What we do on LinkedIn

Why are LinkedIn ads different for B2B?

LinkedIn ads are targeted using the professional profile information that users enter themselves. While other platforms guess what a person watches or clicks on, LinkedIn knows which company someone works for, with what job title and at what level of seniority. This lets a B2B brand speak only to the people who influence the buying decision.

That precision comes at a price: impression and click costs on LinkedIn are generally higher than on consumer platforms. That is why we use LinkedIn not as a broad reach channel but as a channel focused on a specific list of accounts and roles. We explain the reasoning behind choosing between LinkedIn, TikTok and YouTube on our service page; this page covers LinkedIn's own tools and how we combine them.

Which ad types are used on LinkedIn?

In LinkedIn Campaign Manager, the campaign objective can be brand awareness, website visits, engagement, video views, lead generation or website conversions. The ad type is chosen according to how deep the message goes and what the user is being asked to do.

How should LinkedIn targeting be set up?

Targeting on LinkedIn combines profile information such as company, industry, company size, job title, job function, seniority, skills and location. Poorly built targeting burns through the budget quickly, so for every campaign we define in writing which attribute is being used and why.

• Job title versus job function and seniority: job title targeting is sharp but narrow, because the same role goes by different names in different companies. Job function and seniority together give a broader and more consistent audience; we compare the two in separate campaigns.
• Company list: we run account-based marketing by uploading the sales team's list of target companies. Whether the list is current and correctly matched directly determines the quality of the campaign.
• Exclusions: where necessary, we leave out existing customers, competitors, your own employees and job seekers.
• Audience expansion: the platform's automatic expansion to people similar to the target audience can reduce precision in narrow B2B campaigns. We keep this setting off by default and try it in a separate test.
• Retargeting: we build separate audiences for site visitors, video viewers, people who opened a document and people who opened a form but did not submit it.

LinkedIn's profile data is not used only on LinkedIn: Microsoft Advertising also draws on it for company, industry and job function targeting. In B2B campaigns, we plan Bing and Microsoft Advertising campaigns alongside, to catch the same target audience on the search side.

How are campaigns staged to fit the B2B sales cycle?

The B2B sales cycle is the long decision process, involving more than one person, that runs from a company recognising a problem to signing a contract. Showing the same ad to people at every stage of that process does not work. We split campaigns into stages and move those who show interest at one stage on to the next.

1. 1.Awareness: we start with short videos and images that explain the problem and the brand's point of view to decision-makers at target companies.
2. 2.Interest: we show document ads, guides and webinar invitations to people who watched the video or engaged with the post.
3. 3.Consideration: we offer case narratives, comparisons and implementation detail to people who visited the site or downloaded content.
4. 4.Conversation: we send ads and messages with a demo, discovery call or quote request only to the warm audience.

LinkedIn also offers reports that show, company by company, how much target companies are engaging with the ads. We share these reports with the sales team and help them prioritise companies showing rising interest for sales conversations.

How are leads from Lead Gen forms managed?

Lead Gen forms are application forms that open within the ad, with details such as the user's name, email, company and job title filled in automatically from their LinkedIn profile. Because they are easy to complete they can bring in many leads, but ease does not always raise quality. We design the form as a filter.

• We add one or two screening questions, such as company size, timing of the need or budget responsibility.
• Using hidden fields, we record which campaign and which ad each lead came from.
• We connect the forms directly to the CRM so that leads reach the sales team without delay.
• We ask the sales team to mark each lead as qualified, unqualified or a sales opportunity, and adjust the campaigns based on that feedback.

What kind of ad content works on LinkedIn?

The ad content that works on LinkedIn describes a concrete problem the target person faces in their work, in their own language, and demonstrates expertise. Decision-makers do not stop in the feed for generic slogans and flashy visuals, but for an insight specific to their industry, a checklist or a clear comparison.

• In the headline we name the problem and who it is for, not the product: which role, which industry, which situation.
• We edit videos for silent viewing and deliver the main message in on-screen text within the first few seconds.
• In document ads we keep the first pages genuinely useful, and ask for the form only after the user has seen the value.
• With technical products we do not shy away from specialist language, but we explain abbreviations and in-house jargon.

What are the common mistakes in LinkedIn campaigns?

• Offering a demo straight to a cold audience: asking people who do not know the brand for a meeting straight away burns through the budget quickly.
• Leaving audience expansion on: narrow, carefully built targeting spreads without control because of a default setting.
• Deciding by the number of forms: scaling the campaign that brings in the cheapest forms without feedback from the sales team.
• Running a single ad for a long time: interest falls as the same content is shown again and again to a narrow audience.
• Not updating the company list: companies that have become customers or are no longer targets stay on the list.

How is measurement set up on LinkedIn?

Measurement on LinkedIn is built by setting up the Insight Tag on the site together with Conversions API, which sends data from the server or the CRM. The Insight Tag provides site visits, conversions and retargeting audiences. Conversions API reports back to LinkedIn the later steps of the sales process that are invisible in the browser, such as a sales meeting taking place or an opportunity being won.

In B2B, weeks or months can pass between the first form and a contract, so judging a campaign by cost per form alone is misleading. We track the lead, qualified lead, sales opportunity and closed deal stages separately, and base budget decisions on the whole chain. We carry out the measurement set-up together with our CRO and analytics team.

How are LinkedIn budget and bidding strategy decided?

On LinkedIn, the budget is set according to the size of the target audience, the campaign stage and what a sales opportunity is worth to the business. In new campaigns we start with the platform's automated bidding option and, once costs settle, try more controlled options such as cost caps or manual bidding. For message ads, we plan frequency separately so that the same person is not messaged at short intervals.

When the budget is tight, narrowing the audience, reducing the number of campaigns and focusing on a single stage delivers more than splitting the budget across many small campaigns. We also take into account that message ads cannot be sent to members in some countries, and check before the campaign which formats are available in the target market.