TL;DR – How to Win with LinkedIn Ads
LinkedIn Ads are powerful for B2B due to their hyper targeting and active audience, but they can also be expensive. Here’s how we recommend getting the most from your spend:
- Structure by audience, not content assets
- Test targeting via Title, Function, Skills, and Groups
- Single Image Sponsored Content is the top performer
- Use valuable, low-friction offers to increase conversion
- Start with manual CPC bidding; scale once CTR > 1%
- Track click conversions, not view-throughs
- Leverage native LinkedIn retargeting (form opens, video views, etc.)
- Avoid Audience Expansion and overbuilt campaigns
Done right, LinkedIn can drive high-quality leads and pipeline, but only if you’re intentional about how you use it.
Introduction to LinkedIn Ads
LinkedIn ads have become an essential tool for B2B marketers looking to reach a highly targeted audience of business professionals. With over 1 billion members worldwide, LinkedIn offers unparalleled access to decision-makers, influencers, and industry leaders—making it the go-to platform for running a successful LinkedIn ad campaign. Whether your goal is increasing brand awareness, generating high-quality leads, or driving website traffic, LinkedIn ads provide the flexibility and precision needed to achieve your marketing objectives.
By leveraging LinkedIn’s advanced targeting options, you can ensure your ad campaign reaches the right audience based on job title, industry, company size, and more. This level of targeting helps maximize your ad spend and ensures your message resonates with those most likely to engage. From building brand awareness to nurturing prospects through the funnel, a well-structured LinkedIn ad campaign can be a game-changer for B2B growth.
LinkedIn Ads Best Practices
LinkedIn is one of the most powerful channels in B2B, but it’s also one of the most expensive. That means strategy, structure, and precision aren’t just helpful, they’re essential.
At Enilon, we’ve managed LinkedIn Ads for clients across industries and sizes, and we’ve learned exactly what works, what burns budget, and how to build a scalable demand gen engine on the platform. Whether you’re launching your first campaign or trying to optimize an existing one, here’s our guide to running smarter, more effective LinkedIn Ads. To run successful LinkedIn ads, it’s crucial to follow proven strategies and best practices that lead to successful LinkedIn ads and maximize your results.
Start With a Smart Structure
Your account setup matters more than you might think. A well-structured LinkedIn advertising campaign begins with careful campaign creation, ensuring your setup is clear and organized from the start. We recommend keeping things simple with one campaign group and organizing your campaigns by audience and format, not by content. This lets you optimize, compare performance, and keep your reports clean, without losing your mind in campaign manager.
Pro tip from our team: Don’t build one campaign per asset. Build one campaign per audience and plug new content into it over time.
Targeting: Four Reliable Paths to Your Audience
We recommend testing 3–4 targeting strategies for each persona. Why? Because each method pulls a slightly different flavor of your ICP, and performance (and CPL) can vary significantly.
Here are the four most effective approaches:
- Job Title
- Job Function + Seniority
- Skills + Seniority
- Group Membership + Seniority
You’ll want your audience sizes in the 20k–50k range for best efficiency. And always, always turn off Audience Expansion. LinkedIn will try to sneak it in, but it muddies your targeting and your reporting and often yields wasted budget.
Use the Right Ad Format for the Job
If you’re just getting started, go with Single Image Sponsored Content (single image ad format). It’s easy to build, performs well in the feed, and gives you space to tell a compelling story. When organizing your campaigns by audience and format, be sure to choose the right ad type and understand the available ad format options to match your campaign objectives. Other formats work, but should be used strategically:
- Thought Leadership Ads (also known as thought leader ads or leader ads): We love these for awareness and trust building. Choose 2-3 Thought Leaders within your organization, encourage them to start posting strategically. Take their best engaged posts and use those as your TL content for promotion.
- Text Ads: Cheap and great for brand reinforcement; ideal to run alongside other formats.
- Video Ads: Great for storytelling and brand engagement, but often more expensive per lead.
- Lead Gen Forms: High conversion rates, but may slightly lower lead quality—perfect for high-volume testing.
- Sponsored Messaging/Conversation Ads: Use sparingly and only when you have a VIP offer.
- Spotlight Ads: Personalized dynamic ads that highlight products, services, or content and drive users to a landing page.
- Dynamic Ads: Highly personalized ads that automatically customize content based on user data, ideal for scalable, targeted campaigns.
- Follower Ads: Designed to promote your LinkedIn Page and help grow your follower base by targeting specific audiences.
- Event Ads: Promote in-person or virtual events, invite attendees, and drive RSVPs or ticket sales.
- Message Ads: Deliver targeted messages directly to users’ inboxes for event registrations, product demos, or promoting gated offers.
- Native Ads: Sponsored content that appears seamlessly within users’ LinkedIn feeds, integrated into the platform’s natural content flow.
- Single Image Sponsored Content (single image ad): A straightforward format using a single, visually impactful image to communicate your message.
- Carousel Ads (carousel ad): Versatile format displaying multiple images or cards in a single ad, ideal for sequential storytelling or showcasing multiple offerings.
We often start clients on a mix of Single Image, Thought Leadership + Lead Gen Forms, then test into other formats once performance is stable. Selecting the right LinkedIn ad format and ad types is crucial for achieving your campaign objectives.
Your Offer Matters More Than Your Creative
One of the biggest mistakes we see? Great ad design paired with a weak offer. If your CTA is “Schedule a Demo” or “Talk to Sales,” you’re likely over-targeting the bottom of the funnel, and paying the price in $500+ CPLs.
Lead generation is a primary objective for many LinkedIn campaigns, and using lead generation forms within your ads can streamline the process of capturing qualified leads and integrating them with your CRM.
Instead, meet your audience where they are:
- Free checklist or worksheet
- Executive guide
- Industry benchmarks
- A truly useful webinar
- Framework or blueprint download
Conversion ads can be used to drive specific actions such as website conversions or attracting job applicants, depending on your campaign goals.
We call this the “valuable, but low friction” zone. The goal is to get more people into your funnel with content that builds trust, not resistance. Whether or not you gate that content is up to you. We tend to steer away from gated content as much as possible because we want it to be easy for people to learn as much information as they can about you and build trust and expert leadership.
Creative Tips That Actually Make a Difference
Your creative doesn’t need to win awards. It needs to stand out, get read, and drive action. Strong ad copy and compelling ad text are essential for capturing attention and maximizing engagement.
From our team’s experience:
- Think headline, not paragraph. Use just a few words on your image.
- Contrast is key—orange, green, and red visuals pop against LinkedIn’s blue/gray UI
- Intro text: Open with a benefit, end with a call to action
- Headlines: Keep it under 55 characters
We A/B test creative constantly for our clients, and small changes, like swapping out a background color or rephrasing a CTA, can improve CTR pretty dramatically. Testing different ad creatives helps optimize performance and ensures your messaging resonates with your audience.
Optimize Like a Pro (Don’t Let LinkedIn Auto-Pilot)
LinkedIn loves to spend your money—but doesn’t always do it efficiently. Here’s how we recommend bidding and optimizing:
- Always start with Manual CPC, set just above the floor
- Monitor your campaign’s click through rate (CTR) as a key performance indicator. If it’s above 0.45%, you’re in a good zone. If you hit 1%+, switch to Maximum Delivery (LinkedIn’s version of auto-bidding)
- Rotate ads using “Optimize for performance,” not “even rotation” (except in Sponsored Messaging)
- Monitor performance by audience type (titles vs. skills vs. groups) so you can reallocate spend intelligently
Track your campaign cost and manage your ad budget to ensure optimal results. Use LinkedIn’s budget optimization features to dynamically allocate spend for better ROI.
We’ve helped clients reduce CPL just by tightening bidding strategy and letting top-performing campaigns scale naturally.
Track What Actually Matters
Don’t rely solely on what you see in Campaign Manager. A few tracking tips from our demand gen and analytics team:
- Use UTM parameters to push campaign + audience data into your CRM
- Always separate click conversions from view-through conversions—the latter can be misleading. Set up conversion tracking to accurately measure these results.
- Use the Demographics tab to validate who is actually seeing and clicking your ads
- Export performance data by ad and by day to build trending dashboards (we do this in Looker Studio and Excel)
Tracking website visits as a campaign objective is important for understanding how your ads drive traffic. Make sure your landing page is optimized for conversions, and consider how your landing pages support user experience and conversion tracking.
Align your tracking setup with your overall campaign objectives and use landing pages that support those goals.
Also: be careful with Sponsored Messaging metrics. LinkedIn reports “opens” as “clicks” unless you change the column view.
Retargeting That Actually Works
LinkedIn’s website retargeting isn’t great (thanks, cookies), but native engagement retargeting is really accurate.
You can retarget based on:
- Video views (25%+ watched)
- Lead Gen form opens (but didn’t submit)
- Ad clicks or interactions
- Company page visits
At Enilon, we layer these audiences into nurture campaigns or test lower-friction offers to them, this has significantly improved lead-to-opportunity conversion for our clients.
Integrating retargeting with other social ad campaigns across multiple social media platforms and social media channels—such as YouTube, Vimeo, and SlideShare—can further enhance your results by expanding your reach and reinforcing your message. Additionally, using organic content to nurture retargeted audiences helps build trust and engagement, complementing your paid efforts and improving overall campaign performance.
Avoid These Budget-Draining Mistakes
Here’s what to skip (because we’ve cleaned up the mess too many times):
- Audience Expansion (just… no, never use)
- Campaigns organized by content instead of audience
- 5+ ads per campaign (it’ll wreck your reporting—while testing more ads can help with variety and reach, avoid overloading a single campaign; focus on a balanced approach to more ads for optimal performance)
- Letting LinkedIn auto-bid from day one
- Not excluding current customers or competitors
Mastering LinkedIn Campaign Manager
Why Campaign Manager Matters for B2B Marketers
For B2B marketers, LinkedIn Campaign Manager is the command center for all your LinkedIn ad activity. It’s where you build, launch, and optimize every LinkedIn campaign, giving you full control over ad targeting, budget allocation, and performance tracking. Mastering Campaign Manager means you can fine-tune your campaigns to reach the right audience, adjust your strategy in real time, and ensure every dollar spent is driving measurable results.
With robust ad targeting capabilities, Campaign Manager allows you to zero in on your ideal customer profile—whether that’s by job title, company size, industry, or even specific LinkedIn groups. This precision is what sets LinkedIn apart from other advertising platforms and makes it a must-have for B2B marketers focused on ROI.
Key Features and Setup Tips
Getting started with Campaign Manager is straightforward, but setting up your ad account correctly is crucial for long-term success. Here’s how to lay a solid foundation:
- Create Your Ad Account: Begin by setting up an ad account within Campaign Manager. Link it to your LinkedIn company page to ensure your ads are associated with your brand and can leverage your existing followers.
- Connect a Payment Method: Add a payment method to your ad account so you can launch campaigns without delay.
- Choose the Right Ad Formats: LinkedIn offers a variety of ad formats, including sponsored content, sponsored messaging, and text ads. Each ad format serves a different purpose—sponsored content is great for feed visibility, sponsored messaging excels at direct engagement, and text ads are ideal for cost-effective brand reinforcement.
- Define Your Target Audience: Use targeting criteria like job title, industry, company size, and more to ensure your ads reach the most relevant professionals. The more specific your targeting, the more effective your campaign will be.
- Follow Best Practices: Organize your campaigns by audience, not by content asset, and test different ad formats to see what resonates best. Regularly review performance in Campaign Manager and adjust your strategy based on data.
By leveraging the full suite of features in Campaign Manager and following these best practices, you’ll be well-positioned to create LinkedIn campaigns that drive real business results.
Exploring Advanced Ad Formats: Connected TV Ads
As LinkedIn continues to evolve, new ad formats like Connected TV (CTV) ads are opening up fresh opportunities for B2B marketers to reach their target audience in innovative ways. Connected TV ads allow you to deliver your message on streaming platforms and smart TVs, extending your LinkedIn campaigns beyond the traditional feed and into the living rooms of business professionals.
CTV ads are particularly effective for increasing brand awareness and engaging decision-makers in a premium, distraction-free environment. By integrating Connected TV ads into your LinkedIn ad campaign, you can amplify your reach, reinforce your brand message, and create a seamless experience across multiple devices.
When considering CTV ads, think about how they fit into your overall ad format strategy. Use them to complement your single image ads, video ads, and sponsored content, ensuring your brand stays top-of-mind throughout the buyer’s journey. With advanced targeting options, you can deliver CTV ads to specific job titles, industries, or company sizes—just like you would with other LinkedIn ad formats—making them a powerful addition to your B2B advertising efforts.
Final Thoughts From the Enilon Team
LinkedIn is a valuable platform, when it’s used correctly. It can produce high-quality leads, powerful brand lift, and insight into how your messaging resonates with real buyers.
But it’s not plug-and-play. It requires strategy, testing, and ongoing optimization.
If you’re looking to improve your current performance, or start with a strategy that’s built to scale, we’d love to help. Enilon’s team specializes in full-funnel demand generation, and LinkedIn Ads are a key piece of the puzzle.
Need help building or optimizing your LinkedIn strategy?
Let’s talk. Contact Enilon →
FAQs
How does retargeting help LinkedIn Ads work better?
Retargeting lets you reach people who have already interacted with your brand, like watching a video or opening a form. Showing them more useful ads keeps your brand top of mind and makes it easier to turn interest into leads or sales.
Which LinkedIn ad formats perform best for B2B campaigns?
Single Image Sponsored Content tends to deliver the strongest performance for most B2B goals, while video ads, carousel ads, and text ads can add variety and support awareness campaigns depending on your objectives.
How should B2B marketers structure LinkedIn campaigns for efficiency?
The most effective approach is to organize campaigns around target audiences instead of content assets. By grouping campaigns by persona or role, you can test multiple ad variations within the same audience segment and optimize more effectively.
When is it more effective to use manual CPC bidding versus automated bidding on LinkedIn?
Manual CPC bidding works best when you want tighter control over costs, especially in the early stages of testing. Once your campaigns achieve a click-through rate above one percent, shifting to automated bidding can help scale reach while maintaining efficiency.
How can retargeting improve B2B LinkedIn ad performance?
Retargeting allows you to reconnect with professionals who have already engaged with your brand, such as people who viewed a video or opened a lead form. By nurturing these warm audiences with relevant offers, you increase the chances of conversion and shorten the sales cycle.
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