How do I target LinkedIn ads at accounts showing buying intent from 6sense, Bombora or G2?

TofuAnswer by the Tofu team · checked

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Sync the vendor's intent segment into LinkedIn as a third-party company audience, then add job functions or seniorities on top. 6sense, Bombora and G2 each have a native LinkedIn integration that sends a segment to Campaign Manager's Matched Audiences and refreshes it: 6sense and G2 daily, Bombora weekly or monthly. Without one, write intent fields to HubSpot or Salesforce and sync a list from there. The first build usually takes up to 48 hours, and LinkedIn needs at least 300 matched members to run the ad set. LinkedIn's own closest options are Companies Hub engagement lists and buyer groups.

As of October 2026.

Before you start

  • Intent data that includes LinkedIn sync. Check your contract, not just your plan name.
  • The right roles. 6sense needs you to be an Owner, Campaign Manager or Account Manager on at least one LinkedIn ad account, and a Primary Admin, Admin or Marketing User in 6sense. G2 needs Campaign Manager access.
  • A clear threshold for "intent," such as 6sense's Decision or Purchase buying stage, a set of Bombora Company Surge topics, or G2 accounts comparing you with named competitors.
  • An exclusion list of customers and open opportunities.
  • A Company Page linked to your ad account, if you want to measure accounts in Companies Hub.

Native integrations compared:

6senseBomboraG2
LimitsEach 6sense user connects separately; segments over 1 million accounts can't sync; re-authenticate once a yearNo limits published; ask BomboraEach my.G2 user connects separately; the signals you can use depend on your G2 plan
CostNo extra fee up to the sync limit in your 6sense contract. 6sense lists no pricesNot public (LinkedIn lists it as a subscription)Buyer Intent is a G2 add-on with no listed price

Demandbase works the same way: LinkedIn's partner page says it pushes account and contact lists that "update automatically based on rules in Demandbase." Demandbase quotes pricing on request.

Step 1: Build the intent segment in your vendor

Start broad: every filter you add later in LinkedIn shrinks the audience.

  • 6sense: filter by Account Buying Stage (Decision covers intent scores 70 to 85, Purchase 86 to 100), Account Intent Score (0 to 100), keywords researched, or connected partner intent such as Bombora: Company Surge Topics and G2 page views or comparisons.
  • Bombora: start from your Company Surge account list for the topics you track. LinkedIn's partner page says you can segment lists "based on level of intent."
  • G2: the default my.G2 segment includes all Buyer Intent data for the past six months. Filter by lookback window, location, industry, market segment, Products Compared To, category, or the products accounts researched.

Step 2: Connect the vendor to your LinkedIn ad account

  • 6sense: go to Settings > Integrations, select the All Integrations tab, choose 6sense Segments for LinkedIn, then Sign Into LinkedIn.
  • G2: in my.G2, go to Integrations > Integration Hub, select the LinkedIn Matched Audiences tile, and choose Authenticate Now.
  • Bombora, Demandbase and others: LinkedIn's help says to find the partner in its Marketing Partner directory and set up the integration with them. For Bombora, LinkedIn's partner page says you connect and authenticate your Campaign Manager account in Bombora. A partner audience can take up to a week to process; the average is 48 hours or less.

Step 3: Sync the segment and wait for it to build

  • 6sense: go to Revenue Marketing > Advertising > Segment Syncs, select Create Sync, choose the segment, the channel LinkedIn and the ad account, then Link Ad Account.
  • G2: in the same tile, pick the ad account, build the audience, name it and select Create Segment. G2 says it takes about 48 hours and emails you when it's ready.

In Campaign Manager, click Plan, then Audiences, and make sure Matched is selected. The new audience shows Building, then Ready. LinkedIn says building can take up to 48 hours and, rarely, 72. 6sense's FAQ gives 24 to 72 hours, while its setup page says 24 to 48. LinkedIn's best practices say you can add a building audience to an ad set, which starts delivering once the audience reaches 300 member accounts. Its status page says a building audience "can't be used yet," and G2 says its segments are unavailable until built.

Step 4: No native integration? Route intent through your CRM

If your intent data lands in HubSpot or Salesforce, sync a list from there. With the Predictive add-on, 6sense's Data Workflows can export predictive scores to Salesforce or HubSpot (in-market accounts by default). G2's HubSpot integration maps Buyer Intent to companies and contacts so you can build active lists. Then sync that list or report to a LinkedIn audience; see how to keep a HubSpot list or Salesforce report synced to a LinkedIn matched audience.

A one-off CSV upload works but won't refresh. LinkedIn needs at least 300 rows (at most 300,000 companies or 20 MB) and 300 matched member accounts, recommends 1,000 or more companies, and says adding each company's Page URL or website improves matching.

Step 5: Build the ad set

  1. In the ad set's audience, choose your third-party company audience. G2's docs show the path as Audiences > Third party > Third Party Company; 6sense lists its segments under Matched audiences > Third party.
  2. Add a location. LinkedIn requires one, and it can shrink the audience.
  3. Narrow to the people who buy with job function or seniority.
  4. Clear Enable Audience Expansion. LinkedIn turns it on by default where available, and it reaches members beyond your targeting.
  5. Exclude customers and open opportunities.
  6. If you report in 6sense, target one country: 6sense only reports on campaigns with a single country and a 6sense segment.

To reach more of each account's buying committee, you can AND the intent list with LinkedIn's buyer groups instead of step 3: in a buyer groups audience, job titles, functions and seniorities can only be exclusions. See what LinkedIn buyer group targeting is and when to use it for ABM.

Step 6: Keep the audience current

SourceHow it updates in LinkedIn
6senseDaily. The audience shows Updating (for more than 24 hours on big changes) but keeps serving
G2Every 24 hours. The lookback start date stays fixed, so the segment keeps adding accounts; edit the lookback or build a new segment to keep it recent
BomboraWeekly or monthly, per LinkedIn's partner page
Your CRMDepends on the sync tool. Through LinkedIn's API, changes take up to 24 hours after the first 48-hour build

If you switch a 6sense sync off, 6sense says campaigns keep serving to the old, stale membership.

Step 7: Measure by account

  • Companies Hub: click Plan, then Companies, and filter by your uploaded company lists and engagement level (Very Low to Very High); with CRM Sync, the Revenue view shows pipeline. You can save highly engaged companies as a dynamic company list, but that reflects engagement with your brand on LinkedIn, not research elsewhere.
  • 6sense: shows which 6sense accounts a campaign reached and the pipeline it influenced, refreshed every 24 hours.

Common problems

ProblemWhy it happensFix
Audience shows < 300 members or failsThe intent segment is small or poorly matchedWiden the stage, topics or lookback; add domains or Company Page URLs; combine segments
LinkedIn shows fewer accounts than 6sense6sense counts domain plus country; LinkedIn counts one per Company PageExpected. Apple USA and Apple France are one LinkedIn account
Match rates differ between tools6sense says LinkedIn estimates match rate from each day's changes, not the whole segmentUse the vendor's match count. G2 shows Match Count and Match Rate for the last seven days
Ads reach companies not on the listMembers at more than one company, job changes, audience expansion, parent companiesTurn off audience expansion; expect some spill
Audience shows Archived or ExpiredNot used or changed for 30 or 90 daysAdd it to an active or draft ad set, or re-sync
Smaller audiences in EuropeLinkedIn only matches EEA and Swiss members who opted inExpected; plan for it

Where Tofu fits

Tofu Ads Agent (our product) builds LinkedIn matched company audiences from a HubSpot or Salesforce list or report, or from an existing LinkedIn audience, so an intent segment synced to LinkedIn or your CRM can be its starting point. It targets the job titles, seniorities and functions you describe at those accounts, and its audience penetration filter caps impressions per company (by default 100 in 7 days): at a daily check, Tofu excludes a company that has passed the limit. Tofu doesn't connect to 6sense, Bombora or G2, score intent or keep an audience synced as intent changes; keep the vendor's native sync for that.

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