Connecting LinkedIn Ads lets Pace read your campaigns and reporting, then pace your budgets: it adjusts daily budgets and pauses or activates campaigns to keep your spend on track. You approve the access on LinkedIn's own sign-in screen, so you never type your LinkedIn password into Pace. It's available on every plan, and the whole thing takes about five minutes.
Once you're connected, Pace finds every LinkedIn ad account your login can access, and you pick which ones Pace should manage. If you've connected another platform before, this will feel familiar. For the general walkthrough that covers any ad platform, see connect your first ad account.
What you'll need
- A seat in your Pace workspace. Any member can connect.
- A LinkedIn sign-in with a role that can edit campaigns and budgets on the ad account, such as Account Manager or Campaign Manager, rather than a viewer-only role.
- About five minutes.
Permissions required: Any workspace member can connect and link LinkedIn Ads.
Check your LinkedIn role first
Pace paces your budgets, which means it needs to change campaigns and budgets on your behalf. The connection inherits whatever access your LinkedIn sign-in already has, so authorise with an account that can edit campaigns in the LinkedIn ad account, not one that can only view. Pace can't check your LinkedIn role for you, so confirm it before you start. If you're not sure, check your access level in LinkedIn Campaign Manager, or ask whoever set up the ad account.
Connect in Pace
- Open Linked Accounts in Pace.
- In the tab bar, select LinkedIn Ads.
- Find the card titled Connect LinkedIn Ads, then select its Connect LinkedIn Ads button.
- Pace sends you out to LinkedIn's sign-in and consent screen at linkedin.com. Sign in if prompted, then approve the access.
- LinkedIn brings you back to Linked Accounts, where the LinkedIn Ads card now shows a green Connected badge.
This is a redirect, not a popup: LinkedIn takes you out and brings you back.
Connecting doesn't import any accounts by itself. To pick which accounts Pace manages, open the Unlinked tab under the card, tick the accounts you want, and select Link. Each row shows the account's name, its ID, and a currency badge. Linked accounts move to the Linked tab, and Pace starts pulling in their performance and historical data. If a LinkedIn account has been closed or you've lost access to it, Pace quietly skips it during import, so one stale account never blocks the rest.
To add more accounts later, use the Link another LinkedIn Ads account prompt on the Linked tab, or reopen Unlinked.
Connect more than one LinkedIn profile
A Pace workspace can hold several LinkedIn sign-ins at once. Connect one person per client if that's how your access is set up, and Pace works with all of it.
This is worth doing when different people on your team hold access to different clients. Plenty of agencies split LinkedIn access that way on purpose, and no single login sees everything. Connect each person and the accounts you can add in Pace cover everyone's access between them.
Permissions required: Any workspace member can add or reconnect a LinkedIn profile. Only an owner or admin can remove one.
- Open Linked Accounts and select LinkedIn Ads.
- On the LinkedIn Ads card, select Manage profiles.
- Select Add another profile.
- Sign in on LinkedIn as the person you're adding, then approve the access.
- The new person appears in Manage profiles with a green Connected badge.
If the workspace already has a LinkedIn connection from before you started adding people, Pace asks you to reconnect that one first, so it knows whose access it is. Open Manage profiles, select Reconnect on that row, and sign in as the person who set it up. Then Add another profile is available.
Each person you add widens the list under Unlinked: it shows every LinkedIn ad account any connected person can reach, with duplicates removed. If Pace can't check one person's access at that moment, it says so above the list rather than showing you a short list as if it were complete.
What the name badges mean
Once two or more people are connected, each row on the Linked tab carries a small badge naming who Pace reaches that account through. Two people can be named on the same account when both have access. Rows show up to two names, then a +N badge for the rest; hover it to see the others.
Badges appear on linked accounts only. The Unlinked tab never shows them, because Pace hasn't recorded who serves an account until you link it.
With only one person connected, no badges appear anywhere. Every row would carry the same name, so the page looks exactly as it did before.
Pace only ever uses a person's LinkedIn access for accounts that person can reach. It never falls back to someone who isn't named on the account.
"No LinkedIn profile" on an account
This badge means no connected person can reach that account any more, usually because the person who could was removed. Pace stops pacing it until that's resolved.
To fix it, open Manage profiles, select Add another profile, and connect someone who has access to that account in LinkedIn Campaign Manager.
Nothing clears the badge in the background. Pace re-checks who can reach each account when someone opens Linked Accounts on the LinkedIn Ads tab, and when you link an account. So once the right person is connected, open that tab. The check runs while the page loads, and the badge updates as soon as it finishes. If the list of profiles doesn't load, select Try again.
Remove one person
In Manage profiles, select Disconnect on that person's row. Pace checks what depends on them first and names any accounts that would be left with no connected LinkedIn profile, before you confirm with Remove profile. Nobody else's access changes, and no access is transferred to anyone else. A removal can take a few minutes to apply everywhere.
Disconnect LinkedIn, from the card's ⋮ menu or the foot of Manage profiles, is different: it removes every connected LinkedIn person at once.
How you'll know it worked
The LinkedIn Ads card shows a green Connected badge, a line reading 1 profile connected (or the number you've added), a Since date, and the email of whoever connected it. Your chosen accounts sit under Linked. At the bottom of the card, a note reads "Secured with OAuth 2.0. Your credentials are encrypted and tokens rotate automatically."
You won't need to reconnect day to day. Pace renews its own LinkedIn access automatically in the background, so the connection keeps working without you touching it. One thing worth knowing going in: LinkedIn's own delivery can overshoot the daily budget you set, a quirk this guide to pacing LinkedIn Ads covers in more detail. For how Pace paces those LinkedIn budgets once you're set up, see budget pacing across platforms.
If something goes wrong
- You declined access. If you cancel on LinkedIn's consent screen, Pace shows a "Connection cancelled" message. Nothing breaks, so reconnect whenever you're ready.
- "Different LinkedIn account". You asked to reconnect one person and signed in as another. LinkedIn keeps you signed in between visits, so this usually means the browser was still signed in as someone else. Sign out of LinkedIn in that browser and try again, or use Add another profile to connect this person alongside the first.
- "No access to your LinkedIn Ads accounts". The sign-in worked, but this LinkedIn login can't reach any of the ad accounts you've linked in Pace. That usually means those accounts have moved to a different LinkedIn ad account or business manager. Unlink them in Pace and link them again from the Unlinked tab, or ask whoever first connected LinkedIn Ads to reconnect.
- Something else failed. Any other hiccup shows "Couldn't connect LinkedIn Ads" with a Try again button that restarts the flow.
If the card flips to a yellow Needs attention badge, one of the connected LinkedIn sign-ins has expired or been revoked. Open Manage profiles, find the person marked Needs attention, and select Reconnect; your pacing settings stay intact, and everyone else's accounts keep running. For the full walkthrough, see managing permissions and re-authentication.
A note on security
Your LinkedIn access token lives on Pace's server, in storage kept separate for your workspace. Pace never sends it to your browser, never puts it in a web address, and never writes it into your activity records. Every request Pace makes to LinkedIn runs server-side on your behalf, so your browser never talks to LinkedIn directly. Each connected person's access is stored separately, and removing one leaves the others untouched. Disconnect LinkedIn, from the ⋮ menu on the card, removes every connected LinkedIn person and their access tokens; your accounts reappear automatically if you reconnect later.