Connecting to LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms

Introduction

BMexa connects to your LinkedIn Campaign Manager ad accounts to receive leads from LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms on sponsored content. Every form on a connected account is covered. LinkedIn tells BMexa the moment a lead is submitted, so it lands within seconds (where real-time is not available, BMexa checks every couple of minutes instead); the assigned person is alerted, and the form and campaign names are kept on the enquiry. You can also import leads from the last 90 days.

The LinkedIn member who signs in needs two roles: a role on the ad account (Account manager, Campaign manager, Creative manager, Billing admin or Viewer) and a role on the LinkedIn company page the ads run for (for example Super admin or Lead gen forms manager). Without both, LinkedIn refuses to hand over the leads.

Connecting your LinkedIn account

1. Go to Marketing › Integrations › LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms and click Connect with LinkedIn.
2. Sign in and allow the access BMexa asks for: your ad accounts, your company pages and lead gen form responses.
3. Back in BMexa, tick the ad accounts you want leads from, choose who new leads land with, and click Connect. Each ad account becomes its own connection, so Lead Automation Rules can target one account.
4. Click Test lead on an account to see what an alert and a client record look like.

Importing past leads

On a connected ad account pick a range (last 24 hours, 7, 30 or 90 days) and click Import. BMexa reads every lead gen form response on the account in that range and creates the leads that are not already in your account. Each LinkedIn lead is remembered by its id, so running an import again, or an import overlapping the automatic checks, never duplicates. LinkedIn keeps leads for 90 days.

Leads without a phone number are counted but not created, because a client record is keyed on the mobile number. Add the Phone number question to your lead gen forms; BMexa also accepts the Work phone number field.

What arrives with a lead

• First and last name, phone, email and city from LinkedIn’s standard form fields.
• Profile answers such as company, job title and seniority, and every custom question (with the chosen option for multiple-choice questions), kept as form fields and written to the remarks.
• The form name and the campaign name. When the campaign name matches one of your marketing campaigns, the lead is linked to it.
• Open a connected account’s history (the clock button) to see the newest leads it received and what became of each one: created, added to an open enquiry, or skipped with the reason.

What happens when a lead arrives

• The lead is created in Clients within seconds, with the source name on the record and on the alert.
• The person you chose on the connection is assigned and gets an in-app alert (and a browser push if they allowed it). If they turned on Lead alerts on WhatsApp, they also get the lead on WhatsApp from BMexa’s number, or from your own connected number when its card has the lead-alert option on; the client’s phone and email are masked in that message.
• Every field we recognise fills the client record: name, phone, email, city, project, budget, purpose, message, campaign. Any other field is kept as a form field and written to the remarks, so nothing the form captured is lost.
• A phone number that already has an open enquiry does not create a second lead: the message is added as a remark on the existing one, and if it came from a different source a lead clash is raised for the manager to settle.
• Assignment rules, duplicate settings and auto-replies apply to these leads as they ship (see Automations & WhatsApp).

Renewing permissions

LinkedIn access lasts 60 days. BMexa shows the date on the connection; click Renew permissions before then and sign in again. If LinkedIn refuses the access earlier (the member revoked it, changed their password or lost their role), the connection is marked Expired, leads stop, and the person who connected is alerted. Renewing picks up where it stopped; connected accounts and their leads are untouched.

Delayed or missing leads

• Under each account BMexa says whether it is Real-time (with when LinkedIn last notified it) or Checked every 2 minutes with the reason. Click Turn on real-time once the reason is fixed. Even with real-time on, every account is re-checked every 15 minutes, so a missed notification only delays a lead.
• Check the account is listed as connected and Active, and look at Last checked.
• An error under the account name is LinkedIn’s own message. A permissions error usually means the member lacks the company page role.
• Test leads created in Campaign Manager’s form preview arrive like real ones and are marked Test.
• A phone number that already has an open enquiry is added to that enquiry rather than created again (see Duplicate leads).

Disconnecting

Disconnect a single ad account to stop its leads while keeping the rest; its connection is disabled and its leads stay. Disconnect LinkedIn clears the stored access for every account. Leads already received are not affected.

For administrators: the one-time LinkedIn app setup

1. At linkedin.com/developers create an app linked to your company page, and verify it from the page.
2. Request the Lead Sync API product for the app. Advertising API access alone cannot read leads; LinkedIn reviews Lead Sync requests separately.
3. Under Auth, add <your API URL>/api/v1/integrations/linkedin/callback as an authorised redirect URL and confirm the scopes r_marketing_leadgen_automation, r_ads and r_organization_admin are listed.
4. Put LINKEDIN_CLIENT_ID, LINKEDIN_CLIENT_SECRET and API_PUBLIC_URL in the server environment and restart the API. The LinkedIn card shows what is still missing.
5. Real-time leads need API_PUBLIC_URL to be a public HTTPS address. Nothing has to be registered in the LinkedIn portal: when an ad account is connected, BMexa subscribes it to lead notifications at <your API URL>/api/v1/integrations/linkedin/webhook, and LinkedIn checks that address (and every two hours after) before it sends anything. Without HTTPS, accounts are checked every couple of minutes instead.