Why LinkedIn CAPI Tracking Doesn't Work

LinkedIn CAPI is a new interface to send conversions via server-side tracking. Additional user data can also be sent to more accurately track the attribution to the respective LinkedIn campaigns.

What is LinkedIn CAPI all about?

The term CAPI may already be familiar to some from the Meta CAPI Tag. The Meta CAPI Tag is a great tool for significantly improving the tracking and thus the optimization of Meta campaigns.

Now an official LinkedIn CAPI Tag has finally been added as a tag template to Google Tag Manager. This can be found and added through the community templates. There are also several guides on how the tag should be implemented, but it has become clear during implementation that it does not work as initially thought.

The Problem

Many of the instructions currently found on the internet do not lead to functional tracking. Despite the configuration as described in various instructions, no conversions are registered in the LinkedIn Campaign Manager.

The reason for this is some parameters that are required but not marked as such. To correctly implement LinkedIn CAPI tracking, follow the instructions below:

The (correct) Guide

Prerequisites
For LinkedIn CAPI conversions to be tracked, the following prerequisites must be met:

• There must be a functioning server-side tracking in place

• LinkedIn campaigns must already be set up

1. Generate API Access Token
The first step is to generate and then extract the LinkedIn API Access Token.

1. Log in to the LinkedIn Campaign Manager.

2. Under Analyze in the left menu, click on Conversion Tracking.

3. Click on Data sources.

4. In the dropdown of Create source, click on Conversion API or CSV.

5. Select the Google Tag Manager option and follow the steps.

6. Securely save the generated API Token

2. Create a LinkedIn Conversion
Additionally, the LinkedIn conversion to be tracked and its Conversion Rule ID are required.

1. In the dropdown Create Conversion, click on Conversions API or CSV conversion.

2. Select the Google Tag Manager option and follow the steps.

3. After successful creation, reopen the conversion from the conversion overview.

4. The Conversion Rule ID can be found in the URL

3. Configure the Client
Now that the necessary information is available, the client-side Google Tag Manager configuration can begin.

1. Create a new First-Party-Cookie Variable that reads the cookie “li_fat_id”.

2. Open the Google tag and add the Parameter: user_data.linkedinFirstPartyId with the value of the specified Variable.

3. Additionally, add a randomly generated number as the parameter EventID. This can be used to deduplicate events when using client-side LinkedIn Insight Tags and CAPI Tags.

4. If not already present, create a GA4 Event for the created conversion

4. Configure the Server
Next, the server-side Google Tag Manager must be configured

1. Add the LinkedIn | CAPI Tag Template from linkedin-developers from the community gallery.

2. Fill in the parameters LinkedIn API Access Token and Conversion Rule ID with the values from steps 1 and 2.

3. Enter the sent Event ID under EventID.

4. For the parameter Conversion Value, enter the value {"currencyCode": "EUR", "amount": "0.0"}. Here, “EUR” and “0.0” can be adjusted if the conversion provides a corresponding value (e.g., a product purchase). If this is not the case, the value should not be changed.
   Finally, the tag configuration should look as follows

Notes
The reason many guides have failed to function properly is that parameters like Conversion Value, marked as optional, were not actually optional. Additionally, the parameter user_data.linkedinFirstPartyId was necessary, as attribution to the LinkedIn campaigns would otherwise not be possible.

Additional Configuration Options

It is possible to expand LinkedIn CAPI tracking. The following parameters can optionally be sent from the client-side Google Tag to ensure they are automatically captured and sent by the LinkedIn CAPI Tag:

• user_data.sha256_email_address: The hashed email address of the user

• user_data.companyName: The name of the user's company

• user_data.jobTitle: The user's job title

• user_data.address.first_name: The user's first name

• user_data.address.last_name: The user's last name

Attribution to the campaigns based on the last four parameters is not always guaranteed. It is possible that multiple users are found with the provided data if only the first name is sent.

Furthermore, please note that any user data should only be sent if the user has given consent!

Our competent web analytics team is happy to assist you in setting up the tracking or answering any other questions. Our experts in web analytics are ready to help you. Please get in touch.