Library > LinkedIn Impressions

What are LinkedIn Impressions and how to measure them for B2B marketing

Written by Alexandra Flygare

With LinkedIn being shown to command a full third of B2B advertising budgets, there’s no hiding its importance to B2B marketing.

However as companies have doubled down on LinkedIn Ads as one of the primary pillars of their marketing strategies, feeds have become saturated and competition for attention tough. 

To measure the impact your LinkedIn Ads are having in this environment, tracking and utilizing Impressions can be a sure way of sticking out of the crowd - for the accounts that matter most.

But what exactly are LinkedIn impressions, and how do you measure them

In the post we’ll cover the following:

What is an impression on LinkedIn?

LinkedIn impressions refer to the estimated number of times your content (posts, articles, videos, or newsletters), has been displayed in someone's feed. More specifically, an impression is determined when a post is visible for at least 300 milliseconds with at least 50 percent of the post in view on a LinkedIn user's screen. 

In short, the post impressions metric tracks how many times users have viewed a post from your page over time, organized into daily, weekly, and monthly intervals.

Not all impressions are created equal

There are a few types of LinkedIn post impressions:  

  1. Organic: naturally displayed content in the feeds of connections and followers, where the algorithm alone determines the viewability of your content. 

  2. Viral: shared and reposted content, giving you access to a new network of people.

  3. Paid: posts or ads that are paid for and can be filtered for a specific demographic of users.

Unique Impressions vs. Total Impressions

If the same user sees your content multiple times, will it count as one impression? It depends. Unique impressions refer to the number of individual users who see your content at least once, while total impressions can include multiple views by the same user. 

Deciphering between these two types can provide a more unambiguous indication of the actual reach of your content. As well as serve as an indication of your target audience being exposed to your content multiple times. 

LinkedIn Impressions vs. LinkedIn Engagement

While the two are sometimes used synonymously, it is important to note the distinction between impressions and engagement. As mentioned before, impressions indicate content visibility. On the other hand, engagement is a reflection of how users are directly interacting with your content (through likes, comments, and shares). 

Why are LinkedIn Impressions important for B2B marketing?

Now that we understand what LinkedIn Impressions are, here is why they matter. 

At their most basic level, LinkedIn Impressions serve as a measure of campaign visibility. This metric implies brand awareness and is trackable directly through LinkedIn’s campaign manager. 

But the summation of your Impressions can only go so far, you also need to understand the quality of them. Multi-touch revenue attribution and the right integrations allow you to measure Ad impressions against pipeline and revenue. Thus gaining the ability to assess the quality of your target audience. Only once you are attributing impressions can you determine that these ads are being shown to the right audience.


How to measure LinkedIn Impressions

If you want to access the full value of LinkedIn impressions you need to know how to measure them. To understand the effectiveness of your ads beyond direct clicks and interactions, impression attribution allows you to track and analyze how views influence the buying journey. 

LinkedIn Impression attribution with Dreamdata

As mentioned before, when measuring the effect of ads, there is a fundamental difference between something a person did (engagements) and something a person was exposed to (impressions). However standard touch-based attribution models tend to combine the two metrics, resulting in misleading conclusions about campaign effectiveness. 

Dreamdata’s LinkedIn impression attribution model bridges the gap between clicks and total impressions with its specialized integration, offering a comprehensive view of ad effectiveness.

How it works

  • Estimate the Impact of Impressions: Our native partner integration with LinkedIn, the platform analyzes account-level impressions on LinkedIn, revealing the true influence of your LinkedIn ads on your sales funnel.

  • Seamless Integration with Touch-Based Models: Dreamdata effortlessly combines with existing touch-based attribution models, offering a comprehensive and precise view of all contributing factors in your marketing efforts.

  • AI-Powered Simplicity: By merging LinkedIn impression data with Dreamdata’s AI-driven attribution models, the platform leverages artificial intelligence to automatically learn and adapt, providing you with valuable insights effortlessly.

    With Dreamdata, you can track every customer journey touchpoint and attribute the impact of specific LinkedIn ad content. 


Allowing you to: 

  • Get a clearer picture of ad effectiveness: Understand how both clicks and impression exposure contribute to reaching funnel stages, leading to more effective campaign optimization.

  • Make data-driven decisions: utilizing LinkedIn's account-based impression data offers unmatched insights into the performance of LinkedIn ads allowing you to allocate marketing resources more efficiently. 

Conclusion

By understanding and measuring impressions, you can optimize your ad campaigns, increase brand visibility, and ultimately drive more revenue. Dreamdata provides the insights needed to make data-driven decisions, ensuring your marketing resources are allocated efficiently.