On LinkedIn, cost per lead is two numbers

A LinkedIn Ads MCP server lets Claude or ChatGPT answer questions from your LinkedIn ad accounts, such as a client’s spend and leads by campaign. SyncWith’s is hosted, free to start and only reads. Before you ask it what a lead costs, know that LinkedIn gives you two different counts to divide by: its own lead counts, and conversions on your website.

A LinkedIn lead and a LinkedIn conversion are different numbers

Ask an assistant what your leads cost and it has to divide spend by something. SyncWith gives it both counts as separate fields, so tell it which one you mean:

What you wantAsk SyncWith for
Leads, as LinkedIn counts themOne Click Leads, Qualified Leads or Valid Work Email Leads
Conversions on your websiteConversions, with Click Conversions and View Conversions as their own fields
Cost per leadSpend divided by One Click Leads, or Cost per Qualified Lead
Cost per website conversionCost per Conversion

Website conversions follow their own rules. View Conversions are the ones LinkedIn credits to someone seeing your ad, not clicking it. How long after a click or a view still counts is set for each conversion. LinkedIn recommends a 90-day click and 90-day view window for most conversions, and you can choose 1, 7, 30 or 90 days. Most conversions go to the last ad the person touched, and with LinkedIn’s default API setting a conversion is “counted once for each campaign to which they can be attributed.”

Blend the two into one cost per lead and some of your “leads” can be website conversions LinkedIn credited to people who only saw the ad.

Two counts behind a LinkedIn cost per leadEach campaign’s spend can be divided by two different counts. Lead counts: One Click Leads and Qualified Leads, where spend divided by leads gives cost per lead. Website conversions: Click Conversions and View Conversions, counted inside a window of 1, 7, 30 or 90 days set for each conversion. Keep the two in separate columns. One total of both hides which campaigns bring leads.Two counts behind a LinkedIn cost per leadKeep them in separate columns, campaign by campaignSpend for each campaignThe same spend, divided two waysLead countsOne Click LeadsQualified LeadsSpend ÷ leads= cost per leadIts own columnWebsite conversionsClick ConversionsView ConversionsWindow: 1, 7, 30or 90 daysIts own columnOne total of bothHides which campaigns bring leadsDon’t add them up

Ask for cost per lead by campaign, next to Google Ads

If you’ve connected another LinkedIn tool too, start each question with “Using SyncWith,” so the assistant picks ours.

Use LinkedIn’s API names. Its Help pages say campaign and ad set, but its API and SyncWith’s fields say Campaign Group and Campaign, and Ad for a single ad. Every ad account gets a campaign group when it’s created, so you may see one in an answer that you never made.

  • “Using SyncWith, show spend, One Click Leads and cost per One Click Lead for each LinkedIn campaign in [client]’s ad account last month.” The lead count, one campaign at a time.
  • “Using SyncWith, for each LinkedIn Campaign Group last quarter, show spend, Click Conversions, View Conversions and Cost per Conversion.” Shows how much of the website count came from views.
  • “Using SyncWith, put last month’s LinkedIn cost per One Click Lead by campaign next to Google Ads cost per conversion by campaign for [client].” Both channels, one chat. Google Ads connects to the same server: see Google Ads MCP.

Before a number goes to a client, check three things:

  • The window. Two conversions on one account can use different windows. Look them up in Campaign Manager before you compare them.
  • A window change. LinkedIn says a new window “won’t affect the number of historic conversions,” so a month before the change and a month after weren’t counted the same way.
  • Today. Campaign and ad numbers are “near real-time”, so today’s are still coming in. End a client’s date range yesterday.

For a client report that updates on a schedule, pull LinkedIn Ads into Google Sheets with SyncWith’s ads add-on or into Looker Studio.

What other LinkedIn Ads MCP servers ask of you

As of November 2026, LinkedIn hasn’t published an official Ads MCP server.

To run the open-source server on GitHub yourself, you need your own LinkedIn developer app with access to LinkedIn’s Advertising API. LinkedIn “reserves the right to review applications and select partners at its discretion,” and its Development tier reads every ad account you administer but makes changes on only 5 ad accounts. SyncWith, Markifact and PaidSync skip the developer app.

The GitHub server, Zapier, Markifact, Windsor, AdKit and PaidSync can each change something in LinkedIn (campaigns, budgets or audiences), some only after you approve it. If you only report, that’s access you don’t need on a client’s ad account. SyncWith’s server has no tool that changes anything in LinkedIn, and the same connection reads your Google Ads, Facebook Ads, GA4 and Shopify.

Looking for a free LinkedIn Ads MCP? The GitHub server is free if you host it. SyncWith’s has nothing to host, and there’s no separate charge for the MCP server today. Each live query uses one refresh from your SyncWith plan, and the free Hobby plan includes 35 refreshes a month. Listing sources and fields doesn’t use any.

Connect LinkedIn Ads to Claude or ChatGPT

  1. Add the server to your assistant. Paste this URL as a custom connector:

    https://mcp.syncwith.com/mcp

    Every Claude plan can add one, though Free allows a single custom connector. In ChatGPT, an admin of a Business, Enterprise or Edu workspace can add it, and Pro accounts can only read and fetch. Steps for Claude and ChatGPT.

  2. Sign in with Google. You don’t need a SyncWith account first. We’ll create a free one for you.
  3. Connect LinkedIn Ads. Connect Google Ads on the sign-up screen if you’ll compare the two. Then ask your assistant to connect LinkedIn Ads, and it replies with a sign-in link. LinkedIn Ads is also in the “Connect another account” list once any source is connected.
  4. Sign in to LinkedIn. Use the profile that sees your clients’ ad accounts in Campaign Manager, then come back to the chat.

Then check it worked: “Using SyncWith, list my LinkedIn Ads accounts.” If your clients’ accounts come back, you’re set. For every tool the server has, see the SyncWith MCP docs.