The LinkedIn Insight Tag: install, check and use it

This guide is built from LinkedIn's Marketing Solutions help pages, mainly LinkedIn Insight Tag, create and manage your Insight Tag and add the LinkedIn Insight Tag to your website, plus the pages linked in each section. Campaign Manager basics and the four conversion data sources are in our LinkedIn ads basics guide; website audiences are in our guide to LinkedIn matched audiences.

What the Insight Tag does

LinkedIn calls the Insight Tag "a piece of lightweight JavaScript code" you add to your website. Once it is installed, three features open up in Campaign Manager:

• Conversion tracking: counting when a LinkedIn member visits a page or takes an action on your site after viewing or clicking your ads.
• Website audiences: retargeting LinkedIn members who visited your site.
• Website Actions: button clicks, page visits and form submissions the tag collects automatically, which you can turn into conversions or audiences "without requiring additional setup or code".

It also feeds the aggregated professional demographics of your site visitors; our guide to LinkedIn ads reporting shows where those appear. Each tag has a unique partner ID that ties the data to an ad account, and LinkedIn recommends "installing only one Insight Tag per website". If you run several ad accounts, you share the one tag instead of adding a second (see sharing below).

The tag sets cookies and, for traffic from outside the EU, EEA, Quebec and the UK, a first-party identifier called the LinkedIn Ads ID (li_adsid) that LinkedIn uses as an extra conversion signal on top of cookies. On speed, LinkedIn's Insight Tag FAQs say it "loads asynchronously" and uses Gzip compression.

Creating the tag

Every step starts from Signals manager in Campaign Manager:

1. Open your ad account in Campaign Manager.
2. Click Measure in the left menu, then Signals manager.
3. In the Sources catalog, click Insight Tag (or Create Insight Tag if Signals manager shows that recommendation at the top).

The tag is created with its partner ID and is ready to install. From the same page you later reach the tag's settings, its sharing list and its status.

Installing it on your site

LinkedIn offers three routes: install it yourself, send it to a developer, or use a tag manager.

Directly in your site's code

In Signals manager, click Insight Tag, choose I will install the tag myself and copy the code. LinkedIn asks you to add it to every page of your domain, "preferably right before the end of the <body> tag in the global footer", and warns to keep straight quotation marks: some editors turn them into curly quotes when you paste, and the tag then fails. Don't edit the code; LinkedIn's troubleshooting page says "Altering the JavaScript code often leads to problems."

With Google Tag Manager

LinkedIn's Google Tag Manager instructions use the LinkedIn InsightTag 2.0 template from the Community Template Gallery:

1. In your container, add a new tag, open Tag Configuration and choose Discover more tag types in the Community Template Gallery.
2. Search for LinkedIn InsightTag 2.0 and add it to your workspace.
3. Paste your partner ID into the Partner ID field.
4. Add a trigger; for the base tag, tick All Pages.
5. Save, then Submit to publish the container version.

If your container still runs the older LinkedIn Insight Tag template, LinkedIn recommends moving: add InsightTag 2.0, confirm it works, pause the old tag, then publish. Event-specific conversions through GTM also need the conversion ID from Campaign Manager, as LinkedIn's page on event-specific tracking with Google Tag Manager explains. Our Google Tag Manager basics guide covers tags, triggers and preview mode.

Other tag managers

LinkedIn's tag management page lists Google Tag Manager, Tealium, Adobe, Ensighten and DFA Floodlight, and suggests checking with your vendor for anything else. They all need the partner ID, which Signals manager shows under I will use a tag manager.

Checking that it works

LinkedIn only validates the tag once a page carrying it is visited, so open your site yourself after installing. The source status in Signals manager (Insight Tag, Data Connection Information) then shows one of three states:

Status	Last signal
Active (green)	Past 7 days
No recent activity (gray)	Over 7 days
Unverified (red)	Never

The switch to Active "may take up to 24 hours" after the visit. If it is still Unverified after that, LinkedIn's troubleshooting steps are:

• Check that you copied the full code, with straight quotes.
• Open your browser's developer tools, go to the Network tab and filter for ads.linkedin.com; LinkedIn says "The status code should be 302."
• Compare the partner ID on the page (the number after _linkedin_data_partner_id =) with the one in the ad account you expect the data in. LinkedIn flags this for anyone who manages several separate ad accounts.
• Make sure your firewall, content security policy or privacy tools don't block LinkedIn's domains, such as snap.licdn.com and px.ads.linkedin.com; the troubleshooting page has the full list of domains and IP ranges.

LinkedIn also mentions browser extensions such as Ghostery for a quick check, but notes it is "not enough to see the LinkedIn Insight Tag in Ghostery"; the tag can show there and still return an error.

First-party cookies (enhanced conversion tracking)

Turn this on. LinkedIn's first-party cookies page explains that with enhanced conversion tracking enabled, "LinkedIn automatically adds a click ID to the end of landing page URLs", so the tag can use a first-party cookie, and that without it conversion counts may drop because browsers block third-party cookies. To enable it: Signals manager > Insight Tag > Manage Insight Tag > Settings, tick Enable enhanced conversion tracking and save. You need full access to the tag and the billing admin, account manager or campaign manager role.

Because of the added click ID, check that your site keeps unknown URL parameters (some redirects and forms strip them). The setting only works with tag-based conversions; an image pixel can't use first-party cookies, so LinkedIn advises switching a site-wide pixel to the Insight Tag.

Turning tag data into conversions

The tag on its own counts nothing; you create a conversion in Campaign Manager under Measure > Conversion tracking (Create conversion > Insight Tag conversion). LinkedIn's Insight Tag conversions page lists the tracking methods:

• Website Actions: pick from the clicks, page visits and form submissions the tag already collected. Buttons inside iframes don't appear in that list.
• Page load: a conversion when someone loads a URL you define, such as a thank-you page.
• Event-specific: a code you attach to a button or link.
• Image pixel: the only method that works without the Insight Tag, and the least accurate, since it only uses third-party cookies.
• Tag manager: the same conversions, fired through your tag manager.

LinkedIn adds that Insight Tag conversions "need to be verified to provide reporting", which only happens when the tag is installed. If a conversion stays Unverified while the tag is Active, its conversion troubleshooting page points to the usual causes: a page-load URL rule that doesn't match the real URL, or a different tag on the page than the one in the account. Conversion columns in reports are covered in our LinkedIn ads reporting guide.

Enhanced matching

Enhanced matching lets the tag send extra information with a visit, such as the email address someone enters in a form. It is "hashed on the website before being sent to LinkedIn", and LinkedIn only matches it to accounts it already has. The benefits LinkedIn lists are more conversions matched to members, larger website audiences and lower cost per conversion. It needs extra code on your site, so plan for developer time; it works whether the base tag is hard-coded or in a tag manager. Hash the field only after the visitor has agreed to marketing tracking where your consent rules require it.

Sharing one tag across ad accounts

Rather than a second tag, share the existing one: Signals manager > Insight Tag > Manage Insight Tag > Manage sharing. You need creative manager access or higher on the account that owns the tag and at least viewer access on the receiving account. Two levels are available:

• Full access: the other account can change the tag's permissions and share it further.
• Use-only access: the other account uses the data but can't grant access to anyone else.

You can only add accounts that don't have an Insight Tag of their own. For agencies this is the clean setup: the client's account owns the tag and the agency's account gets use-only access.

Insight Tag plus Conversions API

LinkedIn recommends sending events through both a website tag and the Conversions API, which sends them from your server. Its deduplication page sets out how to avoid counting them twice:

• Create a conversion rule for each source, browser and server.
• Pass the same eventId from the browser event to the matching server event.
• When both arrive with the same eventId, LinkedIn keeps the Insight Tag event and discards the API one, so "the Insight Tag event will typically have a higher count if deduplication is working correctly."

LinkedIn also receives data from Microsoft's UET tag where one is installed (outside the EEA and Switzerland). If the Insight Tag and UET record the same conversion at the same time, it is counted once, and you can disconnect UET data in Campaign Manager. Why the API matters for B2B lead quality, and partner options, is in our LinkedIn ads basics guide; the UET tag itself is in our Microsoft Advertising guide.

Data, consent and pages to leave out

LinkedIn lists what the tag collects (URL, referrer, IP address, device and browser details, timestamp), removes direct identifiers within seven days and deletes the rest within 180 days; our LinkedIn company page guide summarises this. The Insight Tag page adds that the data is stored on LinkedIn's servers in the U.S. and that you are "responsible for ensuring you've obtained any necessary permissions or consents" before sharing data with LinkedIn.

• Consent: treat it as a marketing tag. In GTM, fire it from a consent-aware trigger (see our GTM consent overview); hard-coded, load it only after your consent banner allows it.
• Sensitive pages: under LinkedIn's terms the tag "should not be installed on web pages that collect or contain Sensitive Data", such as consumer pages for certain medications or pages where people manage bank accounts or medical appointments. A site-wide footer tag needs an exception for those pages.

How we set it up

This is our own practice, not LinkedIn's guidance:

• We install the tag through Google Tag Manager with InsightTag 2.0, behind the site's consent setup, and exclude sensitive pages with a trigger exception.
• We turn on enhanced conversion tracking on day one and test that the click ID survives redirects and form steps.
• The client's ad account owns the tag; we take use-only access, so the data stays with the client if the agency changes.
• We prefer page-load conversions on a real thank-you URL over clicks on a submit button, and add the Conversions API with a shared eventId when lead quality matters.
• We create website audiences as soon as the tag is Active, because they only collect visitors from that day on.

If you want help setting up LinkedIn tracking, see our services.

Frequently asked questions

Where do I find the LinkedIn Insight Tag?

In Campaign Manager, click Measure in the left menu, then Signals manager, then Insight Tag. The code is under I will install the tag myself and the partner ID under I will use a tag manager.

How long does it take for the Insight Tag to show as Active?

LinkedIn says it may take up to 24 hours after someone visits a page with the tag. It stays Unverified until there is traffic, so visit the page yourself after installing.

Will the Insight Tag slow down my website?

LinkedIn says the tag loads asynchronously and uses Gzip compression, and shouldn't slow your site down.

Can I use one Insight Tag for several ad accounts?

Yes. LinkedIn recommends one tag per website and sharing it with other ad accounts, with full access or use-only access. You can only share with accounts that don't have their own Insight Tag.

Does LinkedIn tell me which people visited my website?

No. LinkedIn says it doesn't share members' personal data with advertisers; you get reports that don't identify members, conversion counts and retargeting audiences.

For other platforms' tags, see our guides to the Meta pixel and Conversions API and the TikTok pixel, and our guide to offline conversion import in Google Ads.