utm_medium=<paid, email, sms, affiliate or influencer>&utm_campaign=<campaign>&utm_term=<ad set>&utm_content=<ad>

Limits

• LinkedIn access tokens last 60 days, and LinkedIn issues refresh tokens only to approved partners. Without one, someone has to connect each account again every 60 days. When the token lapses, the account's row on the card shows the connection in error.
• There are no hourly rows for LinkedIn.
• There are no thumbnails: LinkedIn creatives carry no image that the read-only permission can open.
• Reports have platform-reported columns for Meta, Google Ads, TikTok, Snapchat, Pinterest, X, AppLovin, MNTN, The Trade Desk, Vibe, Rokt and impact.com only. LinkedIn's own conversion figures come in with spend but do not fill those columns.
• Growth Dept MTA only reads from LinkedIn. It does not change campaigns, budgets or ads.

Disconnecting

Each linked account has its own Disconnect button in its row on the LinkedIn Ads card. Only owners and admins can use it. After you confirm:

• Syncing for that account stops.
• The stored access token is deleted.
• Data already pulled stays in your reports.

Connecting the account again later starts a new backfill.