How to integrate LinkedIn Ads with HubSpot (and actually track what matters)
HubSpot is one of the best CRMs for B2B marketing.
LinkedIn is the best place to reach decision-makers.
And yes, they have a native integration. But here’s the catch:
- You get form fills and click data.
- You don’t get impressions or engagements.
- And HubSpot’s attribution model only gives credit to the last click.
If someone sees your ads ten times and only converts on the last one, the others are invisible.
What the native integration gives you ✅
Leadsyncing from LinkedIn forms ✅ Campaign performance inside HubSpot ✅ Trigger workflows from new leadsBut…
❌ No visibility into who saw or engaged with your ads ❌ No company-level attribution ❌
The short answer is:
You are spot on about the limitations of the native HubSpot-LinkedIn integration, especially regarding impressions, multi-touch attribution, and the B2B buyer journey.
The way to track what truly matters is to bypass the native connector’s limitations by creating a server-side data pipeline.
This involves using the HubSpot API to extract rich CRM data and the LinkedIn Conversions API to feed crucial conversion data back to LinkedIn, all orchestrated via a server-side implementation using Google Tag Manager (GTM) and a service like Stape or Google Cloud Platform.
This custom setup is an excellent and cheap solution because it delivers the granular, accurate, full-funnel attribution the native tool lacks, improving your ad optimization and enabling true multi-touch revenue reporting in HubSpot for a fraction of the cost of a high-end CDP.
The long answer is:
The challenge you’ve described is the perfect example of why B2B marketers can’t rely solely on off-the-shelf integrations.
The native HubSpot-LinkedIn sync is designed to handle the basic transaction – a click or a form fill – but it completely misses the complex, multi-stage, multi-person journey that defines B2B sales.
Impressions and engagements are not just vanity metrics on LinkedIn, they are the key to understanding ‘influenced pipeline,’ which is the vast middle part of the funnel that the last-click model makes invisible.
To get this data, you need to use the platform’s APIs.
The most effective, budget-friendly solution is to use the LinkedIn Conversions API in conjunction with a server-side tracking setup.
Here’s why this works so well: The HubSpot API allows you to pull contact and deal data, including lifecycle stages and deal values.
Using a server containe, which can be run cheaply on a service like Stape or Google Cloud Platform, you intercept conversion events by configuring a HubSpot webhook within a Workflow or Operations Hub.
This webhook instantly pushes the event data – like a lead becoming a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) or a deal moving to Closed-Won – from HubSpot’s backend to your server and then directly to the LinkedIn Conversions API.
This process is orchestrated via GTM.
By sending these server-side events, you are feeding high-quality, post-click, and post-conversion data back to LinkedIn’s ad platform, allowing LinkedIn’s optimization algorithms to learn which users, accounts, and impressions actually resulted in valuable revenue events, not just clicks.
This significantly improves campaign performance and bidding efficiency.
More importantly, it solves your attribution problem.
While the custom API-to-API data sync is primarily for improving LinkedIn’s own optimization, the ability to collect granular event data via your server-side setup, combined with the comprehensive attribution models available in higher-tier HubSpot plans (like Position-Based or W-Shaped attribution), gives you the ability to finally measure the full multi-touch journey.
You can now reliably track not just the click, but the lifecycle stage change and deal value, assigning credit to the full sequence of touchpoints within HubSpot, including the initial LinkedIn exposure.
This API-based server-side architecture gives you the control and data fidelity of a high-cost Customer Data Platform (CDP) without the massive licensing fee, making it the superior, cheaper, and more robust way to truly link your LinkedIn ad spend to closed-won revenue.
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