For years, B2B marketers have struggled with the so-called “dark funnel,” the portion of digital engagement that never shows up cleanly in analytics platforms. Visitors see ads, posts, or content on social channels, but when they later land on a company’s site by typing in the URL or searching directly, the impact of that initial exposure is lost. This long-standing problem has left marketers underestimating the role of social engagement in shaping pipeline and revenue outcomes.
Channel99 is taking aim at this blind spot. The San Francisco-based company announced an integration with LinkedIn’s Company Intelligence API, giving marketing teams a clearer view of how both paid and organic programs on the professional network contribute to results. With the new connection, Channel99 customers can now attribute “clickless” interactions that were once hidden in the “Direct” category of analytics platforms. Early adopters report that LinkedIn campaign engagement appears two to four times higher once this hidden activity is properly tracked.
The implications are significant. For many B2B marketers, LinkedIn is one of the largest budget line items, yet its impact has often been underreported. By surfacing view-through attribution, Channel99 enables campaign ROI on LinkedIn to be measured with greater accuracy against other channels. The shift has the potential to alter how companies allocate budgets across digital, display, account-based marketing, and email channels.
Industry leaders are taking notice. Nick Panayi, Chief Marketing Officer of Inovalon, noted that the integration has revealed LinkedIn to be a stronger driver of ROI than previously thought. His team now plans to move the budget from other areas to LinkedIn, a decision that would not have been possible without more complete attribution.
The move also reflects a broader shift in B2B marketing strategy. Traditional attribution models leaned heavily on click-through data, rewarding only the channels where prospects physically clicked on ads or links. That approach overlooked a large share of influence, particularly in the enterprise buying cycle, where research and exposure often happen across multiple touchpoints before engagement. View-through attribution fills that gap by recognizing the role of exposure in eventual conversions.
Chris Golec, founder and CEO of Channel99, believes this development could fundamentally change how marketers measure ROI. He argues that if teams do not address view-through attribution, they risk missing pipeline goals and misallocating spend. Golec, who previously founded Demandbase and helped pioneer the account-based marketing category, sees the ability to measure view-through as one of the most promising advancements for marketers in years.
Channel99’s integration is also a reflection of where the industry is headed. As AI-driven platforms take on more of the heavy lifting in campaign optimization, reliable data is the essential input. Without an accurate measure of where engagement is truly happening, AI recommendations cannot be trusted. Channel99 is positioning itself as the decision engine that closes this loop, with dashboards that highlight channel performance and integrations with more than a dozen systems, including CRM platforms and intent data providers.
More broadly, the rise of AI-powered attribution underscores the growing demand for efficiency in B2B marketing. Budgets are under scrutiny, and executives want evidence that spend translates into pipeline. By making hidden engagement visible, platforms like Channel99 promise to reduce wasted investment while helping marketing leaders justify future strategies.
