Building a Social Source -- LinkedIn

Relevant to: Demand Acceleration Platform | Social Integrations

Build a LinkedIn Social Source to route leads from your LinkedIn Sponsored Account to the Demand Acceleration Platform - before being posted out to your Marketing Automation or CRM system.

This will be completed by your Social Power User(s) in the Demand Acceleration Platform > Campaigns.

For an overview of the entire Social Integrations process, including who your social team members are, see Social via the Demand Acceleration Platform.

You need to have 1) connected your LinkedIn accounts to the Demand Acceleration Platform, and 2) have built a Social Campaign in the Demand Acceleration Platform - before building your LinkedIn Source.
Connecting Your LinkedIn Sponsored Account	Building a Social Campaign

Before you begin building

1. Connect your LinkedIn Sponsored Account to enable lead flow to the Demand Acceleration Platform.

2. Build a Social Campaign in the Demand Acceleration Platform for your leads to be collected from Social Sources.

3. Complete the set-up of your LinkedIn Campaign(s) and Lead Gen Form(s) in LinkedIn.

Requirements when setting-up your LinkedIn Campaign(s)

The LinkedIn Campaign(s) must be in the active status in LinkedIn, even if content is not yet being promoted.
- See Campaign Status – Definitions to read more about LinkedIn Campaign Status.
We recommend waiting to promote content in LinkedIn until after your Social Source has been built and tested within the Demand Acceleration Platform.
- This will prevent leads from being collected before the Integrate connection is tested and established.

Requirements when setting-up your LinkedIn Lead Gen Form(s)

The LinkedIn Lead Gen Form/s must be final in LinkedIn.
- See Lead Gen Form Status - Definitions to read more about LinkedIn Lead Gen Form Status.
- If a LinkedIn Lead Gen Form is changed after it has been associated with an Integrate Social Source (i.e. form names, field names, allowed values) a new Integrate Source may need to be created.
- See Edit Lead Gen Forms in Campaign Manager to learn more about editing your forms in LinkedIn.
Be consistent with field naming conventions (ie. use Work Email or Email on all forms). This enables consistent reporting later.
Use only alphanumeric characters in custom field names and avoid any punctuation (other than underscores). Where possible, avoid special characters in localized languages.

4. Collect your Social Source details from your LinkedIn Sponsored Account to use when building your Social Source in the Demand Acceleration Platform.

You can download a template at the end of this article to help with collecting the required data.

Information to collate in the spreadsheet includes:

Column	Required?	Description
LinkedIn Integration	Required	The name of your LinkedIn Sponsored Account that is connected with the Demand Acceleration Platform.
LinkedIn Campaign Name	Required	List the name of your active LinkedIn Campaign(s) exactly as shown within LinkedIn Campaign Manager. If you'd like to capture all leads using the same LinkedIn Lead Gen Form, regardless of LinkedIn Campaign, you can specify All Campaigns instead.
LinkedIn Campaign ID	Optional	Collect the corresponding LinkedIn Campaign ID, it can be helpful for troubleshooting later.
LinkedIn Lead Gen Form Name/s	Required	List the name of your final LinkedIn Lead Gen Form(s) exactly as shown within LinkedIn Campaign Manager. Multiple Lead Gen Forms can be added to a single Social Source after creating the initial Source, as long as the fields match.
LinkedIn Lead Gen Form ID/s	Optional	Collect the corresponding LinkedIn Lead Gen Form ID(s). These will be needed later if you are mapping to values based on the form used to collect the lead.
LinkedIn Metadata	Optional	If there is metadata you would like to send to your Marketing Automation or CRM system, note the fields in this column. Read more about Social Metadata.
Additional data points	Optional	If there is additional data that needs to be passed with each lead, either static or mapped values, note those in this column. (eg LeadSource = LinkedIn) Your Ops team could advise here on values that will be important to route leads properly within your Marketing Automation or CRM system.

Creating a LinkedIn Source

1. In the Demand Acceleration Platform, navigate to Campaigns > My Campaigns. Click on the Social Campaign that you created in the previous step, Building a Social Campaign.

This Campaign will house the new Social Source that you are building and cannot be relocated.

2. Click on the Add New Source button.

3. In the Add Social Source modal, select the corresponding LinkedIn Integration from the Integration dropdown menu.

Your options here will depend on what Social accounts have been connected with the Demand Acceleration Platform. Read more in Connecting Your LinkedIn Sponsored Account.

4. Select the LinkedIn Campaign Name from the Campaign dropdown menu.

The options here will list the active LinkedIn Campaigns in your selected LinkedIn Account.

If you don't see your LinkedIn Campaign, confirm it is set to active in LinkedIn. Read more about LinkedIn Campaign Status – Definitions.
If you would like to capture all leads using the same LinkedIn Lead Gen Form (regardless of LinkedIn Campaign), select All Campaigns.

5. Select the LinkedIn Lead Gen Form Name from the list that appears in the pop-up and click Add Form.

This lists the available published LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms in your selected LinkedIn account. You can create your Source with one initial LinkedIn Form and add other forms later, see Adding & Removing Social Forms.

The LinkedIn Social Source has been created and is now housed in your Social Campaign.

Name your Source

You can give your Source a nickname - known as the Source Alias - to help you identify it. This is done in the Source Summary tab by clicking on the Source title. Type your new Source Alias and it will save automatically when you click elsewhere.

The Source Alias can be anything you like - we recommend determining a naming convention to use across all your Sources, which will help you to identify them.

Set validations on your social form fields

Fields in your selected LinkedIn Form are automatically added as Form Fields in the Demand Acceleration Platform.
The fields are dynamically added and cannot be changed. If needed, additional routing fields and values can be added to your outbound integration, see Adding outbound integrations.

In the Fields tab you can add validations to fields, which will determine whether incoming leads from LinkedIn are accepted or rejected. To read more about types of field validations available, see Field Types & Validations.

1. In the Source, click on the Fields tab.

2. Click on the Campaign Field where you would like to add validation. This will open the Field Details panel and reveal the available validations for that field type.

3. Add the validations you wish to apply to the Social Source, in order to block any unwanted leads.

Adding validation to your fields will block leads from being uploaded to the platform, marking them as rejected. The leads will not be "returned" to LinkedIn.
In the Demand Acceleration Platform, rejected leads will not be accepted or sent to your Marketing Automation or CRM system. However, they are still considered billable by LinkedIn.

It's advisable to use field validations sparingly with Social Sources. Only block the leads that you absolutely do not want under any circumstances (eg. competitor email domains).

A note on picklists in LinkedIn

If any of your LinkedIn Form fields feature a picklist, consider the two options you could utilize within the Demand Acceleration Platform:

1. Set the Field Type to Text. This will allow all data to flow into the form field as formatted by LinkedIn.

2. Set the Field Type to List. This will allow you to create and apply an identical picklist within the Demand Acceleration Platform to 1) determine which values are allowed and disallowed, and 2) to reconfigure values for the outbound integration.

For example, LinkedIn's State and Country fields.
- In LinkedIn, values can vary for both State and Country. They can be formatted as either an abbreviation or the full name.
- If you need to receive these values in a consistent or different format, you can set-up a mapper in the Demand Acceleration Platform to reconfigure the incoming value so that it's in keeping with those used in your Marketing Automation or CRM system.
- For instructions, see our Lists & Mappers section.
Keep in mind that some LinkedIn form fields can also act as free text, meaning that users can enter values not predetermined by a picklist. In this instance, you may receive varied data so we recommend monitoring incoming leads. Use our Managing Rejected Social Leads article to resolve any that may have been unintentionally blocked.

Confirm Terms and add de-duplication rules

The rules in the Default Terms tab have been carried over from the set-up of your Social Campaign.

On the Source level, you can apply de-duplication rules to prevent multiple versions of the same lead. De-duplication rules will be available if either an Email or Phone field is present in the Fields tab. Read more in, De-Duplication Rules.

It's most common to leave de-duplication rules off for Social Sources as any leads rejected as duplicates are still considered billable by LinkedIn.

Add an outbound integration

You can configure how leads will flow out to your Marketing Automation or CRM system in the Integrations tab.

1. Click on Add Integration.

2. In the pop-up, choose whether to add a new integration or click the Load from Existing button to copy an existing set-up. To learn more about setting-up Marketing Automation and CRM integrations, see Integrations & Post-outs.

3. Once you've selected your integration, it will become visible in the Integrations tab.

Open the integration settings to configure the integration and send a test lead. For more about setting up and testing Marketing Automation and CRM integrations, see Integrations & Post-outs.

Click on Save.

4. Add any additional forms to the Source, see Adding & Removing Social Forms for instructions.

After finishing the build of your Social Source, send test leads from the Demand Acceleration Platform to confirm routing to your Marketing Automation or CRM system.
If you wish to test the full lead flow path starting from within LinkedIn, see LinkedIn's testing instructions. Once confirmed, proceed to launching your Source.

Launch your Social Source

Click Launch to complete the setup and initiate lead flow.

Lead flow will now be continuous from LinkedIn into the Demand Acceleration Platform, where they will be validated and any accepted leads will be routed into your Marketing Automation or CRM system. Notice the Source status has changed to Live.

Your Social Source is now setup. The next step is to manage lead flow in the Social Source.
Managing Social Sources

If you have a Managed Service package with Integrate, we’ll build and manage your Social Campaigns and Sources for you within the Demand Acceleration Platform.
This includes regular reporting to keep you informed. Contact your Customer Success Manager for more details.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there anything to know about setting-up my Campaign and Lead Gen Forms in LinkedIn?
Yes, there are some steps you need to follow in LinkedIn before building your Social Source in the Demand Acceleration Platform. For example, your LinkedIn Campaign needs to be set to Active and your Lead Gen Forms as Final. Please see Before you begin building for more information on required LinkedIn settings.

Why can't I change my Social form fields?
Social Source form fields in the Demand Acceleration Platform are dynamically set according to your campaigns in LinkedIn. See Set validations on your Social Form Fields for more information.

How do I add multiple Social forms? Can I remove a Social form?
You can add more social forms to your Social Source and remove them as needed. See Adding & Removing Social Forms for full details.

Why are my leads being rejected?
Check that your Source is live and validation rules are correct. If you're using picklists, see A note on Picklists in LinkedIn to understand how this could impact whether leads are accepted or rejected.

LinkedIn Source Template

Integrate Template - Social LinkedIn.xlsx
20 KB Download

In this article:

Before you begin building

Requirements when setting-up your LinkedIn Campaign(s)

Requirements when setting-up your LinkedIn Lead Gen Form(s)