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If you spend a single dollar on LinkedIn Ads, installing the Insight Tag is not optional. It is the foundational piece of code that powers your entire advertising ecosystem on the platform.
Simul Sarker
CEO of DataCops
Last Updated
December 9, 2025
The Reality: If you spend single dollar on LinkedIn Ads, installing Insight Tag is not optional. It is foundational piece of code that powers your entire advertising ecosystem on platform.
Without it: You are flying completely blind, unable to retarget interested prospects, measure campaign results, or gain demographic insights into who is visiting your website.
The Critical Truth: But let's be clear from start: Insight Tag is also fundamentally flawed. On its own, it is leaky bucket. It's vulnerable to ad blockers, crippled by browser privacy settings like Apple ITP, and provides incomplete picture of your conversions.
This Guide: Gives you everything you need to install and configure LinkedIn Insight Tag correctly. We provide clear, step-by-step walkthrough for manual installation and for deployment via Google Tag Manager. But more importantly, we frame it within proper strategic context—as essential first half of modern, resilient tracking strategy.
LinkedIn Insight Tag is lightweight snippet of JavaScript that you place on your website.
Once installed, it acts as critical bridge between your website and your LinkedIn advertising account.
Think of it as scout you send to your website. Its mission is to report back on three key areas:
When user who clicked your LinkedIn ad completes desired action (like filling out demo request form), Insight Tag fires and reports this "conversion" back to your LinkedIn Campaign Manager.
This is its most well-known, but also most fragile, function.
Tag drops cookie in user browser, allowing you to build powerful matched audiences.
This is magic behind retargeting:
Serving follow-up ads to users who visited your pricing page but did not convert
Targeting audiences who look like your existing website visitors
Tag anonymously matches your website visitors to their LinkedIn profiles, giving you invaluable aggregate data on:
Job titles
Industries
Company sizes
Seniority levels of your audience
This helps you validate if you are attracting right professional crowd.
While all three are important, audience-building and demographic functions are where browser-based Insight Tag truly shines and remains indispensable.
For conversion tracking, however, it has critical weakness.
Relying solely on browser-side pixels like Insight Tag is recipe for data loss.
Your "scout" is being sent into hostile territory.
Ad blockers and privacy-focused browsers, used by significant portion of your most valuable B2B audience, prevent Insight Tag from even loading.
To them, your website is black hole.
Apple Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) on Safari (across iPhones, iPads, and Macs) aggressively limits lifespan of cookies set by scripts like Insight Tag.
Sometimes to as little as 24 hours.
This shatters your ability to:
Track longer sales cycles
Build effective retargeting audiences
Insight Tag is browser-side signal.
It cannot see what happens on your server or in your CRM.
It represents only one half of complete tracking picture.
Because of these weaknesses, "conversions" reported by your Insight Tag are almost certainly undercounted.
It is necessary tool, but to get accurate number, you must pair it with durable, server-side signal.
Follow these steps to get tag installed. Entire process should not take more than 15 minutes.
First, you need to retrieve code from your LinkedIn Campaign Manager.
Log in to LinkedIn Campaign Manager
Select correct ad account
Click on Analyze in top navigation bar
Select Insight Tag from dropdown menu
If you never set it up, you will see large blue button that says "Install my Insight Tag" - click it
New window will appear - click on "I will install tag myself"
You will now see box containing JavaScript code
Most important piece of information here is your Partner ID, which is number highlighted in code
Copy this ID and keep it handy
It will look something like this: linkedin_partner_id = "1234567";
You have two primary options for installation.
Using Google Tag Manager is most common and flexible method for marketers.
This method involves pasting code directly into your website HTML.
Copy entire Insight Tag code snippet provided by LinkedIn
Access your website source code (you may need help from developer for this step)
Paste code into global footer of your website, just before closing </body> tag
Placing it in footer ensures it loads on every single page without slowing down initial rendering of visible content
Save and publish changes to your website
This is preferred method as it allows you to manage all your marketing tags from one place without needing to edit code directly.
Log in to your Google Tag Manager account and select correct container for your website
Go to Tags in left-hand menu and click New
Give your tag descriptive name, like "LinkedIn - Insight Tag"
Click on Tag Configuration box
Choose "LinkedIn Insight" tag type from featured list (if it's not there, search for it in Community Template Gallery and add it)
In Insight Tag ID field, paste Partner ID you copied from LinkedIn in Step 1 (it's just number, not full line of code)
Click on Triggering box below
Select All Pages trigger to ensure tag fires on every page of your website
Click Save in top right corner
Finally, click Submit and then Publish to push your changes live
Do not just assume it's working.
Method 1: LinkedIn Campaign Manager Check
Go back to Insight Tag section in LinkedIn Campaign Manager
After few minutes (sometimes longer), your domain should appear with green checkmark
This indicates signal has been received
Method 2: Real-Time Check
Open your website in Chrome browser
Right-click and select Inspect
Go to Network tab
Type "linkedin" in filter box
Refresh page
You should see successful network requests to URLs containing px.ads.linkedin.com
This confirms tag is firing
Once tag is installed, you must tell LinkedIn what counts as conversion.
In Campaign Manager, go to Analyze > Conversion Tracking
Click Create conversion
Give your conversion name (e.g., "Demo Request - Thank You Page")
Define what you want to track - simplest method is "Page load" conversion
For this, you will enter URL of confirmation or "thank you" page that users see after they complete action (example: https://yourcompany.com/thank-you)
Set your attribution window (default is 30 days post-click and 7 days post-view, which is good starting point)
Associate conversion with relevant campaigns
Click Create
Your Insight Tag will now report conversion whenever user who has interacted with your ad lands on that specific thank-you page.
You have now correctly installed LinkedIn Insight Tag.
You are successfully:
Tracking browser-side events
Building retargeting audiences
Gathering demographic data
But remember, this is only half story.
You must pair this browser-side signal with server-side one.
This is achieved using LinkedIn Conversions API (CAPI).
CAPI sends conversion data directly from your server to LinkedIn, making it unblockable and far more reliable.
DataCops uses its unblockable first-party script to:
Capture complete user journey
Filter out bots and fraudulent traffic
Send clean, verified conversion data directly to LinkedIn CAPI
The Complete System:
Insight Tag: Handles your audience building
DataCops + CAPI: Handles your accurate, server-side conversion counting
When used together, they form resilient, complete, and accurate tracking system that gives you best of both worlds:
Rich audience data from browser
Undeniable conversion accuracy from server
1. Insight Tag is necessary but insufficient Essential for LinkedIn Ads, but vulnerable to blockers and ITP.
2. Three core functions of Insight Tag Conversion tracking, audience building, website demographics.
3. Audience building is strongest function Browser-based retargeting and matched audiences remain indispensable.
4. Conversion tracking is weakest function 20-40% data loss from ad blockers, ITP, and browser privacy settings.
5. Installation is straightforward 15 minutes via manual HTML or Google Tag Manager.
6. GTM method is recommended Manage all marketing tags from one place without editing code.
7. Verification is critical Check green checkmark in Campaign Manager and network requests in Chrome.
8. Server-side signal completes picture LinkedIn CAPI with first-party platform (DataCops) recovers lost conversions.
Pre-Installation:
Access to LinkedIn Campaign Manager
Admin access to website or Google Tag Manager
Copy Partner ID from LinkedIn Insight Tag settings
Installation (GTM Method):
Create new tag in Google Tag Manager
Select "LinkedIn Insight" tag type
Paste Partner ID in Insight Tag ID field
Set trigger to "All Pages"
Save tag
Submit and publish GTM container
Post-Installation:
Verify green checkmark appears in LinkedIn Campaign Manager
Check network requests show px.ads.linkedin.com in Chrome Inspector
Create conversion actions in Campaign Manager
Define thank you page URLs for conversions
Set attribution windows
Advanced Setup:
Implement LinkedIn Conversions API for server-side tracking
Deploy first-party data platform (DataCops) to bypass blockers
Filter bot traffic for accurate conversion counting
Unify browser-side and server-side signals
You have installed Insight Tag correctly. Now complete tracking system:
Step 1: Understand Limitations
Insight Tag is blocked by 20-40% of B2B audience
ITP limits cookie lifespan to 24 hours
Conversion data is undercounted
Step 2: Implement Server-Side Tracking
Set up LinkedIn Conversions API
Deploy first-party data platform (DataCops)
Send conversion data directly from server to LinkedIn
Step 3: Verify Complete System
Compare Insight Tag conversions to actual sales
Calculate data loss percentage
Monitor server-side conversion delivery
Step 4: Optimize with Clean Data
Build retargeting audiences from complete user data
Use demographic insights to refine targeting
Optimize campaigns based on accurate conversion numbers
Tools: DataCops provides first-party tracking that bypasses ad blockers, filters bot traffic, and implements LinkedIn Conversions API automatically. Completes Insight Tag with server-side signal for 100% accurate conversion counting.
The bottom line: Installing LinkedIn Insight Tag is fundamental and necessary step for any serious B2B advertiser. It is key to unlocking powerful retargeting and audience insights. But relying on it as your sole source of truth for conversion tracking is critical mistake. By following this guide, you have built first half of modern tracking system. Next step is to complete picture by implementing server-side strategy that guarantees your measurement is as resilient as your marketing.
About DataCops: First-party analytics platform that complements LinkedIn Insight Tag with unblockable tracking, bot filtering, and LinkedIn Conversions API integration. Provides complete, accurate conversion data while Insight Tag handles audience building.
