CRM Integration Guide

DemandSense seamlessly integrates your LinkedIn Ads data with HubSpot or Salesforce, empowering you to track the impact of your campaigns on your sales pipeline and revenue. This powerful feature helps you track ad impact on deals, automate workflows, and optimize spending by excluding closed deals automatically. Whether you’re a B2B marketing manager evaluating ROI or an agency proving value to clients, DemandSense bridges the gap between LinkedIn’s basic reporting and your CRM’s deal data.

This guide walks you through setting up and leveraging your CRM integration within the DemandSense platform, highlighting key features, setup steps, and use cases to maximize ROI and align sales and marketing teams.

Getting Started: Connecting Your CRM #

To begin using DemandSense’s CRM integration, connect your HubSpot or Salesforce account within the platform. Note that you can only connect one CRM (HubSpot or Salesforce) at a time. To switch CRMs, disconnect the current one first by clicking “Disconnect.”

1. Navigate to Settings:
   • Log in to DemandSense and click on the gear icon in the bottom left to open the Settings menu.
   • Select “Integrations” from the submenu.
2. Connect Your CRM:
   • Under “CRM Connection,” you’ll see options for HubSpot and Salesforce.
   • Click “Connect” next to your chosen CRM.
   • Follow the prompts to authorize access. For HubSpot, this involves logging into your HubSpot account and granting permissions. For Salesforce, enable the DemandSense External Client App for secure data syncing.
   • Once connected, the status will update to “Connected.” If needed, use the “Disconnect” button to remove the integration.

After connecting, DemandSense will sync LinkedIn Ads data (impressions, clicks, engagements) with your CRM’s Companies and Deals. Data updates weekly, focusing on deals tied to companies exposed to your ads.

Benefits of CRM Integration #

By linking your CRM, DemandSense provides actionable insights beyond LinkedIn’s native reporting, which often misses impressions and the full B2B buyer journey. Key benefits include:

• Influenced Pipeline Insights: Visibility into which companies in your CRM were exposed to LinkedIn Ads before deals were created or closed—giving a clear view of campaign impact across all stages of the funnel.
• Attribution and ROI Measurement: A clearer understanding of how LinkedIn Ads contribute to deal creation and revenue—even when conversions aren’t directly attributed—supporting better budget justification and performance evaluation.
• Automation and Optimization: Trigger outbound workflows based on engagement and automatically exclude companies with closed deals (won or lost) from LinkedIn ad targeting to reduce wasted spend.
• Sales and Marketing Alignment: Provide both teams with real-time visibility into ad engagement, enabling better collaboration and more effective targeting.
• Enhanced Reporting: Build “influenced revenue” reports to demonstrate the true value of LinkedIn Ads, even when conversions aren’t directly attributed to ads.

Note: DemandSense ties LinkedIn Ads data to Deals and Companies in your CRM, focusing on deals associated with companies. Currently, companies without associated deals are not included, but support for this functionality is planned in future updates to improve match rates.

How It Works #

DemandSense pulls LinkedIn Ads data (impressions, clicks, engagements) and maps it to your CRM’s Companies and Deals. The integration syncs data weekly, updating metrics such as impressions, clicks, and engagements over 3- and 6-month attribution windows (with 9- and 12-month windows coming in Q3 2025). The attribution window is critical for understanding ad impact. It defines the period before a deal was created, during which LinkedIn Ads data is analyzed. For example, if a deal was closed on September 1, 2025, DemandSense looks at ad data from June 1, 2025, to August 31, 2025 (for a 3-month window). 

Key Features

• Closed Deals: View companies with deals marked as “Deal Won” or “Deal Lost” in your CRM that had at least 3 ad impressions during the attribution window before the deal was created. Filter by date range, deal status, or search by company name. Available Columns Include:
  • LinkedIn Prospects – Displays the company name, LinkedIn URL, website, company size, year founded, and headquarters location.
  • Engagement Level – Categorized as low, medium, or high, based on calculated CTR (Click-Through Rate).
  • Deal Closed Date – Pulled directly from your CRM.
  • Deal Status – Indicates whether the deal is Won or Lost.
  • Amount – Potential revenue the deal would generate if marked as Won.
  • Influenced Pipeline – Indicates whether the deal was influenced by LinkedIn Ads based on prior impressions (Yes/No)..
  • Impressions – Total number of ad impressions during the selected reporting period plus the attribution window.
  • Ad Engagements – Number of engagements (e.g., likes, comments, shares) during the selected period and attribution window.
  • Ad Spend – Total ad spend during the selected period plus attribution window.
  • Clicks – Number of ad clicks within the selected period plus attribution window.
  • CTR (Click-Through Rate) – CTR calculated over the selected period and attribution window.
  • Trend – Opens a month-over-month chart showing impressions, clicks, and engagements—including the selected period and N-month attribution window prior to it.

Click the “+” for campaign-specific details or the trend icon for visual insights.

• Current CRM Pipeline: Track companies with active (non-closed) deals that have been exposed to LinkedIn ads. It helps evaluate the impact of LinkedIn advertising on pipeline progression by highlighting engagement metrics and identifying performance trends.
• The High-Intent Accounts: CRM Gaps tab highlights companies that are highly engaged with your LinkedIn ads, based on metrics like click-through rate (CTR), but are not currently in your CRM. These accounts represent strong opportunities to fill gaps in your sales pipeline and prioritize outreach. This tab displays up to 100 top-performing companies. You can search by company name, apply filters for a tailored view, and export the list in a format compatible with your CRM or marketing tools.
  An “Automated CRM Sync” button is available to simplify integration. When enabled, it automatically sends high-intent accounts to supported CRMs such as HubSpot or Salesforce on a weekly basis. A setup pop-up allows you to configure syncing options, including whether to add these accounts as leads or contacts. You can enable, disable, or cancel syncing at any time, depending on your workflow needs.

• Auto-Exclusion: Enable in the Closed Deals to automatically exclude companies with deals marked as Won or Lost from LinkedIn ad targeting and optimize your ad spend. The system syncs weekly with your CRM to identify these companies and updates the exclusion list accordingly. You can choose to exclude deals closed within the last 12 months or only those closed after enabling Auto-Exclusion. When active, the status shows as “Enabled”, and you can disable it anytime. Excluded companies are automatically assigned a “Suppress Closed Deal” downvote in the Rate Accounts tab, which you can adjust manually if needed.

• Auto-Inclusion: Enable in the Current CRM Pipeline to automatically upload companies with active (non-closed) deals to LinkedIn as a custom audience for highly targeted campaigns. Unlike Auto-Exclusion, which removes closed deals from targeting, Auto-Inclusion helps you focus your ads on active pipeline accounts to accelerate deal closure. The system updates this audience weekly by adding new companies with active deals and removing those whose deals have closed, ensuring your LinkedIn campaigns remain aligned with your CRM data and target the most relevant accounts progressing through your sales pipeline.

• LI Influenced Pipeline: The LI Influenced Pipeline dashboard offers a visualization tool for assessing the impact of LinkedIn ads on your sales pipeline, revenue generation, and overall return on investment (ROI). It aggregates data from your CRM and LinkedIn ad performance to highlight how advertising efforts contribute to deal creation, closure, and revenue. You can access this via the ‘LI Influenced Pipeline’ tab under the Analytics section, with options to customize date ranges and apply filters for targeted insights.
  At the top of the dashboard, core summary metrics provide a snapshot of performance:
  • Influenced Pipeline: Represents the total value of deals influenced by LinkedIn ads, including deals where companies had ad impressions within the attribution window.
  • LinkedIn Revenue: Shows revenue attributed to LinkedIn-influenced deals.
  • Deals Created: Counts the number of new deals initiated, indicating pipeline growth driven by ad exposure.
  • Deals Closed: Tracks completed deals, encompassing both wins and losses.
  • Deals Won: Highlights successful outcomes, focusing on conversions.
  • Ad Spend: Displays total advertising expenditure over the period plus the attribution window.

These metrics help quantify the direct correlation between ad investments and pipeline progression.

A central line chart illustrates month-over-month trends for Ad Spend (orange dotted line) and Deals Created (blue solid line). This reveals patterns such as fluctuations in spending and deal creation, enabling users to spot correlations and support forecasting by including data from the attribution window.

Overall, this feature empowers sales and marketing teams to refine LinkedIn strategies by linking ad metrics directly to CRM outcomes, optimizing spend, and prioritizing high-impact accounts through data-driven insights. For deeper dives, users can adjust filters or export data for further analysis.

Use Cases #

DemandSense addresses real-world needs through these user stories:

• Viewing Ad-Affected Deals: As a user, see CRM deals influenced by LinkedIn Ads, including status (Created, Open, Closed), company info, engagement levels, and trend lines for impressions/clicks/engagements.
• Reporting for Agencies: As an agency manager, include influenced deal data in client reports to prove ROAS in multichannel environments, showing exact deals impacted even without direct attribution.
• Quick Performance Evaluation: As a B2B marketer, evaluate ROI with summaries of created/won deals, influenced revenue, and metrics like ad spend per deal.
• Company-Specific Insights: Search by company name and date range to drill into details, aligning sales follow-ups with ad data.

For example, a company in your pipeline with high engagement can be analyzed using the trend chart to identify impression spikes before deal creation, enabling automated outreach via CRM workflows to close the deal faster.

Frequently Asked Questions #