Company List Upload Template and ABM Formatter for LinkedIn Ads

How to fill the LinkedIn company list upload template

Account-based marketing on LinkedIn starts with a company list. This tool turns your CRM account list into the LinkedIn company list upload template, the CSV that LinkedIn's company list targeting page asks for. It also works with a contact export: many contacts at one company become one company row.

1. Add your account list. A HubSpot companies export, a Salesforce account report, a list from a sales tool, or rows pasted from a sheet. Try sample data shows a test run.
2. Check the columns. Headers like Company Domain Name, LinkedIn Company Page or Ticker Symbol are found for you. Map a contact email column if you have no domain column.
3. Choose the website style. Domain only is the default and matches LinkedIn's own example row.
4. Review the problems. The list explains each row that was fixed, merged or left out.
5. Download the CSV with LinkedIn's ten headers, UTF-8 and one company per row.

What the formatter cleans

• Websites: https://www.Acme.com/about?ref=x becomes acme.com. A Facebook or Yelp page in the website column is removed, because facebook.com would match the wrong company.
• Page URLs: /about/ endings and Sales Navigator links are turned into https://www.linkedin.com/company/name/. Personal profiles (/in/) are rejected.
• Email domains: taken from work emails when you have no domain column; free mail domains are skipped.
• Tickers and countries: NYSE:CTSO becomes CTSO and “Deutschland” becomes DE.
• Duplicates: rows with the same page URL, domain or name are merged, and empty cells are filled from the other rows.

Upload the company list in Campaign Manager

1. Go to Plan › Audiences.
2. Click Create audience › Matched Audience.
3. Choose Company / Contact, then Next.
4. Give the audience a name, set List type to Company list and click Select list.
5. Click Agree & Upload, then allow up to 48 hours for matching.

Add the audience to an ad set within 90 days so it does not expire. Campaign Manager's Companies Hub can also save static or dynamic company lists without any CSV.

LinkedIn company list errors and how to fix them

Upload rejected after editing headers

LinkedIn says that changing or removing template headers causes an upload error. A common slip is renaming companywebsite to “Website” or deleting the stocksymbol column because it is empty. Keep the header row exactly as downloaded.

Why is my LinkedIn company list under 300 members?

LinkedIn counts matched member accounts, not companies. A list of small firms can match many companies and still stay under 300 members. When the audience name stays gray with “< 300 members”, widen the list or add page URLs so more companies are recognized.

Company page URL vs website for matching

Both are strong. A page URL points to exactly one company, which helps when two firms share a name. LinkedIn asks for page URLs that end in the company name, so a link like /company/10357/ gets a warning: open the page and copy the readable URL instead.

Commas in company names

“Smith, Jones & Partners” splits into two columns if a sheet is saved without quotes. LinkedIn's API guide asks for double quotes around such names. Our file always quotes them.

Stock symbol as the only identifier

The help page accepts a ticker alone, but the API guide does not list it as an identifier. To be safe, add a name or website next to every ticker.

Audience expired

A company list that sits unused for 90 days expires. Keep the downloaded CSV, upload it again as a new audience, and attach it to a draft ad set if the campaign starts later.