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8 LinkedIn Analytics Tools for Tracking Performance Metrics in 2024
As a social media manager managing multiple social media accounts daily, I know the role LinkedIn analytics tools play in the job. It is unlike other social media platforms. Linkedin calculates engagement differently, dislikes virality, and aims to keep users in their bubbles.
You must provide extremely relevant, high-quality, engaging content to burst that bubble and gain visibility. This makes analytics a key ingredient for a successful LinkedIn marketing strategy.
However, LinkedIn’s native analytics tools are… basic at best, begging the question: are there other options?
In this article, I’ve gathered some of the best LinkedIn analytics tools for every occasion, from casual performance monitoring to ad-specific reporting and massive trend-watching. So, keep reading to see which one’s best for your needs.
Why should you consider a LinkedIn analytics tool instead of LinkedIn native analytics?
LinkedIn’s native analytics tools are surprisingly imperfect for a social media platform that heavily depends on analytics.
First of all, the LinkedIn Page Analytics interface is unfriendly and quite complicated. This makes you waste a lot of time looking for a particular piece of data for your report. On top of this, some key metrics for LinkedIn posts, like reach, are hard to come across — you have to check them for every post in the feed manually.
Picking a date range for analysis is also terrible because it resets to the default date range every time you switch the tab.
For these reasons and more, I recommend using third-party social media analytics tools if you prioritize a solid social media presence on LinkedIn. These social media tools are tailored for presenting LinkedIn data in a comprehensive, concise form that doesn’t have you mumbling in frustration.
Here’s why you should opt for specialized analytics tools for your LinkedIn page:
- A data-driven approach to your content strategy. LinkedIn analytics tools provide valuable insights and key metrics that help you concentrate on your results rather than simply sticking to best practices.
- Improved engagement. Engagement is the top priority for a successful LinkedIn strategy, and analytics tools give you detailed insights into how your followers interact with content.
- Quick and easy reporting. Native LinkedIn reports are just huge spreadsheets with three tabs and tons of data no client would go through willingly. Analytics tools help you generate reports using only the most valuable data with comprehensive graphs and numbers.
Best LinkedIn analytics tools for tracking your LinkedIn performance
Some say there’s no such thing as too much data. However, a lot of data only makes sense if it’s presented straightforwardly. And LinkedIn native analytics is not the best example of this.
So, if we’re talking about tracking social media performance with little to no stress, I vote for third-party analytics tools for LinkedIn.
Besides tracking classic LinkedIn metrics, these tools are loaded with trend-watching features, social listening, and sometimes even ad campaign performance tracking — one dashboard to rule them all.
But how do you choose the right one? My list of top LinkedIn analytics tools for social media management teams of all shapes and sizes is coming your way.
Planable Analytics | Keyhole | Sprout Social | Hootsuite | Brand24 | HubSpot | Buffer | PromoRepublic
1. Planable Analytics: best LinkedIn analytics tool for intuitive data reports
Planable Analytics includes a LinkedIn analytics tool that enables you to monitor your LinkedIn page’s evolution, spot your top-performing content, and create insightful reports. Apart from LinkedIn, you can also use Planable Analytics for Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
The thing I like most about this social media analytics platform is its clean and consistent interface. Plus the fact that it comes integrated in Planable’s collaborative content management solution. Content flows faster from planning to publishing, and then it’s really easy to spot what works and double down on that.
Key features:
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Monitor page and content performance. Analyze how your page is doing and spot the types of content that perform best on your relevant metrics.
- See audience insights. Check your followers’ location distribution, top countries, top cities, job functions and seniority levels.
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Create delightful reports. Create custom reports for your clients or stakeholders. They’re easy to read and can be easily shared as downloaded files or via dedicated links.
Pricing: Planable Analytics is priced at $9/month/workspace, and it comes as an add-on with any of Planable’s paid plans (which start at $11/month).
2. Keyhole: best LinkedIn analytics tool for trend-watching
Keyhole is an all-in-one social media analytics tool that offers analytics, brand mention monitoring, and influencer marketing insights.
I personally like Keyhole’s trend-watching capabilities. The platform helps you identify hot topics to engage your LinkedIn audience to the max.
Simply add hashtag tracking and performance analysis to the mix, and you get a comprehensive guideline for what your audience craves.
Key features:
- Top performing content highlights. Keyhole identifies the posts with the highest engagement and offers posting recommendations to keep growing your audience.
- Competitor analysis and benchmarking. The platform helps you analyze how other brands are doing: their tone of voice, trending topics, general sentiment, and engagement.
Pricing: Keyhole offers five paid plans. The cheapest one is $63/month, paid annually. Its most popular plan costs $199/month and includes optimization recommendations and six months of historical data.
3. Sprout Social: best LinkedIn analytics tool for big agencies
Sprout Social is an all-in-one packed social media management platform suitable for big marketing agencies with multiple clients.
My favorite thing about Sprout Social is the in-depth audience insights. In addition to follower count, Sprout also provides division by organic and paid followers and the number of people unfollowing your LinkedIn company page in the specified period.
For Premium Analytics users, Sprout also offers Benchmark, a tool that helps employers craft competitive compensation packages. The platform measures your monthly engagement rate and sets you on a chart among the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentile of other profiles. Very useful for competitor analysis.
Key features:
- Manage multiple accounts. You can connect multiple LinkedIn company pages to Sprout Social and gain marketing data and actionable insights for all your clients from one dashboard.
- Separate organic and paid data. Sprout Social allows you to track paid ads and the organic performance of your LinkedIn posts and form reports based on required data.
- Top performing content highlight. Sprout identifies your top-performing content and provides a comprehensive analysis of post types, engagement, etc.
Pricing: After a 30-day free trial, Sprout Social offers paid plans starting at $249/month, with each additional user costing $199/month.
4. Hootsuite: best for social media ROI reporting
Hootsuite is a pioneering social media management tool with quite remarkable LinkedIn analytics capabilities.
You can connect up to 100 LinkedIn pages, including company and showcase pages. For each, you can create a personalized dashboard with required metrics, content insights, and additional info like hashtags or social listening.
Setting up streams on a Hootsuite board is a bit tedious, but in the end, you get a very comprehensive look at the state of your connected LinkedIn profile.
Key features:
- Social media ROI reporting. Hootsuite’s Advanced Analytics helps you track LinkedIn ad campaigns and compare organic and paid results side by side to see total spending and total return on the platform. The platform combines its own data with Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics insights.
- LinkedIn hashtag analytics app. Using this app, you can incorporate hashtag analytics into your Hootsuite stream. You’ll get the number of followers, effectiveness rate, and related hashtags for each hashtag.
Pricing: Hootsuite offers a 30-day free trial period. Paid plans begin at $99/month and include many analytical options like benchmarking and reporting.
However, Advanced Analytics tools are only available for Enterprise plans as add-ons.
5. Brand24: best LinkedIn analytics tool for social listening and tracking brand mentions
Brand24 is a little different from the tools I mentioned before. This marketing tool concentrates on social listening across multiple social media platforms, including LinkedIn.
LinkedIn favors those who are active in the community. That means a lot of commenting and networking. Using Brand24, you can easily track brand mentions and be proactive on the platform even when your LinkedIn profile isn’t tagged directly.
Key features:
- AI-powered sentiment analysis. Sentiment analysis helps identify positive, negative, and neutral mentions. Brand24 claims its AI can even get sarcasm and sort brand mentions accordingly.
- Hashtag tracking. Brand24 can help you identify a hashtag’s volume and reach to ensure you cover the most ground with your LinkedIn marketing campaign.
Pricing: the cheapest plan for small brands is $79/month, paid annually. However, according to the platform, the hottest plan is the Pro plan for $199/month, paid annually.
6. HubSpot: best analytics tool for tracking social media campaigns
HubSpot is a digital marketing tool, social managers usually use for tracking ad campaigns.
Although HubSpot provides a basic overview of LinkedIn account analytics (followers, impressions, shares, etc.), its strongest suit is connecting your LinkedIn and website. You can track your LinkedIn ad campaigns and get more specific data regarding new leads, sessions started, and conversions.
Key features:
- Track and report ad campaigns. You can track lead generation forms, job postings, InMail ads, single image ads, and many other types of LinkedIn ads through your HubSpot account and land all your LinkedIn leads in HubSpot’s CRM.
- Create goals. You can create marketing goals for your LinkedIn ads and they’ll be displayed in the analytics section.
Pricing: The LinkedIn analytics tool for ad tracking is a part of HubSpot’s Marketing Hub. Marketing Hub has two packages: Professional for $880/month and Enterprise for $3300/month.
7. Buffer: best for basic LinkedIn analytics tracking
Buffer is a simple and straightforward LinkedIn analytics tool. Social media teams can schedule and publish posts through Buffer and gather analytical data. It’s a good choice for small teams.
Although Buffer doesn’t track paid traffic, it does a good job when it comes to organic data. Its killer feature is the tab Answers, where social media managers can find actionable insights on their audience, the best time to publish, and the most engaging content type.
Buffer ain’t much, but it’s honest work. If your goal is to simply ditch the LinkedIn native analytics tool and streamline your social media strategy, Buffer is a good choice.
Key features:
- Recommended post cadence. Based on your LinkedIn analytics data, Buffer identifies how often you need to post to get the most engagement from your target audience.
- Easy reporting. You can add charts and data to the report right from the dashboard. Buffer allows you to build a report template for any period. Reports will be generated automatically.
Pricing: Buffer bills according to the number of channels. The basic plan costs $5/month per channel, paid annually.
8. PromoRepublic: best LinkedIn analytics tool for franchise brands
PromoRepublic is a great tool tailored for comprehensive analytics of LinkedIn marketing efforts for multi-location brands.
The platform offers a 360-degree view of all your social media accounts’ performance (including LinkedIn) — all from a single dashboard. For a franchise business, it’s a chance to get a holistic look at the social media strategy and identify weak spots at a glance.
Key features:
- Bird’s-eye view. PromoRepublic aggregates over 300 data points and provides in-depth insights for each location and channel. All key metrics are in one place.
- Specific filters. Social media marketers can filter data by brand, location, or even the manager in charge of a branch! It helps assess performance at a more granular level.
Pricing: PromoRepublic offers three paid plans, with the cheapest one suitable for small businesses at $49/month, paid annually. The plan tailored for agencies costs $79/month, paid annually.
LinkedIn analytics FAQs
Does LinkedIn have an analytics tool?
Yes. LinkedIn has a native analytics tool that tracks content performance for LinkedIn company pages and personal accounts. Although the tool is quite complex and mediocre UX-wise, it can help you monitor your LinkedIn presence.
However, if your digital marketing strategy prioritizes LinkedIn as one of the core channels, specific LinkedIn analytics tools like Planable Analytics are a better choice to track your LinkedIn page performance.
What metrics can you track using LinkedIn analytics?
LinkedIn’s native analytics tool allows you to track LinkedIn followers count, engagement insights, and content performance metrics like impressions, reactions, comments, and reposts.
LinkedIn tools also provide fundamental competitive analyses based on follower count and organic engagement, as well as audience insights for visitors and followers.
For a company page, you can also monitor employee advocacy activity and employer brand metrics (not very comprehensive though).