Revenue Attribution

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 Revenue Attribution connects your LinkedIn paid ads and organic activity directly to your CRM deals in HubSpot or Salesforce. It shows you exactly which accounts your LinkedIn efforts influenced, how much pipeline and closed-won revenue they generated, which campaigns performed best, and the complete buyer journey from first touch to deal close.

The module has five tabs: Overview, Accounts, Campaigns, Journeys, and Settings. All tabs except Settings share the same top filter bar (Reporting Period, Lookback window, Account Status, Engagement Level, and Campaigns), so you can slice the data consistently across the entire feature.

Overview Tab – Quick Executive Summary #

This is your main dashboard. It answers at a glance: “Is our LinkedIn marketing actually generating revenue?”

At the top you’ll see six key KPI cards:

• Influenced Closed-Won Revenue (with deal count)—Total revenue from deals marked Closed-Won that had LinkedIn activity before the deal was created.
• Influenced Closed-Lost Amount—Total value of deals marked Closed-Lost that had LinkedIn activity before creation.
• Influenced Active Pipeline—Total value of open deals in your CRM that had LinkedIn activity before creation.
• Won ROAS—Aggregate return on ad spend for all closed-won deals. Calculated as: Total Influenced Closed-Won Revenue ÷ Total Ad Spend for those accounts. (Higher is better—e.g., 10x means $10 revenue per $1 spent.)
• Lost ROAS—Aggregate return on ad spend for all closed-lost deals. Calculated as: Total Influenced Closed-Lost Amount ÷ Total Ad Spend for those accounts.
• Pipeline Performance—Shows how much pipeline value was influenced for every USD spent on ads.

Below the KPIs are two rows of charts:

• First row (3 charts side-by-side): Monthly Ad Spend | Influenced Revenue (Closed-Won) | Revenue by Pipeline Stage
• Second row (3 charts side-by-side): Performance by Industry | Performance by Headcount | Performance by Country

Use the Share buttons on each chart to download images for reports or presentations.

Tip: Hover over any bar or segment in the charts to see the underlying data.

Accounts Tab – View Every Influenced Account #

This tab lists all accounts that LinkedIn influenced according to your attribution rules.

Each row includes

• Account name with LinkedIn and website icons, plus basic company info (industry, company size, founded year, headquarters)
• Current CRM Stage with color-coded badge (Closed-Won, In Pipeline, etc.)
• Engagement Level shown as a visual blue bar indicator
• Key LinkedIn metrics: Spend, Impressions, Engagements, Clicks, CTR
• Cost/Deal (total ad spend if a deal exists)
• Cost/Closed (total ad spend if the deal is closed)
• ROI (calculated only for Closed-Won deals)
• Outcome column showing deal details such as close date and deal amount (or pipeline stage and creation date)

How to use it:

• Click any row to open a detailed side drawer with four tabs: Summary, Journey, Attribution, and Activate.
  • Summary—Explains why the account is considered influenced and shows key facts (stage, deal amount, dates, first LinkedIn touch, total spend, website sessions).
  • Journey—Displays the full visual timeline of LinkedIn activity, website visits, and CRM events.
  • Attribution—Shows how credit for the deal is distributed across channels and lets you switch between First Touch, Last Touch, or Linear models.
  • Activate—Context-sensitive actions: create the account in HubSpot, sync active pipeline accounts to LinkedIn audiences, or exclude closed accounts from future LinkedIn targeting. (These drawer tabs are planned for a future release.)
• Click the blue + icon on the left of any row to expand it and view the Influencing Campaigns Summary—this shows all specific campaigns that contributed to influencing that account, along with per-campaign metrics (status, engagement level, spend, paid clicks, impressions, engagements, and CTR).
• Bulk actions (export selected accounts, exclude from audiences, or sync to audiences), advanced sorting, and additional filtering options are planned for future releases.

Campaigns Tab – Evaluate Campaign Performance #

This tab helps you understand which of your LinkedIn campaigns are actually driving revenue—not just generating impressions or clicks.

At the top of the tab you’ll see four cards showing Format-level Influence. These cards display how different ad formats (Image, Text Ad, Video, Spotlight, etc.) contribute to your influenced deals across the selected period.

Each card shows:

• The ad format name
• Share percentage of total influence
• Number of Influenced Deals
• Number of Campaigns using that format

Tip: Higher influence share does not always mean better performance—it simply means that the format appears more often or more meaningfully in buyer journeys.

The main table below the Format-level Influence cards lists all your LinkedIn campaigns. Each row shows essential performance data, including

• Campaign name and current status (Active, Paused, etc.)
• Objective and ad format
• Core ad metrics (Spend, Impressions, Clicks, CTR, CVR)
• Influence results (Influenced Accounts, Influenced Deals)
• Revenue impact (Pipeline Value and Closed-Won Revenue)

How to dig deeper:

• Click the blue + icon on the left of any campaign row to expand it.
• This reveals the Influenced Deals sub-table, showing the specific deals that the campaign influenced, with details like deal name, account, stage, size, dates, and sales cycle length.

Quick tips:

• Use the search bar (“Search by campaign name”) to filter quickly.
• Click the Filters button (top right) for advanced options like Deal Amount Range.

Journeys Tab – See the Full Buyer Journey #

This tab visualizes how accounts interact with your brand over time across LinkedIn ads.

You’ll see a timeline view where each row represents one account. Colored icons show different events:

• Blue eye = Ad Impressions
• Lightning bolt = Ad Engagements (likes, comments, clicks)
• Purple marker = Deal Created
• Green check = Deal Won
• Red X = Deal Lost

Use the event filters at the top (Ad Clicks, Ad Engagements, Ad Impressions, Deal Created, Deal Lost, Deal Won) to show or hide specific touchpoints.

Click the small arrow next to any account to open a more detailed view of its complete journey timeline.

Settings Tab – Configure How Attribution Works #

This is where you define the rules and automations for the entire module.

Attribution Logic

Choose from three preset models:

• Awareness – Best for brand visibility (credits accounts that saw your ads/content multiple times)
• Engagement – Best for measuring resonance (credits likes, comments, etc.)
• Intent – Best for high-intent signals (clicks + website visits)

Or create a Custom Model by toggling individual criteria (Paid Impressions, Paid Clicks, Paid Engagements, etc.) and setting your own minimum thresholds.

Automations

• Spend Protection—Automatically excludes accounts with closed deals (won or lost) from your LinkedIn audiences to avoid wasting ad spend.
• Pipeline Sync—Automatically syncs your active pipeline accounts to LinkedIn audiences for better retargeting and nurturing.

Both automations can be turned on/off. You can also choose the lookback period for exclusions.

Quick Start Tips #

1. Start on the Overview tab to get the big picture and see your overall ROI.
2. Go to Accounts to investigate specific companies and take action.
3. Use Campaigns to decide which campaigns to scale or pause.
4. Check Journeys to understand typical buyer behavior, spot patterns, and improve your content sequencing
5. Adjust rules and turn on automations in Settings to fine-tune results.

This new version of Revenue Attribution transforms LinkedIn from a vanity-metric channel into a true revenue driver with clear attribution, actionable insights, and helpful automations. Start exploring the tabs today!

Frequently Asked Questions #