The 2023 LinkedIn Ads

definitive guide
Updated on 10th January 2023
We’ve run a lot of LinkedIn Ads campaigns down the years at
Gotoclient. We’ve worked with many big brands with big budgets,
and we’ve also empowered SMEs to fulfil their potential. This is the
Gotoclient LinkedIn Ads definitive guide, written by the Gotoclient
LinkedIn Ads consultants who have delivered consistent success on
LinkedIn.

Building on our previous 2021 version, our LinkedIn Ads 2023 Definite
guide is probably the most complete LinkedIn Ads guide out there.

This guide is intended for online marketing professionals who are

developing LinkedIn campaigns and for managers who need to
measure the value of LinkedIn Ads campaigns. This is not an
introductory guide. There are some excellent introduction guides out
there, such as the Hootsuite guide, which is a step-by-step LinkedIn
Ads guide and the HubSpot guide.

Why this guide?

To help you understand the value of your LinkedIn Ads campaign
before you launch.
To help you manage and optimise your LinkedIn Ads campaign
successfully

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 2

LinkedIn is the biggest B2B lead generation platform. It has more
than 875 million users and is growing rapidly. Unlike the other social
networks where users spend their time, people invest time on
LinkedIn. According to Insider Intelligence, LinkedIn was the most
trusted platform in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021. Data from
2022 to come very soon.

According to Demandwave, marketing and sales experts say LinkedIn

is the number one social network for B2B lead generation. Also, 4
out 5 users make business decisions based on LinkedIn interaction.

Here's what to expect from this guide:

• High-quality information on LinkedIn Ads.

• Essential tips and tricks to build LinkedIn Ads campaigns.
• Free templates to help you with your campaigns.

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 3

Table of contents

1. Does a LinkedIn Ads Campaign make sense for my business? ...........5

2. LinkedIn Ads campaigns goals ..............................................................8
3. Target audience segmentation tool .................................................... 13
3.1. Target audience segmentation tool: Tips and tricks................ 17
4. LinkedIn Ads formats: Tips and tricks ................................................ 30
5. Process: how to set up a LinkedIn Ads campaign approach ............. 55
6. Funnel template ................................................................................... 56
6.1. Estimate metrics ......................................................................... 57
6.2. How to calculate LinkedIn Ads costs? ....................................... 59
6.3. Strategically: map your audience Pain Points ........................... 61
7. LinkedIn Ads Budget ........................................................................... 62
7.1. LinkedIn Ads Budget: Tips and Tricks ....................................... 62
8.LinkedIn Ads: Additional key information ........................................... 64
9. Lead nurturing ...................................................................................... 68
10. Key success stories with LinkedIn Ads ............................................ 81
11. [Checklist] Steps to follow to launch a LinkedIn Ads campaign ..... 84

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 4

1. Does a LinkedIn Ads Campaign
make sense for my business?

The first task is to understand if launching a LinkedIn campaign

makes sense for your business. It's important to note that not all
companies, solutions or products meet the requirements to launch a
campaign on LinkedIn. It requires a higher CPC (cost-per-click)
investment than platforms such as Google Ads or Facebook Ads, so
let's make sure your LinkedIn Ads ROI is positive. Although CPC is
higher, CPL (cost-per-lead) tends to be more competitive than other
platforms.

1. B2B company

Firstly, you must be a B2B company with a B2B value proposition.

LinkedIn is a B2B platform with a massive base of professionals from
multiple industries. If you work for a B2C company (unless you have
B2B2C needs), we suggest you stop reading and use B2C focused
platforms such as Instagram, Facebook or TikTok.

2. Continuous need to generate leads

You must have a requirement to generate leads on an ongoing basis. If

you operate in a market where you only have six clients around the
world, you wouldn’t need LinkedIn Ads campaigns. While it might be

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worth using LinkedIn for Account-Based Marketing (ABM) campaigns, it
wouldn’t be necessary for lead generation.

3. Your client budget is higher than 4.000 euros per year

LinkedIn is an expensive platform. Therefore, your client budget must

be higher than 4.000 euros per year.
If your client budget is lower, it is advisable to not carry out a lead
generation campaign, as it will be hard for you to get a positive ROI. The
4.000 euros threshold will enable the optimum CPL (cost per lead) and
CPA (cost per acquisition).

4. Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and Buyer Persona Profile

It's essential to have a clear picture of your Ideal Customer Profile

(ICP) and Buyer Persona Profile. One of LinkedIn's biggest strengths
is its ability to target specifically, with many segmentation criteria,
such as country, company industry, company name, company size, job
function, job title, job seniority etc.

5. Your client is an active LinkedIn user

Your customer must also be an active LinkedIn user and a LinkedIn-

savvy person. If your target market was, for example, young school
teachers, you may be able to find some prospects on LinkedIn, but they
would be unlikely to be as active as users in business/commerce

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sectors. If you can't find active users, your ads won't show, or, worse;
they will be delivered to inappropriate audiences.

6. The right audience size for LinkedIn Ads campaigns

Your audience must be higher than 40.000 members and ideally lower
than 400.000 members. Lower audiences would typically result in poor
campaign reach while higher audiences tend to create a lower quality of
lead.

Your LinkedIn Ads Campaign makes sense if:

• You sell B2B solutions
• You need leads on an ongoing basis
• Your client budget is higher than 4.000 euros per year
• You have a clear Ideal Company Profile
• Your clients are active on LinkedIn
• Your audience is higher than 40.000 members

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2. LinkedIn Ads campaigns goals

Before developing a LinkedIn Ads campaign, let's think about your

business goals. How are you going to focus your campaign? To run an
effective campaign, it's essential to specify your goals as much as
possible. Business goals fall under the following categories:

• Increase awareness of your brand, product or service.

• Generate traffic to your website, landing page or LinkedIn event
• Increase the social interaction of your LinkedIn content, business page or event
• Increase the number of potential clients (i.e. generate leads)

When you start building a LinkedIn Ads campaign, the first thing you'll
need to choose is the goal.

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Picking the right type of campaign depends on how it matches your
goal. LinkedIn offers solutions for each stage of the buyer journey,
from brand awareness to conversion. However, LinkedIn only allows
you to choose one objective, so if you have more than one, you need to
create one campaign per goal.

• Brand awareness

Brand awareness is intended for The Top of the Funnel (TOFU)

campaigns. This is the best option for general recognition by the
target audience.
Through brand awareness, you can use many of LinkedIn's solutions,
such as build Single Image Ad, Carousel image ad, etc. However,
The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 9
based on our experience, we must say not all LinkedIn Ads formats
work for this type of campaign. Carousel image ads and conversation
ads perform better for decision campaigns. We think it’s best to build
brand awareness campaigns through single image ad, video ad, text ad,
spotlight ad and follower ad.

• Consideration

LinkedIn also enables companies to encourage their audience to take

action. These activities can be:

o Website visits: For more site traffic, you must select this goal. For increasing
website visits, we recommend single image ads, video ads, text ads and
event ads.

o Engagement: You can also increase post engagement, such as clicks,

recommendations, comments, sharing, or adding new followers to the company
LinkedIn page. There are not as many ad types available as there are for brand
awareness and website visits, but there are still more than enough to make an
impact. We recommend single image ads, video ads, follower ads,
conversation ads and event ads. We don't suggest carousel image ads as
they’re typically used to offer a large number of services or to explain a complex
product/service in depth.

o Video views: LinkedIn allows you to pay per view of video content. This is a
good alternative payment model that hedges the risk of video advertising.

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 • Conversion

Conversion campaigns focus on lead generation and website

conversions, such as document downloads or lead capture. See below
for the different conversion campaigns:

o Lead generation: This option is one of the most effective ways to get qualified
leads. For lead generation campaigns, we suggest using all ad formats
LinkedIn allows, except the video ad, which is best suited for brand awareness
and consideration campaigns.

Don’t forget about the ‘real’ conversion, which happens once you get
the lead data and reach the potential customer
Interact with every prospect within 4 hours after they complete the
form

o Website conversion: Users are encouraged to take action on the website, for
example downloading eBooks, filling out lead generation forms or signing up
for events. We suggest using a single image ad, carousel image ad, message
ad and conversation ad. The other formats are more focused on brand
awareness and consideration campaigns.

o Job applicants: LinkedIn enables you to publicise job adverts. To build this
kind of campaign, use the jobs ads and single job ad options.

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 o Document ads: LinkedIn document ads allow you to promote e-books, case
studies, white papers, infographics and presentations directly in the LinkedIn
feed. Members can read it in the original format and download the document as a
PDF without leaving LinkedIn.

o Event ads: LinkedIn gives you the option to promote LinkedIn Events from
your Page to a defined audience. These ads are optimized to highlight the
essential event info on desktop and mobile.

Use this flow diagram to stay on top of your audience needs at each diferent phase
of the journey:

It is essential to have a clear goal for your campaign and to

understand which formats work best for you

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 12

3. Target audience segmentation
tool

LinkedIn Ads is renowned for its segmentation tool, one of the most
powerful audience segmentation social ads tools. It enables you to
reach your target audience efficiently and generate those all-
important qualified leads.

Let's see what the segmentation options are:

Audience attributes
Target your audience by their profile information.

Company

• Company category: Reach members based on the category their company falls into.
• Company connections: First-degree connection of employees.
• Company growth rate: Reach members based on the year-on-year employee growth
rate associated with their company.

• Company industry: The marketplace where your target company operates.

• Company name.
• Company revenue: Reach members based on the company revenue (in USD) from the
previous year.

• Company size: Based on the employee number listed on the company page.

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Demographics

• Member age.
• Member gender.

Education

• Degrees.
• Field of study.
• Member schools.

Job experience

• Job function: The department where the member works. This is separate from the
job seniority and job title options.
• Job seniority: Describes the level of responsibility and experience of the employee.
This option is determined by the members’ job title. LinkedIn will rate seniority
according to the job title that users indicate in their LinkedIn profiles. For example,
if a user indicates their job title as ‘Marketing Manager’, he / she will have a seniority
of Manager.
• Job title: Manually input by the LinkedIn member.
• Member skills: This option allows you to specify specific skills or abilities you want
your target audience to have. Those skills appear in the "member skills and
validations" section.
• Years of experience: Years of professional experience.

Interests

• Member groups: Specific LinkedIn groups your target-audience member has joined.

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 • Interest-based: Option based on the user's interests indicated in their profile.
Because LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft, interests are gathered from Microsoft’s
Bing search engine.
• Member traits: Derived from the device members normally use to browse LinkedIn.

Matched audiences
Targets an audience of members you already know by combining the
LinkedIn data with your first-party data. For example, you can attach a
list of companies or contacts, retarget people that visited your website
or import third-party data from a LinkedIn Marketing Partner.

Retargeting lists
Builds an audience list with the users who visited your website and
retargets them with relevant content.

• Website: Creates lists with the members that visited specific pages on your website
and delivers content related to their interests.
• Lead Gen Forms: Retargets users who opened the lead form but didn't click on
submit.
• Video views: Retargets users who viewed your video ads.

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 • Company page: Includes users who visited your LinkedIn company page or clicked
on your company page CTA.
• Events: Users who have marked themselves as "attending" events.
• Single image: Retargets users who clicked your previous single image ad.

Contact Targeting
Uploads lists of users to target them on your LinkedIn campaigns. You
can add up to 300k contacts.

Company Targeting
Include or exclude specific companies by uploading a list on LinkedIn
Ads.

Lookalike Audience
Targets users with similar characteristics.

Make your campaign successful!

Define your ICPs
•

• Choose the right combination for your campaign goal.

• Optimise your CTAs

• Nurture your prospects

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 16

3.1. Target audience segmentation
tool: Tips and tricks

To impact the right users, it's essential to understand the target

attributes in the LinkedIn Ads segmentation tool. Here are our essential
tips & tricks:

Company

• Add company names for awareness and retention campaigns: If your goal is
awareness or retention, using the Company Name option is a key recommendation
in order to reach high-value companies and impact decision-makers. LinkedIn
allows the targeting of up to 200 different companies within audience attributes.
• Target by company industry and size: The most commonly used attribute and
one you must understand properly. Take that extra time to really drill down into
your ideal industry avatar.
• Analyse the company industry of your target: Before choosing Industry, take a
look at 10 or 15 of your target audience’s LinkedIn pages and note which industry
they are in. Also, include other relevant industries.
• Combine Company Category with Job Seniority: Targeting by company category is
a good option if you want to impact market leaders. However, it’s essential to hit
the key decision-makers, so it’s a good idea to combine Company Category with
Job Seniority and Job Function.
• Get leads from growing companies: With the Company growth rate option, you
can impact users working for companies with a certain growth in hire rate. As a
result, you are more likely to reach companies with a healthy budget for your
product/service.

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Demographics

• Including Member age may exclude members unnecessarily: In order to target a

specific audience, sometimes people use the Member Age option to include the age
ranges they want (for example, choosing 18 to 24 years). However, LinkedIn
doesn’t make this information compulsory in people’s profiles, so in cases where it
is missing it may extrapolate it from their year of graduation. In addition, you need
to consider e equal opportunities and potential discrimination.
• Targeting by Member gender: LinkedIn doesn’t require users to include their
gender, so if you decide to target with this option, you will reduce your sample
size. Like with age, it is a criteria that can lead to ethical and discriminatory
issues.

Education

• Make sure you add all ‘sister’ schools/colleges: Many academic institutions have
more than one page on LinkedIn, so it’s important to remember to add all of them.
For example, if you want to include Harvard students, you need to add all Harvard
institutions, such as Harvard University, Harvard Business School etc.
• Target your audience with Job Function: For campaigns that offer a particular
academic degree, target them through Job Function too. For example, if you’re
offering a finance degree, it would be a good idea to choose the Finance option in
Job Function to make sure you impact users who are in that market.
• Exclude members who have done a degree program: Don’t forget the power of
exclusion. If, for example, you are promoting a Masters degree course, it would be a
good idea to exclude members who have already done a Masters qualification.

Job experience

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 • Add current or past Job Title: If you are segmenting by Job Title, it is a good idea to
cast the net wide. Even though there may only be three or four that spring to mind,
LinkedIn makes it easy to broaden the search. When selecting titles, the tool will
suggest other relevant titles for you. Also, some members may have changed
their job but still could be of interest to you, So you can expand your target
audience by targeting both current and past Job Titles in the Job Titles dropdown.
• Combine Job Function with Seniority: If you select both options, you will be able
to reach decision-makers with specific expertise. Also, you need to take into
account that they are separate to Job Title.

• Add multiple job functions: Similar to Job Title it’s important to keep your options
open and not be too narrow.
• Exclude job titles if you are absolutely sure: Be cautious here, but there may be
criteria that you are certain will be unsuitable for what you are promoting. In that
case, they should be excluded from your segmentation.
• Consider targeting individual contributors: If you want to get smart and target the
buying decision-makers, choose Senior in the Job Seniority option and combine it
with Years of Experience.
• Choose Entry-level for small business: If the target audience of your campaign is
based on smaller businesses, Entry level would be a good choice.

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 • Try and use Years of Experience in combination with your other choices:
Depending on your target audience and campaign’s goal, you can use the following
combinations with Years of Experience:
o Years of Experience + Seniority: Seniority is not the same as Years of
experience. A user with more than 20 years of experience can be at an entry-
level. Make sure you don’t exclude experienced professionals with influence
over buying decisions.
o Years of Experience + Degrees: Some degrees are aimed at professionals
with extensive experience. In this scenario, we recommend combining years
of experience with degrees.
o Years of Experience + Functions: Find Function leaders with this
combination.
o Years of Experience + Skills: Find the best expertise with this combination.
• Members skills for the target with specific features: To drill down further into the
characteristics of your target, we recommend adding some member skills.

• Combine Skills with Function and Seniority: This is a very powerful targeting
combination.
• Add Skills OR Job Titles: If you prefer to target by Job Title rather than Function, it’s
wise to choose skills and job titles with the “or” connector to ensure you reach a
wider audience.

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 • Start with Job Functions instead of Job Titles: Sometimes, Job Titles can restrict
your audience too much, whereas Functions are broader. So, first, we
recommend selecting Functions, and when the campaign is launched, you can
optimise your audience with Titles.

Interests:

• Use Function or Seniority alongside Interests: For the target audience who has
specific interests, such as business technology, it is recommended to add
functions or seniorities in order to reach relevant users.
• Use Member traits option exclusively: This option usually represents a more
limited audience, so it is not necessary to add more targeting criteria.
• Analyse top member groups: In order to reach the more active groups, use the
search function on LinkedIn to find them. Most active groups will appear at the
top of the list.

Targeting tips and tricks

• Make sure your buyer persona is properly defined: Separate your buyer personas
into different campaigns to deliver the right message and offer.
• Don't use more than four audience specs; otherwise, there is a high risk of over-
segmentation, resulting in small audiences.
• Take into account the profile language limitations: LinkedIn doesn't allow
multilingual campaigns. Using English as the language will also take the local
languages of the selected territories. On the contrary, as surprising as this might
seem, if you choose the local language, it will only use the chosen language.

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 21

 • Take out audience expansion: We don't recommend choosing this option
because it expands beyond the desired target, which sometimes leads to a
slight loss in control of the campaign. Only use this when the audience size is
below 40.000 users.

Invest serious time in profiling and segmenting your audience

• Save your audience as a template: As sponsored content campaigns cannot be

duplicated; we recommend saving your audiences to use them in other campaigns
and/or to save you time during your targeting process.
• Use CRM integration: LinkedIn allows integrations with CRM platforms such as
Marketo, Dynamics, Salesforce, Converter, Driftrock, Integrar, Leadsbrige, Oracle,
Zapier and Hubspot. If LinkedIn doesn't support your CRM platform, you can
download a list of your leads as a CSV and upload it to your CRM system. Watch
out for GDPR and privacy compliance!
• Distinguish AND & OR connectors: LinkedIn enables you to choose AND or OR
connectors for each criteria. An OR connector means a member has to only meet
one criteria OR the other. The AND connector means the member has to meet ALL
the selected attributes; otherwise they will not be targeted. With the AND
connector, audience numbers are reduced but are more specific. For an audience
that is too small, use the OR function to boost the numbers. Be careful when using
the OR function in EXCLUSIONS; it will exclude members matching one OR the other

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 22

 criteria. Finally, you can also use AND / OR together, i.e. when targeting with the
Job Title “Information Technology Specialist” OR “skills in information technology”
AND “10+ years’ experience.”
• Check Forecasted results: When you start adding filters, the audience results will
appear on the right-hand side of the screen so you can check as you go. The
dropdown under Segment breakdown shows attributes as job function, years of
experience, company size, industry and interest. These professional attributes are
based on the information LinkedIn members provide in their profiles. If your
audience is too small, a notification will appear that says “Audience Too Narrow”.
Once the campaign is underway, you can check if you are impacting the right
audience, and modify your filters accordingly. Finally, we recommend you analyse
the forecasted results in 1 day rather than 7 or 30.

• Target at least 300 members: Your target audience needs to include a minimum
of 300 users due to GDPR. However, as we mentioned in our LinkedIn’s
requirements point, your audience size must be between 50k and 400k.
• Use matched audiences: It’s advisable to use matched audiences with
demographic data from LinkedIn, as the CPL increases by 20%. In addition, it’s
important to test a different audience for each funnel stage. When launching the
campaign, check the demographics to be sure which audience you need to include
or exclude.

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 23

 • Analyse your targeting with Website Demographics: When the LinkedIn Insight
Tag is verified on the website and your audience is built, LinkedIn Website
Demographics will be available in your campaign manager. You can track which
type of professionals are visiting your website.
• Implement ABM targeting: If your company’s list has more than 200 companies
and you cannot add it in the Company Name option, you might need to use Matched
Audiences and upload a list (minimum 300 companies and up to 300.000
companies). When uploading your list, we recommend a list size of more than
1.000 companies.
• Consider contact targeting: If you have a list of email addresses, LinkedIn allows
you to upload a list or implement a data integration with your CRM (Marketo,
Eloqua, among others). You can also upload a list of your current customers in
order to exclude them from your campaigns. In this scenario, it’s advisable to add
more than 10.000 contacts.
• Integrate a pixel: It’s good practice to integrate a pixel on your page through the
LinkedIn Insight Tag or the Event-Specific Image Pixel with Google Tag Manager
to target visitors to your website. This way, your ad will reach users who were
previously interested in your company.
• Launch retargeting campaigns: After launching the campaign, you can use
Matched Audiences to set up a retargeting campaign. For instance, targeting
those users who have clicked on the ad but not completed the form, or users
who have viewed only a certain percentage of your video.
• Consider the Lookalike audience option: If your audience size is lower than 40.000
members, we recommend Lookalike audience because it can increase your search
by 5 or 10 times. This option includes similar members of your target audience.
• A/B testing is essential: To optimise your audience segmentation, we
recommend A/B testing. To track the performance of each audience, set up
separate campaigns for different audiences.
• If in doubt: If you are unsure about who to target, start with a broad audience
between 100k – 400k members and then narrow it down once you have seen

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 which performs best. In LinkedIn’s demographic reporting, you can analyse who
is clicking and converting on your ads by Job Title, Functions, Company
Industries etc.
• Optimise your targeting: With demographic reporting, you can check the
campaign metrics (clicks, impressions, leads, total spend, frequency etc.) then
analyse if you’re impacting the right members.
• Target accurately according to your goals: For awareness campaigns, LinkedIn
recommends targeting by Job Function and Seniority, Skills or Job Titles, Interest,
and Lookalike audiences. For consideration & engagement campaigns, they
suggest Job Title and Member traits, uploaded lists, website retargeting and
retargeting by engagement. For conversion, they recommend uploaded lists,
website retargeting and retargeting by engagement.
• Avoid hyper-targeting: According to LinkedIn, broad targeting works better than
hyper targeting. B2B buying decisions usually involve more than one department,
so it is difficult to know exactly which members make the buying decisions.
• Provide relevant content according to the funnel: Deliver qualified content based
on where your leads are in the journey. You can divide your contacts into
personalised audience segments to provide a customised experience.
• Exclude members: Exclusion is sometimes as important as inclusion. Think about
members that could potentially fall within your segmentation definition but are not
decision-makers or decision-influencers. Actively exclude the members you don't
need.

Let's drill down into inclusions and exclusions. Imagine your company wants to
create a campaign in the UK. In the image we can see UK there are 29 million
members.

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 25

 Now, let's say you are interested in impacting users who work in companies of up to
5,000 workers. If you were to specifically include members who work for
companies of that size and under, i.e. ‘myself only’ ‘2-10 employees’, 11-50
employees’ etc., the result is an artificially-low 8.6 million members.

The reason for this is that LinkedIn does not map every company with every criteria.
Therefore, if you run an inclusion-based segmentation, other members will be

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 26

 excluded. The best option here would be to exclude companies with more than
5,000 members, As shown in the image below, the exclusion way shows 25 million
members.

INCLUDING members can sometimes EXCLUDE the ones you

want!

Next, you can see a summary with the above explanation.

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 27

 • Consider using the LinkedIn Audience Network: The LinkedIn Audience
Network is a new option which allows you to expand your campaign’s reach by
showing your ads in the LinkedIn feed and third-party publisher apps. LinkedIn
respects the targeting parameters, bid & budget, and it makes sure that the ads will
be delivered on approved sites. If you want to learn more about this feature, check
out our post. We explain all you need to know.

• Exclude your current customers: Don’t forget to exclude your existing

customers from B2B lead generation campaigns.

The total active audience on LinkedIn Ads: How to calculate it

When launching LinkedIn Ads campaigns, you’re not going to impact all
users from your audience size. That’s why it’s important to know how
many users you’re targeting. Here’s our step-by-step guide for how to
calculate it:

1. Run your campaigns for 1 or 2 months

To be as accurate as possible with your total active audience, we recommend running the
campaigns for one or two months.

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 28

 2. Check your audience size

After running the campaigns for a while, keep an eye on your audience size. This is shown in
the campaign manager (at the top right of the page).

3. Note your average frequency

This means the number of times users watch your campaign. You can see the frequency
by going to the Performance chart page, displaying the Average frequency and adding
a time range. The campaign manager will show you the average and the daily frequency

4. Identify the total number of impressions

The total number of impressions are included in the Performance chart too.

5. Calculate the active audience in %

At this point, you’ll be able to calculate the active audience in %. You have to take the
audience size and multiply it by the average frequency. Then, take the number of
impressions and divide it by the previous result, as below:
Active audience (%) = Impressions / (Audience size * Average frequency)

6. Determine the number of active users

Finally, you have to take the active audience in % and multiply it by the audience size.
The formula is below:
Total active audience (number of users) = Active audience * audience size
In this post, we explain these steps with an example to help you understand the process
easier.

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 29

4. LinkedIn Ads formats: Tips and
tricks

After choosing the right goal, you need to find the proper Ad format for
your campaign. Read on for our tips and tricks.

Single Image Ad
Single Image Ad is a Sponsored Content Ad type known as 'native
advertising '. They are called 'native ads' because they look like a
native post. They appear on unsers’ LinkedIn timelines for both desktop
and mobile devices.

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 30

 • Key recommendations:

o Making your audience take action is a difficult task, so it's essential to create
impactful copy with questions, statistics and compelling images.
o If you pick this format for brand awareness or consideration campaigns, it
is crucial to explain why your proposition can help and how you will solve
a problem for your prospects.
o Create different versions of the copy to cover the main pain points of the
audience. Some should have a rational message and some should be
more emotional. Experiment with different headlines.
o Use light and dark images with a human meaning. Don’t forget to write
keywords in the images.
o For LinkedIn lead generation ads, it's essential to lead with a strong offer.
i.e. a free trial, software or hardware bundles, a specific purchasing
model, a limited-time offer with a partner/channel program. Keep in
mind that lead gen ads are bottom of the funnel. So be up front with the
value the member is getting in return for sharing their information.
o In your copy, we recommend asking questions to engage your audience.
Keep the text concise and try to emphasise your target audience's most
significant pain point. Then offer an appropriate solution. It's also

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 31

 essential to make the members feel like you're speaking to them
individually. Finally, avoid using negative language.
o As Gartner states, pain points are specific problems faced by current or
prospective customers in the marketplace. They include any problems the
customer may experience along their journey. According to HubSpot, Pain
points are persistent problems with a product or service that can
inconvenience customers and their business. In simple terms: unsatisfied
needs.
o The easiest way to identify your customer points is to ask them yourself with
interviews or surveys. You can also gather insights from your sales team and
your internal sales/marketing database.

Remember to always have one paint point and one message in your CTA. It’s about
helping them. At the end of the day, customers care more about their business than
yours. As Visualize.say, they care about your business (or capabilities) only in the
context of whether or not you can help them solve their challenges.

o Select a clear CTA, and if you're unsure which CTA you should choose, do an
A/B test.
o A good way to capture your target audience attention is with an emotive
image. Choose a bright, eye-catching and original visual that can explain
the content of your ad. You can also make a visual impact with recognisable
logos and images of public figures. Another strong look can be achieved by
showing your product/service being used by “real” people. Finally, you must
make sure your text is readable on mobile and smaller screens.

• Advertising specifications:

o First of all, you can include an ad name of up to 255 characters, but it is

optional.

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 32

 o LinkedIn allows you to add a maximum of 600 characters, but it's
recommended to write significantly under the limit to make sure the words
don’t get cut by LinkedIn. For desktop, LinkedIn will automatically cut
copy that’s over 150 characters, and for mobile that figure is
approximately 90 (two lines).
o For headline text, the character limit is 200, but headline text is cut once it
gets above 70 characters.
o For the description, it is recommend to use approximately 100
characters to ensure all text appears, but the official maximum is 300
characters. However, it’s important to note that the character limit can vary
for ads that appear on third-party apps via the LinkedIn Audience Network.
o The destination URL must contain up to 2000 characters. Be warned that
some special characters, such as < > # % { } [ ] cause errors when they're
included. Finally, if you add URLs for third-party tracking, it’s best not to use
quotation marks within parameter settings to avoid errors.
o The URL prefix has to be HTTP:// or HTTPS://.
o LinkedIn allows images with a maximum size of 7680 x 4320
pixels. However, it's recommended to use an image size of 1200 x 627
pixels.
o The file types you can include are JPG or PNG with a maximum size of 5MB.
There are also different image ratios to consider:
▪ 1.91:1: horizontal/landscape version.
▪ 1:1: square version.
▪ 1:1.91: vertical version.
o Finally, it must include a clear CTA (call to action). You can choose
between Apply, Download, View Quote, Learn More, Sign Up, Subscribe,
Register, Join Attend and Request Demo.

Video Ads

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 33

Video Ad is also a Sponsored Content Ad type. There are three video
formats. First of all, the short one (5-15 sec.), which is a "gif" or
a "cliffhanger" to encourage users to want to learn more. The second
one is the medium (-30 sec.), where you can include product
summaries or interviews. Finally, the longest (+1 min) is used mainly
to show client case studies, and deliver more extensive info.

• Key recommendations:

o Show your crucial message in the first 10 seconds.

o Try to keep the video shorter than 30 seconds for awareness and
consideration campaigns.

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 34

 o Introduce different images to make the video more dynamic. It's suggested
to provide the information alongside graphics, people and text.
o Ideally, the message should contain a personal greeting and spell out the
reason why.
o Capture and retain your audience's attention with good storytelling to
humanise your brand.
o Take into account that most LinkedIn's members won’t listen to the audio,
so make sure you add subtitles.
o A/ B test as much as possible so you can judge the best-performing videos.

• Advertising specifications:

o Introductory texts are optional and have the same rules as image ads. For
desktop there is a maximum of 600 characters allowed, but it is
recommended to stay under 150 to avoid the text being cut. For mobile, it is
recommended to stay under two lines (approximately 90 characters).
o LinkedIn recommends keeping the headline text below 70 characters to
avoid truncation on most devices, but you can use a maximum of 200
characters.
o The video format type must be MP4. The audio format is limited toAAC or
MPEG4.
o The overall file size can be between 75KB and 200MB. The video sound
file can be a maximum of 64KHz, while video captions must be in SRT
format.
o The video length can be from 3 seconds to 30 minutes. LinkedIn
recommends a frame rate of 30 per second.
o The most successful video ads are shorter than 15 seconds.

Don't be fooled by video hype.

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 35

Video works powerfully at the top and middle of the funnel, but not at
the bottom.

Carousel Ads
In June 2018, LinkedIn launched Carousel Ads which display
sponsored content within a carousel structure. Companies can include
up to a maximum of 10 customisable cards to draw the target
audience's attention.
This ad type is best for companies who offer multiple services or who
have a complex service offering.

• Key recommendations:

o Start with 3 to 5 cards.

o Tell your story, a customer success story or provide relevant information
to your audience.

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 36

 o Use original images to capture your target audience’s attention. The first
card must make the best possible impression to encourage users to keep
watching the other images.
o Make sure your Carousel Ads are relevant to your pre-defined goals.
o Depending on your goals, use a lead gen form or landing page. You can also
A/B to gauge which ad performs best.
o Test your ads by running several in a different order

• Advertising specifications:

o For introductory text, LinkedIn allows a maximum of 255 characters but

also offers the same recommendation for the single image ad and video ad,
i.e. lower than 150 characters for the desktop version and two lines (90
characters approx) for the mobile version.
o Headline text for each image card should be a maximum of two lines to
avoid being cut. For a carousel ad that drives users to a landing
page, there's a 45-character limit. For CTAs on a lead gen form, the text
must contain up to 30 characters.
o The destination URL must contain up to 2000 characters. It has to begin
with HTTP:// or HTTPS://. The URL prefix has to begin with HTTP:// or
HTTPS://. Some special characters, such as < > # % { } [ ] and others cause
errors when they're included. When adding URLs for third-party tracking, it’s
best not to use quotation marks within parameter settings.
o The file type must be JPG or PNG with a ratio of 1:1.
o The max image dimensions are 4320 x 4320 px. It's advisable to add
images with 1080 x 1080 px to avoid grey mailboxes around the images,
which is a bad look for your target audience.
o LinkedIn allows the inclusion of between 2 and 10 cards with a maximum
file size of 10MB. It's important to note that it's not possible to add videos
to a carousel.

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 37

 o You can choose one of the following CTAs: Apply, Download, View Quote,
Learn More, Sign Up, Subscribe, Register, Join Attend and Request
Demo.
o Carousel Ads can be directed to different URLs, but all carousel ads will be
linked to the same lead gen form if the lead gen form is chosen.

*Message Ads
Message Ads are one of the most customisable ad types.
Because they are sent directly to a user’s LinkedIn mailbox, you have
the licence to customise the body text. This LinkedIn ad type is the
best one if you want to spend the extra time to give to your target
audience a more personalised experience.
*The Sponsored Messaging will be suspended on 15th December 2021
due to evolving legal landscape.

• Key recommendations:

o LinkedIn recommends launching message ads on Tuesday and Wednesday.

o High title senders, such as CEOs, have higher open rates.

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 38

 o Spend heavier at the beginning of your campaign. The LinkedIn algorithm
will only update for each audience member every 45 days. Therefore,
spreading your spending evenly doesn’t make sense.
o Run on total budget mode rather than daily mode.
o Focus your content on how your target audience can benefit from the
conversation.
o Start your message with a personal introduction and explain the reason
why you're contacting them. Keep the copy short (under 500 characters)
and add emphasis with bullets, italics, bold and underline.
o Use ads with posts, webinars or industry trends to increase awareness and
consideration. Run message ads for the decision phase.
o Depending on the campaign goals, it might be a good idea to share product
demonstrations or tutorials to in order to attract leads.
o It's a good idea to use an image banner to create an impact on your
audience.
o If you have low CTR, review the content to ensure the offer is engaging and
makes sense for the audience. Also, make sure the text is optimised for
mobile.
o Include a short, customised and powerful subject line, with the keywords
such as the following: "Thank you", "Exclusive invitation", "Connect", "Job
opportunities" and "Join".
o The text should be interactive, and if you add additional
hyperlinks, the CTR can increase by up to 21%. CTA usually contains the
following keywords: "Test", "Free", "Today", "Click" and "Apply". Use
CTAs that communicate what users can expect on your landing page.

• Advertising specifications:

o Name your ads by using 255 characters (spaces included).

o The message subject must be shorter than 60 characters, including spaces
and punctuation.

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 39

 o The message text must be shorter than 1500 characters.
o In the hyperlinked text in the message, use up to 70 characters.
o You can add an optional custom footer with a maximum of 2,500
characters.
o LinkedIn adds its profile image in the sender image.
o The banner image is optional. The file type must be JPG, GIF or PNG
with 300 x 250 px and a maximum file size of 2MB.
o The landing page URL must contain up to 1,024 characters. It has to begin
with HTTP:// or HTTPS://. Some special characters, such as < > # % { } [ ]
can cause errors. Finally, if you add URLs for third-party tracking, don't use
quotation marks within parameter settings.
o Use up to 20 characters for the CTAs.

Text Ads
Text ads show only on the desktop version located at the top of
LinkedIn pages.

• Key recommendations:

o As we mentioned before, text ads are only shown on the desktop version
of LinkedIn. Use these if you have higher traffic on desktop than mobile.

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 40

 o It's essential to create an eye-catching offer to get the attention of the
target. Also, it's advisable to turn off ads that are not performing well.
o Always add an image. Professional images have a more significant
impact when it tells a human story.
o Ads that show a strong CTA (call-to-action), such as "Sign up now!" or "Sign
up today!" usually perform better.
o We suggest starting with 2 or 3 active ad variations per campaign.

• Advertising specifications:

o According to LinkedIn's specifications, the logo image dimensions must

be 100 x 100 pixels.
o There is a maximum length of 25 characters on the ad's headline, including
spaces.
o The ad description is a maximum of 75 characters.
o The landing page URL must contain up to 500 characters. It has to begin
with HTTP:// or HTTPS://. Some special characters, such as < > # % { } [ ]
and others may cause errors. It’s best not to use quotation marks within
parameter settings to avoid errors.
o Text Ads can appear in one of the following sizes: 300 x 250, 700 x 17, 160 x
600, 728 x 90, and 496 x 80.
o You can choose between these available CTAs: Apply, Download, View
Quote, Learn More, Sign Up, Subscribe, Register, Join Attend and
Request Demo.

Conversation Ads

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 41

A Conversation Ad is based on having a conversation with your target
audience. For maximum effect, co-ordinate the CTAs with the different
content and offers. This will ensure they maintain and their interest.

Key recommendations:

o If your team decides to launch a consideration campaign, we recommend

you link blog posts, pre-recorded webinars or share industry trends and
analysis.
o In lead generation campaigns, you should share product demos or
tutorials, customer success stores or invite prospects to attend an event.
o Remember to introduce yourself, including your name, title and the
company you represent.
o Your conversation should have 2 to 5 layers, and at least 2 CTA buttons.

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 42

 o We recommend you avoid using negative CTAs such as "Not interested" or
"No thanks" CTAs. Also, keep your copy short and simple with an
authentic human tone.

• Advertising specifications:

o Name your ads by using 255 characters (spaces included).

o Choose one of the available senders or add a new one.
o Include a 300 x 250 px JPG or PNG banner with a maximum file size of
2MB.
o You can upload an image up to 250 x 250 px that is a JPG or PNG and up to
5MB.
o Use an intro message of up to 500 characters (spaces and punctuation
included).
o The message subject must be shorter than 60 characters.
o Message text has to include up to 500 characters.
o You can include a custom footer with a maximum of 2,500 characters.
o You can also insert 5 buttons with 20 characters on each.
o The landing page URL must contain up to 2,000 characters. It has to begin
with HTTP:// or HTTPS://. Some special characters, such as < > # % { } [ ]
and others can cause errors when they're included. To avoid errors when
adding URLs for third-party tracking, don't use quotation marks within the
parameter settings.

Event Ads
Event Ads help to expand the reach and impact of your events for the
professionals you really need to be there. In addition, LinkedIn
provides reporting metrics, such as engagements that convert to
registrations, making it easy to demonstrate ROI.

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 43

 • Key recommendations
o This format is only available for brand awareness, website visits or
engagement goals. For optimum results, make sure your event is focused in
these areas.
o You need to create a LinkedIn Event page for users who click the ad. Make
sure you focus your efforts equally on the ad and the Event page.
o If you have to change the event page URL, you will need to duplicate your
ads and insert the new link.

Advertising specifications:

o First, you have to include the event name with a maximum of 255
characters.
o You can also include introductory text with a maximum of 600 characters.
However, LinkedIn recommends using only 150.
o The image must have a 4:1 aspect radio. It will be pulled from the Event
page to populate the Event Ad.

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 44

 o The landing page URL can contain up to 2,000 characters. It has to begin
with HTTP:// or HTTPS://.

Follower Ads
This format allows companies to promote and encourage members to
follow their LinkedIn Page or Showcase Page.

• Key recommendations:

o Use this format for brand awareness and consideration (engagement)

campaigns. LinkedIn has introduced a follow button that allows advertisers
to gain new followers.
o Add the users' name and profile image to provide a more personalised
experience.

• Advertising specifications:

o The company name can be up to 25 characters.

o The ad description can be up to 70 characters. You can choose from one of
the suggested options or write your own text. However, LinkedIn only
translates suggested options into a different language.

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 45

 o Up to 50 characters can be used in the ad headline. Also, you can choose
from one of the suggested options or write your own text. The translation
criteria is the same as above.
o The minimum ad image size is 100 x 100 px for JPG or PNG. Companies
with smaller logos may appear pixelated. Larger logos will be automatically
reduced to 100 x 100 px.
o If members don't have a profile image, the company logo will be centred.
Also, if member names are not available, LinkedIn will use "LinkedIn
member".
o The CTA options are: “visit the company” (redirects to the page tab of your
LinkedIn Page), visit jobs (redirects to the jobs tab), and visit life (redirects
to the life tab).

Spotlight Ads
Through this format, your company can showcase products, services,
events, content, and so on. People who click your ad will be
redirected to your website or landing page.

• Key recommendations:

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 46

 o Use this format for brand awareness, consideration (engagement) and
conversion (job applicants) campaigns.
• Advertising specifications:

o The ad description has to fit within 70 characters, including spaces.

LinkedIn won't translate the text automatically.
o Up to 50 characters should be used in the ad headline. LinkedIn won't
translate the text automatically.
o The CTA can contain a maximum of 18 characters.
o The company name should fit within 25 characters.
o The ad size image must be 100 x 100 pixels for JPG or PNG. Companies
with smaller logos may appear pixelated. Companies with larger logos will
be reduced to 100 x 100 px.
o You can introduce an optional background image of 2MB or less with a size
of 300 x 250 pixels. However, this format removes the ad description and
member profile image.
o The company logo and the background images have to be JPG or PNG with
a file size of no more than 2MB.
o You must add a landing page URL with a maximum of 500 characters. It
has to begin with HTTP:// or HTTPS://. Some special characters, such as <
> # % { } [ ] can cause errors when they're included. Finally, to avoid errors
when addition URLs for third-party tracking, don't use quotation marks
within parameter settings.
o If members don't have a profile image, the company logo will be centred.
Also, if member names are not available, LinkedIn will use "LinkedIn
member".

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 47

Job Ads
Job Ads allows your company to encourage relevant candidates to
apply to roles at your company. You can promote one or more job
opportunities to qualified LinkedIn members based on members' skills
and experience.

• Key recommendations:
o Job Ads are only used for job applicant campaigns.
o It's vital to write personalised and attractive copy to attract the best
candidates.
• Advertising specifications:

o The Ad description can contain a maximum of 70 characters.

o The company name can contain a maximum of 25 characters.
o The company logo must have a minimum ad size of 100 x 100 pixels.
o Choose one of the pre-set CTAs or add your own CTA. For "Picture
Yourself" and "Jobs Page" ads, the CTA is automated. You can customise the
CTA for the "Jobs of Interest" ad. However, customised CTAs won't be
translated automatically.

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 48

 1. Document Ads: Finally, Document Ads enable your company to collect leads and
drive engagement by sharing documents directly to the feed of your target audience
who can read and download content without leaving the platform.

• Key recommendations:
o Document Ads can be used to gate your document with a Lead Gen Form to
capture interested leads.
o Share a preview of your document to generate interest and convert at
scale.
o Use Document Ads when you want your audience to gain in-depth
knowledge about your product/service, i.e. “how to” or “what’s new.”
o Use 255 characters for your Ad Name, 70 characters for your Headline and
150 characters for your Introductory text.

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 49

 • Advertising specifications:

o Document Ads can only be these file types: PDF, DOC, DOCX, PPT or PPTX.
o Also, the file size should be a maximum of 100 MB.
o The aspect ratio must be vertical, horizontal or square.
o The document must be under 10 pages (300 pages maximum or 1MM
words).
o Use one of the standard PDF layouts with 2000 characters for the
destination field URL.
▪ Letter: 8.5 by 11 inches
▪ Tabloid: 11 by 17 inches
▪ Legal: 8.5 by 14 inches
▪ Statement: 5.5 by 8.5 inches
▪ Executive: 7.25 by 10.5 inches
▪ Folio: 8.5 by 13 inches
▪ A3: 11.69 by 16.54 inches
▪ A4: 8.27 by 11.69 inches
▪ B4: 9.84 by 13.90 inches
▪ B5: 6.93 by 9.84 inches

Lead Gen Forms

Use lead gen forms to capture qualified leads with data retrieved
from their LinkedIn profile. Use these only for conversion goals and
Sponsored Content & Message ad formats.
Because Lead Gen forms allow users to stay on the LinkedIn
platform, they perform better than a classical landing page. All the
user has to do is fill in the contact address fields. The process is
The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 50
easier and faster than using a landing page. We estimate form
completion rates to be between 5% and 10%.

Lead gen forms are the centre of LinkedIn ads lead generation
strategies

• Key recommendations:

o Make sure you save lead gen forms for conversion goals.
o Don’t use more than 5 pre-filled fields. Users can feel uncomfortable when
there are more than 5 questions. 3-4 questions will increase your form-
completion rate. If you have high form opens but a low conversion rate,
consider removing some fields.
o The easier the user experience, the more completions you will receive.
That's why we recommend using pre-filled questions where possible.

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 51

 o In case you need to use custom questions, it’s best to make it easy for
respondents by offering them multiple-choice.
o If you want to ask more than 5 questions or include open questions, we
recommend testing more than one form to see which works better.
o Make sure your form's messaging is consistent and relevant to your
audience. Your copy, image and CTA must all be in synch. Again, you can A
/ B test more than one form to see which works best.
o You should check your form's copy is not cut. Use the preview tool to
check this.
o When users click the ad and go to the form, they are at the bottom of the
funnel. Be fully transparent with the value the user will get after they
submit the form.
o Once submitted, the content form cannot be edited. If you or your team
need to make a change, you will have to start over and re-create it.
o It's recommended to update the lead gen form every two months to
prevent the content from becoming outdated.
o Make sure you develop a qualified follow-up. Include information like how
and when you will contact them.

• Advertising specifications:
o Form name can be a maximum of 256 characters.
o The form language must be the same as you've chosen for your campaign.
o Offers headline cannot be blank and can include up to 60 characters.
o Finally, offers have a 160 character limit, but they will be cut after 70
characters.
o The landing page URL can contain up to 2,000 characters, and it must include
HTTP:// or HTTPS://.
o The privacy policy can be a maximum of 2,000 characters.
o The CTA can include up to 20 characters and the confirmation message up
to 300 characters.

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 52

 o LinkedIn allows 12 question fields. The available information to ask in the lead
gen form is the following:
▪ Contact: First name, last name, email address, LinkedIn Profile URL,
phone number, city, State/Province, Country/Region, Postal/Zip code,
Work email, Work phone number.
▪ Work: Job title, function and seniority.
▪ Company: Company name and company size.
▪ Industry: Education degree, the field of study, university/school,
start date, graduation date.
▪ Demographic: Gender.
o You can include 3 optional custom questions with a maximum of 100 characters
in each. Custom questions count towards the 12-question maximum. The custom
questions can use multiple choice or a single line of text.
o If you prefer, you can add up to 5 custom checkboxes up to 500 characters to get
members to consent to you using their data. Custom checkboxes don't count
towards the 12-question maximum.

Click to Message Ads (Launching in 2023)

This Ad format won’t be available until later in 2023, but we can give
you a headsup on what it is and what you can do with it.
Click to Message Ads can be defined as a hybrid between sponsored
content campaigns and Conversation Ads. They are designed to

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 53

stimulate direct interaction with the user and enable them to have a
conversation with you should they choose to..
You can also create a pre-defined stack of automated answers driven
by a particular customer action. This should result in a less invasive
experience for the user than Conversation Ads or direct Message Ads.

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 54

5. Process: how to set up a LinkedIn
Ads campaign
• Plan your advertising campaign
Have a defined idea of the content. Consider repurposing existing
content. A 50/50 mix of brand awareness and conversion campaigns
is optimal.

• Choose your objective

Think about your business goals. Be as specific as you can with your
goals to run an effective campaign. LinkedIn offers solutions for each
stage in the customer journey, from brand awareness to conversion.

• Choose your format

Choose the right ad format for your campaign goal. Remember our tips
and tricks for each ad format!

• Set your budget and schedule

Before launching the campaign, estimate the amount you want to
invest and create a timeline.

• Optimize and measure your campaign

Monitor your campaigns daily and identify any shortcomings. Do A/B
testing with your audience and to find out which are the best
perfomers.

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 55

6. Funnel template

Depending on your company goals, you will need to focus on specific

metrics.

Brand awareness and decision metrics for LinkedIn Ads

campaigns

Brand awareness Decision

Clicks: Number of clicks on your ad. Conversions: Number of times someone
has taken action after seeing or clicking on
your ad.
Impressions: Number of times your target Conversion rate: Frequency your ads lead
audience has seen your ad. to conversions on your website.
Click-through rate (CTR): Number of clicks Cost per conversion: The ad spend divided
divided by impressions. by the number of conversions.
Average interaction rate: Total interaction Leads: Total number of leads you have
(paid and free clicks) divided by obtained from your ads.
impressions. Interactions can include social
actions such as recommendations,
comments or sharing.
Cost per lead (CPL): Ad spend divided by
the lead number.

Before launching a campaign, build a realistic funnel forecast

and track it at least twice a week

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 56

6.1. Estimate metrics

We recommend building your funnel so it is easy to analyse the sales

pipeline. The following are the averages of LinkedIn Ads campaign
metrics, according to LinkedIn (metrics from 2022):
General metric

• Frequency: 1.8 by a user (max. 4 users), so it's essential to boost the audience
where possible.

Single image ad

• CTR: 0.46%
• Engagement rate: 0.75%
• CPC: €4.51
• Lead gen form fill rate: 11.3%
• CPL: €88.37

Carousel ad

• CTR: 0.50%
• Engagement rate: 0.79%
• CPC: €4.51
• Lead gen form fill rate: 11.3%
• CPL: €88.37

Video ad

• CTR: 0.47%
• Engagement rate: 0.78%
• CPC: €4.51
• View Through rate (2 seconds or click on the ad): 11%

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 57

 • Completion rate (+97.5% of the video): 20.18%
• Lead gen form fill rate: 11.3%
• CPL: €88.37

Message ads

• Open rate: 30% to 50%

• Cost per Send: €0.3 to €0.6
• Lead gen form fill rate: 23.20%
• CPL: €80 to €120

Conversation ads

• CTR: 14%
• Open rate: 50%

Text ads

• CTR: 0.02%

Dynamic ads

• CTR: 0.07%

Through a funnel template, your team will be able to keep track of your
LinkedIn Ads campaign by monitoring metrics such as the CPC (Cost
per Click) and CPL (Cost per Lead). They can use the same metrics to
apportion the budget for the next week/month.

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 58

6.2. How to calculate LinkedIn Ads
costs?

Calculating the cost of LinkedIn Ads is a difficult task for many people,
but we can show you a way to do it in four easy steps.

1. Size your audience:

Firstly, you need to size your audience, which must be between 40.000 and
400.000 members. As we previously explained, lower audiences will typically result
in a low impact for campaigns, while higher audiences will tend towards a lower
quality of lead.

2. The number of impressions:

LinkedIn will not show members the same ad constantly. Based on our experience,
LinkedIn Ads frequency is 1.8. So if you had 100.000 members, the number of
monthly impressions for an ad would be 180.000 (100.000 x 1.8).

3. CPC:
On the right-hand side of the campaign manager, you can see the CPC costs, but
they're not always accurate. It’s better to calculate CPC this way:
a. Take the average spend and increase by 20% (low average spend number +
high average spend number) x 1.2. In the example shown below, that's
€762.
b. Then, take the average number of clicks and decrease by 20% (low average
spend number + high average spend number) x 0.8. In the example shown
below, that would equal €142.

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 59

 c. Finally, divide the spend number by the resulting click number. In our
example, that's €762 / €142= €5.37.

4. Investment:
As discussed in the scenario above, you have a maximum number of 180.000
impressions per month and a forecast CPC of €5.37. To set your investment, you
need to calculate how much you can spend (Click-through-rate or CTR). The CTR is
driven by various factors, i.e. your offer, ad format, ad creative and so on. In this
example, if we say you have a 0.20% CTR, the maximum monthly spend capacity
will = Impressions x CTR x CPC (180.000 x 0,2 x €5.37 = €1.933).

Calculate your investment precisely.

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 60

For more detailed information about how to calculate LinkedIn Ads
campaign costs, read this article.
To help you with this process, use our free funnel template.

A bit about LinkedIn’s frequency

We have already stated that the average frequency on LinkedIn is 1.8,
but it’s important to understand that only 9% of users who see an ad
twice will take the action to fill out a form.
LinkedIn recommends showing an ad between 4 and 8 times to gain
leads. [Source: LinkedIn].

6.3. Strategically: map your

audience Pain Points
• Map your audience pain points with messages and solutions:
•

LinkedIn
Buyer Value
Pain Key offer Main
Audiences Journey proposition /
points Message (Content KPI
stage solution
type)
Audience
Ex: Self
#1: “Name” Ex: Pack Hero
Ex: Ex: “Work diagnose + Ex: Ex:
Key product +
Security safely” pain point + Conversion Leads
Industry: Services
consultancy
“B2B/B2C”
Key Role:
“Position” Ex: Lack Ex: “We Ex: Renting / Ex: Pack Hero
Ex: Ex:
Buyer of cover your financial product +
Conversion Leads
Persona capital back” solutions software
Name

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7. LinkedIn Ads Budget

LinkedIn is an expensive platform, so be aware that your campaigns

will need significant investment. During the first 2-4 weeks, be
prepared to make a significant investment in testing/trial & error.
We suggest a minimum of €50 per day or €3000 per month for the
first month. That will give you the data you need to evaluate the
effectiveness of the ads and fine-tune them as necessary.

7.1. LinkedIn Ads Budget: Tips and

Tricks

Finally, here are some essential budget tips to take into account:

• Mix brand awareness and conversion campaigns:

With mixed goals, the goals at the bottom of the funnel will typically prevail over
those at the top. Dedicate at least 70% of the budget to lead generation and a
maximum of 30% to brand awareness or consideration campaigns.

• Test your patience:

Get through that pain barrier of losing money and test for at least a week. Losing
some money in the testing phase will guard against bigger losses in the long run.

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 • Adapt your daily spend to the audience size:
Make sure you are investing the necessary budget according to the size of your
audience. For every 100k users, we recommend an investment of €150/day.

• Use automatic bid:

Choose the automatic bid function if you're not sure how much to bid. LinkedIn
uses historical campaign data and member information to automatically set your
bid. Also, you need to take into account that bids will change according to the
audience attributes.

• Analyse your CPL (Cost per lead):

Two weeks after the launch of a lead generation campaign, the CPL should
decrease. Set the CPC to be automatic when you launch the campaign, and then
change it to manual so you can have more control of the CPL.

• Optimise your budget:

If your campaign is spending the budget more quickly than expected, increase
the daily spend or lower your bid amount.

• Understand which audience is impacted:

Go to your campaign manager and find the impacted audience metrics. Fine-tune
your campaign from there.

Don't get cold feet. Cutting daily budgets at the spur of the
moment will ruin your campaign.

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8.LinkedIn Ads: Additional key
information

In this section, we will explain LinkedIn Ads best practices and then go
into best practice related to copy and visuals.

• Focus on one campaign, not two:

It's essential to be focused on one business goal. That's why we recommend
launching one campaign to achieve best results.

• Use the winning combinations:

Once you understand your marketing objectives, use these winning combinations of
format:

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 • Make sure your sales and marketing teams are aligned:
Both teams must be aligned to define a market-qualified lead. Consequently, you'll
be able to develop a qualified lead scoring strategy that will To help your sales team
to engage with the most suitable and qualified leads, develop.

• Launch 4 or 5 ads:
LinkedIn will only show an ad once every 48 hours. Increase your frequency by
running 4 or 5 ads in parallel. This will also help you measure which visuals and
copy get the best results.

• Don’t forget mobile:

Make sure everything you make is optimised for smaller screens.

• Use webinars:
Webinars are a great way to make an impact in professional industries. Since the
COVID-19 crisis, webinars have become even more important. According to
LinkedIn research, 61% of B2B marketers use webinars as a fundamental part of
their marketing strategy, and in the year of 2020, there was a 120% increase in
ad content for webinars.

• Boost demand creation campaigns:

If your campaigns have high engagement but low conversion rates, consider
launching demand creation campaigns. Offer your audience downloadable content
such as eBooks, guides and infographics to increase your visibility.

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 • Quality Score tip:
Duplicating ads will adversely affect your Quality Score, so make sure you double-
check this. If you fall foul of this, your Quality Score will only be restored after a few
hundred impressions.

• Exclude your old leads:

When your campaign starts to generate leads, remember to exclude them from
future campaigns so you don’t bombard them with unnecessary advertising.

• Help your customer:

Your goal before conversion should be to help your prospects. Once they convert,
you should continue to do the same. Your customers mustn’t see you as distant and
remote. Work collaboratively with your customer so they feel you are part of their
team, fighting their corner.

• Analyse your competitors:

It’s as simple as browsing other company's LinkedIn pages. Find the tab for
advertisements in the menu below About. Bear in mind that many companies have
several pages and they might only have campaigns in certain countries, as per
MediaMarkt below.

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 • Watch out for the LinkedIn industries list updates:
When you are designing and managing your LinkedIn Ad campaigns, you can
choose which industries you want to focus your ads on. LinkedIn has a long list of
industries that are updated with new additions from time to time. Keep an eye on that
list to make sure you are up with which companies you can target with your LinkedIn
Ads campaigns.

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9. Lead nurturing
The importance of nurturing your the leads you didn’t convert first-
time:
It’s vital to understand the process of lead nurturing, i.e. developing
and reinforcing relationships at every stage of the sales funnel.
According to Marketing Sherpa, 73% of leads are not ready to buy when
they first give their contact details, so make sure you have a strategy for
progressing them on the buying journey.

Additional Key information:

Align your sales and marketing departments.
Once the marketing department generates leads, it’s up to the sales
department to convert them. Both must be well-aligned and have an
understanding of where each fits into the buyer journey.

Create lead groups. Don’t give all of your leads the same message. It’s
best to create different lead groups based on industry, location, pain
points and the stage of the journey they are on.

Build an automated plan. Create the appropriate content plan

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according to which stage your leads are at. This is the process we
recommend:

• Decide what you want to automate

• Define the workflow process
• Set your touchpoints
• Automate your email marketing
• Carry out retargeting campaigns

Think about the interests of your targets. Before you provide

solutions, you need to understand their problem. Provide pros and cons
of each alternative and give an advice on what you would choose.

Consider using video. Nowadays, people prefer to watch videos than to

read text. This could be the difference between a hot lead and a cold
lead, or closing a deal and not closing a deal.

Follow-up your leads in a timely fashion. According to HubSpot,

companies that develop follow-up plans with their leads have x7 times
more meaningful conversations.

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The best LinkedIn Ads types of copies

To succeed with a LinkedIn Ads campaign you need to know which

copy is the most effective and generates the best results. Write good
copy combined with an eye-catching image. A/B test your copy to
check which copy is the most effective. First, it’s important to know
which type of content you should provide for each stage of the process.
These are our recommendations:

Awareness

• Employee insights: Find members of your organisation who can help your target
audience. Increase your credibility and awareness by providing relevant insights
from your team.
• Industry trends: Share industry trends with your target audience to help them with
their business strategy. Well-informed predictions of future trends are also very
useful.

Consideration

• Useful templates: Templates are great things to offer your prospects. A template
can also be used to explain how your product or service can solve their problem.

Decision

• Evaluating guides: Save your audience time by evaluating your products and
services, so they can gauge which of your offerings will be most useful to them.

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 • Case studies: People want to know the experience of real customers. Be sure to
provide testimonials from your clients.

Buzz Sumo did some great research and created a list of the best B2B
headlines for LinkedIn. This research was based on LinkedIn's
average shares.

• List format
This is the headline type that gets the most shares. The best B2B headlines on
LinkedIn were said to be:
–“X ways to”: 270 shares
–“X things you”: 116 shares
–“X reasons why”: 93 shares
–“X tips for”: 83 shares
–“X steps to”: 76 shares
–“X tips to”: 75 shares

• Future
Looking at the results, we can conclude that professionals are attracted by
content that predicts future trends and factual research pieces. People really
value content that helps them deliver marketing and sales strategies that will
work tomorrow.
For this scenario, the best copy was found to be “The future of”, with 145 average
shares.

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 • How to
LinkedIn users also value bite-sized tips. The recommended B2B headlines to
use for this are:
–“How to get”: 110 shares
–“How to make”: 96 shares
–“How to use”: 63 shares
–“How to answer”: 61 shares

• Rankings
Rankings also provide interesting content for professionals. Here is some
recommended headline copy:
–“The X Best”: 81 shares
–“X Most”: 77 shares
–“The Top X”: 74 shares

• “Why you should…”

Recommendations are a crucial content type for the LinkedIn audience. This
headline has an average of 77 shares on LinkedIn.

• “The power of…”

At 74 average shares on LinkedIn, this headline copy is great for shining a light on
a specific topic to impact your target audience.

• “These are the… / This is the…”

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 Finally, this headline is also used to mention a list of a specific topic and has an
average of 63-73 shares.

Copy tips & tricks

• Compelling first sentence:

Write a compelling first sentence to encourage the target audience to keep reading
the ad.

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 73

 • Questions and data point:
Combining a question with a data point is a great way to increase engagement and
interest.

• Value:
Articulate why they should care about what you're talking about in your ad as
opposed to simply emphasising your offering.

• Brackets:
Set expectations by immediately specifying your offer. It’s important your
audience can easily identify your message from the beginning.

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 • Apply time pressure:
Tell your target audience that your offer/content is new and unique, to prompt
them to take action. Make sure there are not too many hurdles in the way of the
user that might prevent them taking action.

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 • Text cropping on mobile:
LinkedIn crops text when displaying ads on mobile. Always look at the mobile ad to
make sure your key copy is displayed.

• A/B testing:
We strongly recommend A/B testing to understand which copy works better and
gets better results.

• Be concise:
Be direct when you’re talking about the next action (i.e. ‘learn more’ and ‘apply
now’). Make sure this is less than 150 characters.

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 o Rewrite your copy several times
o Reread your copy several times
o Experiment with many different ads

The best LinkedIn Ads Images

It’s also important to make your visual assets impactful. In any
LinkedIn campaign, you should create several versions of an ad, each
with a different image, so you can test and compare their
effectiveness.

Images: Tips & tricks

Here are some great tips & tricks for you and your team.

• Consistency:
The image must be in synch with the ad copy. When users see the latest posts on
LinkedIn, they don't usually spend much time reading the content of each post.
Therefore, you must capture their attention with strong visuals.

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 77

 • Value:
Make sure you demonstrate the value of your offering before the CTA. The most
important content should show above the image. However, be careful not to
overwhelm the reader with too much information at the beginning.

• Human images:
Showing "human" content will have more impact than most other visuals.

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 • Be different:
Try to be creative and different from what users are used to seeing on LinkedIn's
posts. As this guide has outlined, there are many do’s and don’ts, but there is still
lots of opportunity to innovate within these parameters.

• Different approaches:
There are always several ways to explain anything. That's why we recommend
you take inspiration from multiple sources in order to get your messaging right.

• Storytelling:
The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 79
 Tell your story. People respond much better to stories than functional descriptions.

• A/B testing:

Do A/B testing to understand which visuals get the best results. It’s
also worth taking the time to document these results on an ongoing basis, so you
can build a bank of intelligence about audience behaviour.

Always think about the image and text combination

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10. Key success stories with
LinkedIn Ads

Having drilled down into the key aspects of an optimal LinkedIn Ads
campaign, let's take a look at some stories of companies who have used
LinkedIn Ads to reach their sales and marketing goals. For more case
studies, see this post.

Siemens

• Problem

Siemens had two main goals. The first one was to promote its professional training
product called Sitrain. They also wanted to promote their Siemens Cerca programme.

• Solution

The company chose LinkedIn to develop both campaigns, and they used Dynamic Ads to
improve CTR and the Engagement rate.

• Key results

Thanks to the campaign, they achieved 222k impressions and 800 clicks. In addition, they
got 291% growth of Sitrain’s website traffic and 71% growth of landing-page traffic for
their Siemens Cerca programme. They also achieved 26% leads for Siemens Cerca.

Sony Channel

• Problem

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 81

The Sony Channel wanted to promote one of its flagship shows, Shark Tank. They needed
to find a specific target audience that would be interested in the show.

• Solution

They decided to launch a campaign on LinkedIn, using sponsored content (the single
image ad format) and sponsored InMail.

• Key results

The sponsored InMail achieved an impressive 77% open rate and an 11.5% CTR. Their
sponsored content,gained +55k impressions, 3.47% engagement and 2.56% CTR.
They succeeded for three reasons; they impacted a specific target audience, and they
offered relevant content about the programme via both formats. As a result, they
achieved greater interaction.

Land Rover Colombia

• Problem

The company wanted to target managers and senior decision-makers to introduce them
to their new models. Consequently, Land Rover needed a platform to target this specific
audience with a direct message.

• Solution

They opted for LinkedIn Ads and used the Sponsored InMail format. The company used
the Mass Affluent targeting option to impact managers with more than 15 years of
experience.

• Key results

At the end of the campaign, they achieved a 46% open rate and a 19% CTR. The key factors
were the targeting strategy, format, and a clear Call to Action.

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Schneider Electric

• Problem

Schneider Electric wanted to raise awareness about a new product for a specific target
audience: senior decision-makers from the Finance, Purchasing, Engineering and IT
sectors. They also wanted to focus on small and medium companies.

• Solution

They launched a campaign on LinkedIn Ads using sponsored content with a lead gen
form. In the ads, Schneider showed how much an hour of downtime costs your business.

• Key results

Thanks to the campaign, the company generated a x10 return on investment by obtaining
leads at the decision stage. They also increased awareness for a specific audience.

The LinkedIn Ads definitive guide 83

11. [Checklist] Steps to follow to
launch a LinkedIn Ads campaign

As a LinkedIn agency, we want to share what we have learned from

many years of experience to help you to build an effective campaign
on LinkedIn Ads. Through our experience, we know that LinkedIn is
the leading platform for B2B, so it's essential for any marketing team
to know how to use it properly. We hope this information makes your
sales rocket!

As essential points, remember the five fundamental rules:

1.- Understand if it’s possible to launch a campaign on LinkedIn

2.- Analyse your business goals.
3.- Choose the right format according to your company goals.
4.- Follow the key recommendations for copy and visuals.
5.- Distribute your budget strategically and optimise your campaign
according to metrics.

To conclude, it is vital to take into account all these elements when

you launch a campaign on LinkedIn Ads. Additionally, we have built
our LinkedIn Ads setup checklist, which you can download here.

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If you would like to find out more about running a LinkedIn Ads with us,
get in touch!

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