LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 810 million members worldwide. As a professional social media platform, LinkedIn provides many opportunities for businesses and professionals to establish connections, showcase expertise, promote their brands and products, and drive measurable results.
With a massive engaged audience and rich data insights, LinkedIn has emerged as an important platform for social media marketing. Brands leverage LinkedIn not just for networking and recruiting but also for generating leads, traffic, and new business opportunities.
To maximize the impact of their LinkedIn presence, brands need to optimize their company/product pages, publish engaging content consistently, run Sponsored Content and Message Ads, and track key LinkedIn metrics. Monitoring performance metrics enables brands to identify what strategies work to achieve their LinkedIn marketing goals.
Some of the key questions brands want to answer through LinkedIn analytics are:
– How much traffic is my LinkedIn page generating?
– How many followers/connections do I have?
– How much engagement (reactions, comments, shares) am I getting on my posts?
– How many leads are being generated from my LinkedIn presence?
– What content types and topics resonate best with my target audience?
– How effective are my LinkedIn ads in generating clicks, conversions, etc.?
This article will provide a detailed overview of the important metrics that can be measured on LinkedIn to gauge performance and optimize your brand’s LinkedIn marketing strategy.
LinkedIn Page Analytics
LinkedIn Page Analytics provides insightful data on the performance of your LinkedIn Company, Showcase, School, or Publisher page. It shows key metrics under two main categories:
Follower Analytics
This section shows stats related to your followers and how your follower base is growing over time. The key metrics are:
– Followers – Total number of followers your LinkedIn page has. This indicates your brand’s reach and community size on LinkedIn.
– Follower Additions – The number of new followers gained during the selected date range. Useful to track follower growth over time.
– Following – Total number of LinkedIn members, companies, and publishers your page follows. This indicates how you are networking with your target audience.
– Your Update Views – The total number of impressions garnered by your page’s feed updates. This equates to reach for your content.
Update Analytics
This provides insights into how well your page’s updates (posts) are performing in terms of engagement and clicks. The metrics are:
– Updates – The number of posts published from your LinkedIn page during the selected period.
– Reactions – Total number of reactions (likes, loves, etc.) gained by your page updates.
– Comments – Total comments received on your page’s posts.
– Shares – The number of times your page posts were reshared by others on LinkedIn.
– Clicks – The total clicks generated by links present in your page posts. An important metric to measure content engagement.
Exporting Data
LinkedIn allows exporting your page analytics data in a CSV file for up to the past 12 months. This allows in-depth analysis of historical trends and benchmarking performance period-over-period. The export contains weekly aggregate data for all key page analytics metrics.
LinkedIn Company/Product Page Analytics
Your LinkedIn Company and Showcase pages have dedicated Analytics tabs that provide the following metrics:
Followers Tab
This shows data on the growth and quality of your followers, including:
– Follower Count – Total current followers
– New Followers – Followers added during selected period
– Follower Seniority – Split of followers by seniority levels (entry, manager, director, VP, CXO, President, Owner)
– Follower Industries – Top industries your followers belong to
– Follower Companies – Top companies your followers are from
– Follower Functions – Top functions/roles of your followers
– Avg. Engagement Rate – Average % of followers engaged monthly
Visitors Tab
This provides visitor data for your Company or Showcase page:
– Total Page Views – Number of times your page was viewed
– Unique Visitors – Number of unique members who viewed your page
– Top Content – Most popular content on your page by page views
– Visitors by Function – Split of visitors by their business functions
– Visitors by Industry – Visitors segmented by their industry
– Visitors by Seniority – Split of visitors by seniority levels
– Visitors by Company – Top companies visitors are from
– Lifetime Views/Visitors – Cumulative page views and visitors over time
Updates Tab
Shows performance stats of the updates published from your page:
– Update Views – Number of times your updates were viewed
– Engagements – Total reactions, comments, shares received
– Clicks – Clicks generated by links in your updates
– Top Updates – Your best performing updates ranked by engagement
– Engagement Rate – Average engagement rate across updates
Exports
LinkedIn allows exporting your Company and Showcase page analytics as CSV files, providing access to historical data for up to 12 months.
LinkedIn Content Analytics
You can view detailed performance analytics for your LinkedIn posts by clicking on the timestamp below the post.
The key metrics displayed here are:
– Impressions – Number of times your post was seen
– Reach – Total audience who saw your post
– Engagements – Total reactions, comments, shares
– Clicks – Clicks on the links in your post
– Audience – Who saw your post by industry, function, seniority, etc.
– When Audience Saw – Timeline of when people viewed your post
Exports
For LinkedIn articles/posts, you can download analytics for up to 12 months by clicking on the download icon in the post analytics popup. The CSV file contains aggregate numbers for daily and hourly impressions, reach, engagements, clicks, etc.
LinkedIn Ad Analytics
LinkedIn Ads Manager provides in-depth reporting and analytics for your LinkedIn ad campaigns. It shows metrics across four main areas:
Campaign Metrics
This view provides an overview of your ad campaign’s performance:
– Impressions – Number of times your ads were shown
– Clicks – Total ad clicks
– Spent – Amount spent on the ad campaign
– Reach – Number of unique people who saw the ads
– Frequency – Average number of times each person saw the ads
– CTR – Click-through rate
– CPC – Average cost per click
– CPV – Average cost per view (impression)
Creative Metrics
Shows the performance of the specific ad creatives used in your campaigns. You can see metrics like impressions, clicks, CTR, spend for each ad creative. This helps identify your best-performing creatives.
Audience Metrics
Provides insights into the audience that has engaged with your ads:
– Demographics – Age, gender, education level, etc.
– Companies – Top companies your ad viewers are from
– Job Functions – Split of viewers by their business functions
– Job Seniority – Seniority level of your ad viewers
– Industries – Top industries your ad viewers belong to
– Custom Audiences – Performance for targeted customer lists
Conversion Metrics
Tracks the conversions achieved through your LinkedIn ads. You can view:
– Leads generated – Contact information collected
– Content Downloads – Assets downloaded from your ads
– Website Visits – Clicks driving users to your website
– Custom Conversions – Goals tracked via conversion tracking
ROI Reporting
LinkedIn also provides ROI (Return on Investment) reporting that shows revenue generated from ads vs. amount spent. However, you need to implement LinkedIn’s conversion tracking to leverage LinkedIn’s ROI analytics.
LinkedIn Sponsored Content Metrics
Sponsored Content allows you to promote your LinkedIn posts as native ads to reach a larger professional audience. The built-in analytics provide the following metrics:
– Impressions
– Reach
– Clicks
– Engagement Rate
– CTR
– Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM)
– Active Status
– Audience Demographics
You can break down the performance by geography, industry, job role, and more. Historical data can also be exported as a CSV file.
LinkedIn Lead Generation Forms
LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms allow capturing leads directly from LinkedIn. You can view performance analytics for these forms under the ‘Leads’ tab, including:
– Views – Number of times your form was viewed
– Total Leads – Leads captured from the form
– Accept Rate – Percentage of viewers that accepted to share their info
– Conversion Rate – Percentage of impressions that converted to leads
– View Rate – Percentage of people targeted who viewed the form
You can segment the lead generation metrics by various criteria like industry, job role, company size, etc. to get more detailed insights.
LinkedIn Website Demographics
If you have LinkedIn’s Insight Tag installed on your website, you can get the following analytics under LinkedIn Campaign Manager:
– Website Visitors – Number of visitors from LinkedIn
– Page Views per Visit – Average page views during visit
– Bounce Rate – Single page session percentage
– Top Content – Most popular pages
– Referral Sources – Top referrers driving LinkedIn traffic
– Audience Demographics – Industry, seniority, job function, etc.
This allows analyzing traffic referred by LinkedIn more granularly to further optimize your website content.
LinkedIn Matched Audiences
Matched Audiences in LinkedIn Campaign Manager enables you to create target audience segments based on site traffic and customer data. The platform provides reporting on the audience matches, including:
– Total Matches – Number of matches found on LinkedIn
– Match Rate – Percentage matched out of total uploaded contacts
– Weekly New Matches – New matches identified week over week
– Audience Insights – Demographic details of matched audience
You can create hyper-targeted LinkedIn ad campaigns using Matched Audiences, leveraging this audience data.
Third-Party LinkedIn Analytics Tools
While LinkedIn’s built-in analytics provide abundant data, you can supplement it with third-party analytics tools for additional insights. Some popular ones are:
Rival IQ
Rival IQ integrates with your LinkedIn presence to track 10X more metrics across content, followers, Company page, ads, etc. Key features:
– Custom reporting dashboard
– Historical data beyond LinkedIn’s limits
– Competitive benchmarking
– Automated tracking and alerts
AgoraPulse
AgoraPulse provides social media management and analytics across platforms like LinkedIn. For LinkedIn, it tracks metrics like:
– Follower growth
– Content engagement
– Competitor analysis
– Audience demographics
– Performance trends and forecasts
Sprout Social
Sprout Social is another leading social media analytics platform supporting LinkedIn. It provides:
– Engagement and KPI tracking
– Audience insights
– Competitive benchmarking
– Historical analytics beyond 3 months
– Automated and scheduled reporting
Sendible
Sendible is a social media analytics dashboard for agencies and teams. For LinkedIn, it offers:
– Content engagement and response tracking
– In-depth audience analytics
– Automated scheduled reports
– Real-time monitoring feed
– Performance trends and projections
SocialBakers
SocialBakers provides social media analytics and competitive intelligence. Its LinkedIn analytics cover:
– Audience demographics and psychographics
– Content analytics and engagement
– Cross-platform metrics
– Historical and projected performance
– Automated scheduled reports
Conclusion
Measuring the right LinkedIn performance metrics is crucial to maximizing your brand’s success on the platform. LinkedIn provides marketers a wealth of first-party data through its robust analytics capabilities across Company Pages, content, ads, lead generation forms, and more.
Supplementing LinkedIn’s built-in analytics with third-party social media analytics tools gives added insights to identify best opportunities and fine-tune your LinkedIn strategy. With consistent tracking of these metrics, you can gain clear visibility into your LinkedIn marketing ROI and improvement areas. The key is to determine your core objectives, identify relevant KPIs to gauge progress, and leverage analytics to make data-backed decisions.