LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 722 million members worldwide. As one of the most popular social media platforms for businesses, LinkedIn offers a suite of marketing, advertising, and analytics tools to help companies understand their audience, promote their brand, and track campaign performance.
One of the key tools is LinkedIn Analytics, which provides user and page analytics to help optimize your LinkedIn presence. But is LinkedIn Analytics free or do you have to pay for it? Let’s take a closer look at what LinkedIn Analytics offers and its pricing options.
What Does LinkedIn Analytics Provide?
LinkedIn Analytics is a built-in analytics tool that gives you insights into your LinkedIn Company Page and Sponsored Content campaigns. Here are some of the key things you can track with LinkedIn Analytics:
- Follower growth – See how many new followers you’re gaining over time.
- Post insights – Track engagement, clicks, reactions, comments, and shares for your posts.
- Page views – Monitor daily and monthly views of your Company Page.
- Visitor demographics – Discover information like job function, seniority, location, and industry of your page visitors.
- Content sharing – See how often your page content gets reshared.
- Website traffic – Track how many visits, signups, content downloads, etc. come from LinkedIn.
- Sponsored Content – Get impressions, clicks, engagement rates, and more for your sponsored posts and ads.
Having access to these analytics can help you gain valuable insights to improve your LinkedIn marketing and organic growth efforts.
Is LinkedIn Analytics Free for All Accounts?
Unfortunately, LinkedIn Analytics is not available for free. There are three different account types on LinkedIn that get access to analytics at different levels:
Basic Accounts
If you just have a regular LinkedIn profile as a user, you do not have access to Company Page analytics. Basic free accounts can only view profile views and basic profile analytics.
Company Pages
When you create a LinkedIn Company Page for your business, you automatically get basic analytics for free. This includes weekly page view data and follower growth tracking. You can view this information under the “Analytics” tab for your page.
This basic Company Page analytics gives you a snapshot of your follower growth and how many people are viewing your page on a weekly basis. However, you don’t get detailed analytics on your posts or visitors.
Premium Business Accounts
To unlock the full LinkedIn Analytics suite, you need to upgrade to one of LinkedIn’s paid offerings under a Premium Business Account. This includes products like LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Recruiter, and Campaign Manager.
With a Premium Business Account, you get access to more advanced analytics like:
- Real-time page view data
- Post performance metrics
- Visitor demographics and company information
- Content sharing analytics
- Website referral traffic
You also gain insights for your Sponsored Content ads and ability to integrate with third-party analytics tools.
What Are the Costs for LinkedIn Analytics?
If you want access to the full suite of LinkedIn Analytics tools, you have to pay. Here’s an overview of the pricing:
Sales Navigator
LinkedIn Sales Navigator is primarily focused on sales leads and prospecting. But it also includes Company Page analytics. Pricing starts at $79.99/month for an Essentials plan.
Recruiter
LinkedIn Recruiter assists with hiring and talent scouting. The Recruiter Team plan ($1,269.92/month) and Corporate plan offer Company Page analytics.
Campaign Manager
LinkedIn Campaign Manager lets you manage LinkedIn ads. The Plus plan ($150/month) or Professional plan ($650/month) include Company Page analytics features.
Third-Party Tools
There are also third-party social media analytics tools like Hootsuite, Sprout Social, and Buffer that offer LinkedIn Analytics integration features starting at around $25-50/month.
So in summary, to unlock the most value from LinkedIn Analytics, you’ll need to invest in a Premium Business Account or third-party tool integration.
What Are the Limitations of Free LinkedIn Analytics?
While Company Pages get some basic analytics for free, there are limitations to the data you can view. Here are some of the restrictions with the free version of LinkedIn Analytics:
- No post performance insights
- Limited page view information (only weekly views)
- No visitor demographics or company information
- No content sharing or website traffic data
- No paid advertising analytics
- No exporting or customizing reports
Without post metrics or detailed visitor information, it’s hard to really optimize your organic LinkedIn marketing. The free analytics are more of a snapshot versus a comprehensive reporting tool.
Should You Pay for LinkedIn Analytics?
Whether you should invest in LinkedIn Analytics really depends on your marketing objectives and how strategic LinkedIn is to your business. Here are a few key factors to consider:
How much do you publish?
If your company actively publishes a lot of content to LinkedIn (e.g. multiple posts per week), then the additional post analytics can provide very useful insights to help you refine your content strategy. If you rarely post, then these tools will be less valuable.
How important is your follower base?
Do you have a large, targeted follower base you want to continue growing? The visitor demographics can help you better understand your audience and supporters. This can help you tailor content and engagement tactics more effectively.
Are you running LinkedIn ads?
If you have an active Sponsored Content campaign, the analytics tools give you greater visibility into your ad performance and become almost mandatory. You can monitor CTR, engagement, reach, conversions, and optimize accordingly.
Do you send website traffic from LinkedIn?
Having referral insights can show you how much website traffic is being driven from your LinkedIn presence. This demonstrates the business value LinkedIn is delivering.
For most business owners, upgrading to access the full analytics suite can provide very beneficial insights and value that well outweighs the costs. But even the free snapshot may be sufficient for some companies just maintaining a basic presence.
Conclusion
In summary, LinkedIn Analytics is not available for free. While Company Pages get limited analytics, to unlock the full reporting suite you need to invest in a Premium Business Account or third-party tool.
The costs range from $25/month to over $1,000/month depending on the product. But for most serious marketers, the analytics tools provide tremendous value by giving visibility into your content performance, audience, advertising results, and overall LinkedIn presence.
Understanding if and how your target audience is engaging with your LinkedIn profile is critical to refining your approach for optimal results. So for many brands, accessing the detailed analytics LinkedIn provides can give a worthwhile competitive advantage.