LinkedIn Matched Audiences

The G2 + LinkedIn Matched Audiences integration enables you to leverage your G2 Buyer Intent signals as filter criteria for your LinkedIn ad campaigns.

Basics of the G2 + LinkedIn Matched Audiences integration

About G2 Buyer Intent data

G2 Buyer Intent captures enriched data about buyers researching your product across G2. Buyer Intent signals can be generated by a variety of buyer actions, including interacting with your G2 product profile page, comparing your product to a competitor, and viewing alternatives for a product in a shared category. This data enables your sales, marketing, and customer success teams to identify a buyer's stage in the buyer journey.

How G2 Buyer Intent data auto-maps to LinkedIn

Buyer Intent signals are automatically mapped (auto-mapped) to companies in LinkedIn by matching the website domain on the Buyer Intent signal to a company with the same domain in LinkedIn.

Once you've defined your audience criteria and built your segment in my.G2, you can review the Match Count and Match Rate columns for your audience segments. This information shows how many organizations have been mapped to LinkedIn for the previous seven days and the percentage of the companies that were mapped compared to the number that generated G2 Buyer Intent data.

You can use LinkedIn Campaign Manager’s capabilities and data to further narrow the audience based on criteria such as location, user seniority, and role.

Where G2-built audience segments appear in LinkedIn Campaign Manager

The audience segments you build in my.G2 appear in the Matched Audiences section of LinkedIn Campaign Manager.

To find your audience segments:

1. Go to LinkedIn Campaign Manager, then log in to the ad account that you connected to the integration my.G2.
2. Select Plan > Audiences.
3. G2-built audience segments are labeled as Third-party: G2 Crowd. To easily find these audience segments, open the Source dropdown, then select Third party as a filter.

Automatic updates to audience segments

Your audience segment is updated in LinkedIn every 24 hours as new Buyer Intent data is made available. The status of your audience segments updates in both my.G2 and LinkedIn to reflect whether the list is being updated based on the latest G2 data.

To disable an audience segment, set the Segment Status slider to Not Active. The audience segment will still be available to use in LinkedIn Campaign Manager, but the audience will not be updated based on new Buyer Intent signals until you reactivate it.

Implementation

Before getting started

To activate this integration, your LinkedIn ad account must have Campaign Manager access.

Unlike other G2 integrations, which are activated at the product level, the LinkedIn Matched Audiences integration must be activated at the my.G2 user level. Each individual my.G2 account holder in your organization must complete the following implementation steps in order to build audiences with G2 data.

1. Connect your LinkedIn Campaign Manager account

To connect LinkedIn Campaign Manager to your my.G2 account:

1. Go to my.G2, then navigate to Integrations > Integration Hub.
2. Select the LinkedIn Matched Audiences tile.
3. In the Connect your LinkedIn Ad Account section, select Authenticate Now. You will be brought to LinkedIn to log in with your LinkedIn Campaign Manager credentials.

2. Build a test audience segment

To build your first audience segment using G2 Buyer Intent data:

1. Go to my.G2, then Integrations > Integration Hub.
2. Select the LinkedIn Matched Audiences tile.
3. In the Select LinkedIn Ad Account section, choose an account option from the dropdown, then select Apply.
4. In the Create your Audience with G2 Buyer Intent Data section, leave the default options in place, then select Apply. This audience segment includes all G2 Buyer Intent data for the past six months.

5. Use the View G2 Intent List section to review the G2 buyer organizations included in your segment. To delete companies from this audience segment, select the checkbox for each company, then select Delete Selected.
6. Select Apply to continue.
7. In the Name Audience Segment, enter a name that describes the audience segment being created. For this first example, G2 recommends entering "G2 Buyer Intent Test".
8. Select Apply, then select Create Segment to finish creating the audience segment.

Filtering audiences with G2 Buyer Intent

The G2 + LinkedIn Matched Audiences integration uses specific keywords and properties to filter Buyer Intent signals.

As you apply filters, the Accounts found panel shows a live count of how many G2 buyer organizations match your current filter criteria.

This number does not represent how many companies will be successfully mapped to LinkedIn, or how many members will be included in the audience segment. LinkedIn audience segments must contain at least 300 members.

The following sections describe your options for filtering LinkedIn audiences using G2 data.

Lookback window

The lookback window establishes the start date for the Buyer Intent data that will be included in your LinkedIn audience segment. If you choose to keep a segment active, new audience matches will continually be added in LinkedIn based on your Buyer Intent signals.

For example, if your lookback window is set to October 1, 2022, all Buyer Intent signals from that date forward will be sent to LinkedIn. Default lookback window options, such as 30 Days and 6 Months, set a start date in the same way, which means the original date remains in place after the audience segment is created.

If you want more recent Buyer Intent data feeding your LinkedIn audience segments, you must edit the lookback window of your existing segments in my.G2, or create a new segment.

Filter by Demographics

Include buyers that match your ideal customer profile by entering criteria for visitor geolocation, company headquarters location, industry, or market segment.

By default, locations filters are filtered by country. You can further refine by local region by searching for and selecting regions from the corresponding dropdown.

Filter by Organization Activity

Find companies that generated specific Buyer Intent signal types, are in a particular Buying Stage, or have a minimum Activity Level.

You can further refine comparison signals by searching for and selecting competitors from the Products Compared To filter.

Filter by Category

If your Buyer Intent subscription includes multiple categories, you can refine your categories using the corresponding dropdown.

Filter by G2 Stack

G2 Stack enhances the Buyer Intent signals you already receive from G2 by incorporating tech stack data to better inform your marketing and sales strategies. Where Buyer Intent captures enriched data about buyers researching your product and competitors across G2, G2 Stack identifies the specific software products that those buyers are already using.

Stack filters enable you to further refine your audience – an account must meet your Buyer Intent filter criteria and your Stack filter criteria to be included.

To get started, search for and select filters from the Categories to Include and Products to Include dropdowns.

You can use the Products to Include filter to find accounts that are using specific products in their tech stack, or the Categories to Include filter to find accounts that use any product in the corresponding category in their tech stack.

The Products to Include and Categories to Include filters act as "OR" filters when used together. For example, selecting a product of G2 Track and a category of Email marketing finds accounts that either use the G2 Track product, or any product in the Email marketing category.

The Product Last Identified filter refines the criteria you chose in the Products to Include and Categories to Include filters based on the last time G2 confirmed the account is using a product in their tech stack.

Choosing a start date in the Stack Product Last Identified filter is similar to setting your lookback window.

For example, if today's date is December 1, 2022, choosing the 6 Months default option sets your start date as June 1, 2022 in LinkedIn. G2 will not continuously update your start date to always be six months before the current date.

If you want more recent Stack data feeding your LinkedIn audience segments in the future, you must edit the start date for your segment, or create a new segment.

Using audience segments in LinkedIn campaigns

After building an audience segment in my.G2, you can add them to a campaign directly in LinkedIn Campaign Manager.

To include an audience segment in a LinkedIn campaign, complete the following steps:

1. Go to LinkedIn Campaign Manager, then log in to the ad account that you connected to the integration my.G2.
2. Select or create a campaign group, then select or create a LinkedIn campaign. Confirm your group, then select Next.
3. Choose an objective. Review LinkedIn’s Select a Marketing Objective for your Ad Campaign documentation for more information on objectives.

4. In the Where is your target audience? section, choose specific countries or regions to include in your audience.

5. In the Who is your target audience? section, select Audiences > Third party > Third Party Company to find the G2-built audience segments that you have created in my.G2.

6. Choose the audience segments you want to include in the ad campaign.
7. Once your audience is built, select Save Audience. Enter a name and description for the audience, then select Save.
8. Finish building your ad campaign, including choosing options for the budget, schedule, ad format, and the specific ad to be used in the campaign.
9. Review and launch the campaign.