• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer, Yesterday

Advertisers trying to measure the impact of a recent campaign see a bunch of clicks and impressions, but have no idea which companies engage with the ads.

Traditional attribution models fall short -- especially in the B2B space, where buying journeys are complex and involve multiple people making decisions.

LinkedIn on Tuesday released what it calls an “Intelligence API,” intended to fill in the gaps in data to give advertisers a complete picture of performance in B2B attribution.

Advertisers working with a LinkedIn certified B2B attribution and analytics partner such as Channel 99, Octane11, Dreamdata, Factors.ai, or Fibbler can measure campaign impact with insights from the API.

The tool brings into view aggregated company-level engagement data, such as paid and organic impressions or clicks.

The data is viewed within existing reports and dashboards alongside additional campaign insights, and no extra setup is required.

LinkedIn’s partners ingest this data and combine it with CRM and other channel data to deliver attributed metrics, such as pipeline impact and return on investments (ROI).

The goal is for all marketers is to gain greater accuracy in the numbers. Early results show that with more precise company-level data, select beta customers are finding interesting insights on campaign performance.

On average, beta testers see a 287% increase in companies reached, with 75% more marketing qualified leads and a 96% increase in sales qualified leads. They also see a reduction in the cost per acquisition by 43%.

Based on customer feedback, integrations with LinkedIn’s API have provided significant benefits for businesses -- primarily by improving visibility, demonstrating ROI, and aligning tighter with sales and marketing.

Increased clarity in terms of the impact of campaigns usually leads to greater confidence in LinkedIn as an advertising channel. Companies seem to gain better tracking for the sales funnel, with one user reporting uncovering nearly twice as much influenced pipeline and revenue as previously.