Tracking the Full Customer Journey: Connecting LinkedIn Ads to Revenue

The ultimate goal for any marketer running LinkedIn ads isn't generating leads—it's generating revenue. Yet connecting these dots remains one of digital marketing's most persistent challenges.

"I want to track these things from CRM to LinkedIn: when a contact is created, when a lead is created, when an account is created, or when a new opportunity has been created," explained a paid media specialist during a technical consultation. This comprehensive tracking represents the full customer journey from initial awareness to closed business.

But why is this journey so difficult to track? The challenge often comes down to maintaining identity across systems. Each platform—LinkedIn, your website, your CRM—has its own way of identifying users. Without consistent identifiers bridging these systems, the thread of the customer journey unravels.

A marketing expert working on this exact problem shared their approach: "I'm getting the external lead ID from LinkedIn and bringing it to our CRM." This custom field serves as the connective tissue between platforms, allowing attribution even when the customer journey spans weeks or months.

The process requires several key components:

Standard CRM fields often aren't enough. "I was thinking, just use it for LinkedIn leads... just extra information that later I can map out," explained one marketer who created a dedicated "external lead ID" field in their CRM specifically for LinkedIn leads.

Each milestone in the customer journey—from lead to opportunity—needs its own tracking mechanism. "When we go to when an account has been created or new opportunity has been created to get conversion tracking," the marketer explained, outlining their step-by-step approach.

Not every lead follows the ideal path. Your tracking needs to account for real-world messiness: "We'll have two paths, one for the correct email address, one for when there's no email address."

When tracking breaks down, you need to know why: "I cannot figure out why it's not working. I need to map an ID that I cannot find." Having visibility into these failures helps refine your attribution model over time.

The payoff for solving this challenge is substantial: accurate ROI calculations, optimized ad spend, and proper credit for marketing's contribution to revenue. As one consultant noted: "If you have an account that really came from LinkedIn, then surely that one will have an email address, right?" This kind of definitive attribution is gold for marketers trying to prove their value.

Building a complete attribution system isn't a one-time project but an ongoing process of refinement. As your business grows and platforms evolve, your tracking mechanisms must adapt. But with each improvement, you gain clearer visibility into what actually drives revenue—and that insight is worth the effort.