LinkedIn launched the Company Intelligence API in September 2025, and most B2B marketers still don't know it exists. This isn't another dashboard widget. It's the first API that shows you which companies are engaging with your brand before they fill out a form, and the early results are solid: 287% increase in companies reached, 96% more sales-qualified leads, and 43% reduction in cost per acquisition.
If you're running LinkedIn ads and struggling to prove ROI to leadership, this LinkedIn company intelligence API solves a real attribution problem.
Quick Summary: What Changed and Why It Matters
The API works through five certified partners and delivers data directly into your existing CRM dashboards. No additional implementation required if you're already using one of these platforms.
The Problem: B2B Attribution Has Been Broken
Traditional LinkedIn campaign reporting gives you lead-level metrics. Someone clicks your ad, fills a form, becomes an MQL. Clean and simple. Except that's not how B2B buying works.
Reality check: 6-10 stakeholders are involved in B2B purchase decisions, sales cycles average 211 days, and most of your actual influence happens in what marketers call the "dark funnel". Impressions, page visits, content views that never show up in attribution reports.
Here's what this looks like:
You run a LinkedIn campaign targeting SaaS companies with 500-2,000 employees. Your dashboard shows 12 leads this month. Leadership questions the $15,000 spend for "only 12 leads."
What you couldn't see before: 47 target companies viewed your ads multiple times, 23 visited your company page organically, 8 companies had employees across 3+ departments engaging with your content. Your campaign actually influenced 31 deals currently in pipeline. You just had no way to prove it.
The LinkedIn company intelligence API aggregates engagement at the company level, not the individual level.
Six Company-Level Metrics You Couldn't Get Before
The API delivers six metrics that traditional LinkedIn reporting can't provide:
1. Paid Impressions by Company
Number of times your sponsored ads appeared to employees from a specific company. Unlike standard impression counts, this tells you organizational reach. Did 5 people from Microsoft see your ad, or 50?
2. Paid Clicks by Company
Total clicks from all employees at a target company. This reveals buying committee engagement that individual tracking misses.
3. Paid Leads by Company
Form submissions aggregated by company. You can finally see which organizations are converting, not just which individuals.
4. Organic Impressions by Company
Visits to your LinkedIn company page, feed impressions, and product page views from employees at target accounts. This is the "dark funnel" activity that's been invisible.
5. Organic Engagements by Company
Interactions with your company page posts and products. Likes, shares, comments aggregated by organization.
6. Engagement Score
LinkedIn's proprietary score (Very Low / Low / Medium / High / Very High) based on combined paid and organic activity normalized across your selected time period.
Privacy note: All metrics meet minimum thresholds to protect member privacy. If a company doesn't meet minimum engagement levels, you'll see 0 values. This is intentional, not a data gap.
Real Results from Beta Users
LinkedIn shared performance data from companies that tested the API before launch:
Eftsure (payment fraud prevention):
- 3x increase in companies reached through LinkedIn Ads
- "Reductions in cost per SQL give me strong evidence to justify investment to leadership" - Head of Demand Gen
DataSnipper (audit software):
- 2x increase in influenced pipeline and revenue
- Discovered nearly twice as much pipeline attributed to LinkedIn than previous models showed
Inovalon (healthcare data analytics):
- Shifted budget from other channels to LinkedIn after seeing clear attribution data
Aggregate beta results:
- 287% increase in companies reached (combining paid + organic touchpoints)
- 75% more Marketing Qualified Leads
- 96% increase in Sales Qualified Leads
- 43% reduction in cost per acquisition
These improvements came from visibility into engagement that was already happening. They weren't running different campaigns, they just knew which companies to prioritize.
Four Practical Use Cases for Account-Based Marketing
1. Pipeline Attribution That Sales Trusts
Export company-level engagement data into your CRM. When a deal closes, you can show every LinkedIn touchpoint, paid and organic, that influenced that account from first impression to signed contract.
Example: Sales closes a $250,000 deal with Acme Corp. Your CRM now shows Acme had 127 paid impressions across 8 employees, 23 company page visits, and 11 engagement actions over 147 days before first sales contact. Leadership sees LinkedIn influenced $250K in pipeline, not "generated 2 leads."
2. Account Prioritization for Sales Development
Identify high-engagement companies that haven't converted yet. Your SDR team stops making cold calls and starts having warm conversations.
Filter strategy: Pull companies with "High" or "Very High" engagement scores but zero leads. Export this list weekly to your sales team with engagement context.
3. Budget Reallocation Based on Company Performance
Stop optimizing for clicks. Start optimizing for company engagement. If Campaign A reaches 40 target companies but Campaign B only reaches 12, shift budget to Campaign A even if Campaign B has a lower CPC.
4. Dark Funnel Visibility for Executive Reporting
CFOs want to know: "What's our return on LinkedIn spend?" Traditional metrics show lead volume. The LinkedIn company intelligence API shows organizational influence.
Monthly report template:
- Companies engaged this month: [number]
- Companies in active sales pipeline: [number]
- Pipeline value influenced by LinkedIn: [$amount]
- Cost per engaged target account: [$amount]
This ties marketing spend directly to pipeline dollars.
How to Use LinkedIn Company Intelligence API (And What It Costs)
The API isn't available through direct integration. You need to work with one of LinkedIn's five certified partners:
- Channel99, AI-powered attribution, founded by Demandbase creator Chris Golec
- Dreamdata, revenue attribution platform for B2B
- Factors.ai, account intelligence connecting first-party data with ads
- Fibbler, multi-touch attribution for long sales cycles
- Octane11, attribution platform (analyzed $25M+ in B2B spend during beta)
Setup process:
- Verify you have an active LinkedIn Ads account with VIEWER role or above
- Connect with one of the certified partners (most offer 14-30 day trials)
- Grant r_ads_reporting permission to the partner platform
- Data begins flowing automatically
Cost reality: LinkedIn doesn't charge separately for API access. Partner platforms range from $300-2,000/month depending on company size and LinkedIn spend. This isn't cheap. You need to be spending at least $5,000/month on LinkedIn Ads for the cost to make sense.
Similar to how you'd automate LinkedIn Ads reporting with data connectors, these attribution platforms automate the company-level insights.
Technical Specifications Worth Knowing
Data lag: 24-48 hours from engagement to reporting (near real-time)
Lookback windows: 7, 30, 60, or 90 days (default is 90)
Result limits: Maximum 100,000 companies per query. Use pagination for large result sets. Recommended page size: 500 companies.
Filtering options:
- By lookback window (7/30/60/90 days)
- By ad segment URN
- By specific campaign (note: organic metrics return
0when filtering by campaign)
Sort order: Results automatically sort by paidImpressions descending. Highest engagement companies appear first.
LinkedIn Company Intelligence API vs Standard Campaign Manager Reporting
Campaign Manager provides:
- Impressions (total count)
- Clicks (individual user actions)
- Conversions (form submissions)
- Demographics (job title, industry, seniority)
Company Intelligence API adds:
- Company identification (which specific organizations engaged)
- Organic + paid unified view
- Engagement scoring (normalized intensity measurement)
- Company-level aggregation (buying committee view, not just individuals)
You still need Campaign Manager for creative performance, ad format comparisons, and audience targeting optimization. The company intelligence API supplements standard reporting. It doesn't replace it.
If you're pulling LinkedIn data into spreadsheets or dashboards for marketing report automation, the LinkedIn company intelligence API creates new possibilities for cross-channel attribution when combined with other data sources.
Common Questions About the LinkedIn B2B Attribution API
How far back does historical data go?
The API launched September 23, 2025. Historical data starts from that date forward. You cannot retrieve company-level engagement from before September 2025. Maximum lookback is 90 days.
Does this work for organic content or only ads?
Both. The API tracks organic impressions (company page visits, feed impressions, product page views) and organic engagements alongside paid metrics. This unified view is one of the key differentiators.
Can I see which specific employees engaged?
No. Company totals only. The API deliberately aggregates to the organization level to protect member privacy. You see "Microsoft employees generated 45 clicks" but not "John Smith from Microsoft clicked 3 times."
What if my company doesn't use a CRM?
You can still benefit from partner platform dashboards, but you'll miss the most powerful use case: connecting LinkedIn engagement to closed revenue. If you're running $5,000+/month in LinkedIn Ads without a CRM, that's probably the bigger problem to solve first.
How does this compare to LinkedIn's Buyer Groups feature?
Different tools. Buyer Groups is an AI-powered targeting solution that identifies decision-makers within buying committees. Company Intelligence API is a measurement tool showing how companies engage after you target them. Use Buyer Groups to reach the right people, use the company intelligence API to prove it worked.
Is the LinkedIn company intelligence API available globally?
Yes. The API has been available globally since September 23, 2025 through all five certified attribution partners. No geographic restrictions.
What's the minimum LinkedIn Ads spend to justify using this API?
While there's no technical minimum, the partner platform costs ($300-2,000/month) mean you need at least $5,000/month in LinkedIn Ads spend for the ROI to make sense. Below that threshold, the cost of attribution may exceed the optimization value.
The LinkedIn company intelligence API shifts B2B attribution from lead-level vanity metrics to company-level business impact. Early adopters are using it to justify budget increases and have data-driven conversations with CFOs about marketing ROI.
If you're running LinkedIn Ads at $5,000+/month, evaluating one of the five certified attribution partners should be on your Q1 2026 roadmap. The API provides company-level visibility that B2B buying committees have always required but attribution models never delivered.
The question is whether you'll implement it before your competitors start using engagement data you're still missing.
