AJ Wilcox

Category: Scale

Scale your LinkedIn Ads campaigns and B2B marketing strategy. Learn about growing ad spend efficiently, expanding to new markets, and building a sustainable advertising program.

LinkedIn Advertising: Waste of Time or B2B Gold Mine?

Posted on by Dennis Yu

By AJ Wilcox

Is LinkedIn advertising a waste of money — or the most valuable channel in B2B marketing? In this webinar with Sales and Marketing Innovators (SAMI), I tackle this controversial question head-on. The answer, as you might expect, is nuanced — but the evidence strongly favors LinkedIn when approached correctly.

The Case Against LinkedIn Ads

Let me start by acknowledging the legitimate criticisms. LinkedIn Ads are expensive. The average cost per click ranges from $8 to $14, making it one of the priciest platforms in digital advertising. The user interface has historically been clunky compared to Meta or Google. And many companies have tried LinkedIn Ads, spent thousands, and seen little to show for it. These experiences are real, and they create a widespread perception that LinkedIn advertising doesn't work.

Why Most Companies Fail on LinkedIn

The reason most companies fail isn't that the platform is broken — it's that they approach LinkedIn with strategies designed for other platforms. Running direct-response campaigns to cold audiences with generic creative is a recipe for wasting money. LinkedIn's audience is in a professional mindset, not a buying mindset. They're consuming content, learning, and networking. Successful LinkedIn advertising respects this context by leading with value rather than hard pitches.

The B2B Gold Mine Argument

Here's why LinkedIn is genuinely a gold mine for B2B companies that approach it correctly. No other advertising platform lets you target by job title, company, industry, seniority, and skills with the same precision. When your target buyer is a VP of Marketing at a mid-market SaaS company, LinkedIn is the only platform where you can reach that person with near certainty. Google Ads can't do this. Facebook can approximate it but with far less accuracy. This targeting precision means that while each click costs more, the quality of that traffic is dramatically higher.

The Framework That Turns LinkedIn Into a Gold Mine

The companies that succeed on LinkedIn follow a consistent pattern. They use a multi-stage approach where the first campaign warms up the audience with valuable, educational content. The second stage retargets engaged users with deeper content like case studies and webinars. And the third stage makes the conversion ask only to people who have demonstrated interest. This patient, value-first approach consistently outperforms aggressive direct-response campaigns by a significant margin.

When LinkedIn Is NOT the Right Channel

Honesty is important here: LinkedIn Ads are not right for every business. If your product has a low average deal size, the high cost per click may not make economic sense. If your buyers aren't active on LinkedIn, you're reaching the wrong audience regardless of how good your targeting is. And if you don't have the budget to commit at least $3,000 to $5,000 per month for testing, you may not gather enough data to optimize effectively. Knowing when LinkedIn is and isn't the right fit is just as important as knowing how to use it well.

Get Expert Help From B2Linked

If you're wondering whether LinkedIn Ads are right for your B2B company, B2Linked can help you make that determination. As the only agency focused exclusively on LinkedIn advertising, we bring deep platform expertise to every engagement. Visit b2linked.com to start a conversation about whether LinkedIn is the right channel for your business.

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Watch the Full Webinar

Watch the complete webinar above for the full analysis, including real campaign data and specific examples of companies that have turned LinkedIn into their highest-performing B2B channel. Thanks to Sales and Marketing Innovators (SAMI) for hosting this presentation.

How to Turn a Major Career Setback Into a Comeback: AJ Wilcox on The Rainmaker Podcast

Posted on by Dennis Yu

By AJ Wilcox

In this candid conversation with Veronica Romney on The Rainmaker Podcast, I share the deeply personal story of how I went from the pinnacle of my marketing career to an unexpected layoff — and how that setback became the catalyst for building B2Linked, the world's only LinkedIn Ads-specific agency. If you've ever faced a career crisis or wondered whether to take the entrepreneurial leap, this episode is for you.

Reaching the Top — and Getting Let Go

Before founding B2Linked, I was managing one of the largest LinkedIn Ads accounts in the world. I had built deep expertise in the platform, managed massive budgets, and was recognized as one of the go-to people for LinkedIn advertising. Then, unexpectedly, I was let go. It was a gut punch. When your identity is deeply tied to your professional role, losing that role feels like losing a part of yourself. But looking back, that moment of crisis was exactly what I needed to push me toward something bigger.

The Decision to Go All In on Entrepreneurship

After the initial shock wore off, I had to make a choice: go find another corporate job where I'd be managing LinkedIn Ads for someone else, or bet on myself and build an agency around the expertise I'd spent years developing. The decision wasn't easy — I had a family to support and the financial security of a salary was hard to walk away from. But I realized that I had a unique combination of deep platform expertise and a network of contacts who already trusted my work. That foundation gave me the confidence to launch B2Linked.

Building a Niche Agency From Scratch

One of the smartest decisions I made early on was to niche down aggressively. Rather than becoming another generalist digital marketing agency, I focused exclusively on LinkedIn Ads. This specialization became our biggest competitive advantage. When a company needs help with LinkedIn advertising, they don't want a generalist who dabbles in everything — they want the specialist who lives and breathes the platform. That positioning has allowed B2Linked to attract clients who value deep expertise over broad but shallow capabilities.

Lessons Learned From Career Adversity

The experience taught me several lessons that I wish someone had shared with me earlier. First, your professional identity should never be solely tied to your employer. Building a personal brand alongside your career gives you resilience when unexpected changes happen. Second, setbacks often redirect you toward opportunities you wouldn't have pursued from a position of comfort. Third, the skills and relationships you build throughout your career are portable — they belong to you, not to any company. And finally, sometimes the scariest professional decisions turn out to be the best ones.

Why Personal Branding Matters for Every Professional

One of the themes Veronica and I explore in this conversation is the critical importance of building your personal brand while you're employed, not after you've been let go. I started creating content about LinkedIn Ads, speaking at conferences, and building my reputation as a thought leader long before I launched B2Linked. That visibility meant that when I went out on my own, I didn't have to start from zero. People already associated my name with LinkedIn advertising expertise. Whether you're an entrepreneur, an executive, or climbing the corporate ladder, investing in your personal brand is career insurance.

Get Expert Help From B2Linked

The setback that felt like the end of the road turned out to be the beginning of an incredible journey. Today, B2Linked helps companies around the world get better results from their LinkedIn advertising. If you're looking for a partner who brings genuine expertise and passion to LinkedIn Ads, visit b2linked.com to learn more about how we can help.

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Watch the Full Conversation

Watch the full episode above for the complete story, including behind-the-scenes details about the early days of B2Linked and advice for anyone considering the entrepreneurial path. Special thanks to Veronica Romney and The Rainmaker Podcast for this conversation.

AJ Wilcox’s Playbook for LinkedIn Growth: Strategies from $200M in Ad Spend

Posted on by Dennis Yu

By AJ Wilcox

In this in-depth interview with Paul Hurley on the All Dots Connected podcast, I share the strategies and lessons learned from managing over $200 million in LinkedIn ad spend. Whether you're just starting with LinkedIn Ads or looking to refine an existing strategy, this conversation covers the full spectrum — from why LinkedIn is uniquely challenging to the exact funnel structure that drives results.

Why LinkedIn Is Hard but Valuable

LinkedIn is a fundamentally different advertising platform from Facebook or Google. The targeting is unmatched — you can reach people by job title, company size, industry, seniority level, and even specific skills. But that precision comes at a price. Average cost per click on LinkedIn runs between $8 and $14, compared to just $1 to $3 on most other platforms. The key insight is that expensive clicks don't necessarily mean expensive results. When you're reaching the exact decision-makers who can sign a six-figure deal, even a $15 click can deliver extraordinary ROI.

The Three-Stage Funnel That 5Xed Conversions

One of the most important strategies I share in this conversation is the three-stage funnel approach. Rather than running a single campaign asking cold audiences to convert immediately, you build a progressive journey. Stage one is awareness — serving educational, value-driven content to a broad but targeted audience. Stage two is engagement — retargeting people who interacted with your awareness content with deeper material like case studies or webinars. Stage three is conversion — presenting your offer only to people who have already demonstrated genuine interest. This approach consistently outperforms single-step campaigns because it respects the B2B buying cycle, which is rarely a one-touch process.

Thought Leadership Content That Drives Engagement

The content that performs best on LinkedIn is authentic thought leadership. Personal posts from executives consistently generate 10 to 15 times more engagement than company page posts. This is a massive insight for advertisers. Rather than running polished corporate ads, consider using Thought Leader Ads that amplify genuine posts from your leadership team. The algorithm rewards content that feels real, and audiences respond to individuals sharing genuine expertise rather than brand messaging.

Account-Based Targeting and List Building

LinkedIn's account-based targeting capabilities are unmatched in digital advertising. You can upload a list of target companies and serve ads only to employees at those specific organizations. This is incredibly powerful for enterprise B2B sales where you know exactly which accounts you want to penetrate. Combined with job title and seniority filters, you can build hyper-focused audiences of just a few hundred people — all of whom are your ideal buyers. The key is balancing audience size with budget so your campaigns have enough volume to optimize effectively.

Attribution and Tracking Across Touchpoints

B2B attribution is notoriously difficult because buying cycles are long and involve multiple stakeholders. I recommend implementing LinkedIn's Insight Tag on your website and connecting your CRM data back to your campaigns. This gives you visibility into which campaigns and content are influencing pipeline, not just generating clicks. The advertisers who succeed long-term on LinkedIn are the ones who measure downstream revenue, not just front-end metrics like cost per click or cost per lead.

Budget Recommendations for Getting Started

For companies just getting started with LinkedIn Ads, I recommend a minimum budget of $3,000 to $5,000 per month. This gives you enough spend to test different audiences, creative formats, and messaging approaches while generating statistically meaningful data. Below this threshold, your campaigns may not get enough volume to learn and optimize. If your budget is smaller, focus on a single, well-defined audience rather than spreading thin across multiple campaigns.

Why Authentic Content Beats AI-Generated Content

In an era where everyone has access to AI writing tools, the bar for authentic, human-created content has actually gone up. Audiences can sense when content is generic or templated, and the LinkedIn algorithm increasingly rewards genuine engagement over manufactured reach. My advice is to use AI as a research and brainstorming tool, but always inject your genuine experience, unique data, and personal perspective into the final product. The content that converts best is content that only you could have written because it's based on your actual experience.

Get Expert Help From B2Linked

If you want to implement these strategies but need expert guidance, B2Linked is the LinkedIn Ads agency built specifically for B2B companies. With over $200 million in managed LinkedIn ad spend, we bring deep platform expertise to every engagement. Visit b2linked.com to learn how we can help accelerate your LinkedIn advertising results.

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Watch the Full Interview

Watch the complete conversation above for all the details, including a case study of how we helped a client dramatically reduce their cost per lead and the full 2025 LinkedIn advertising playbook. Special thanks to Paul Hurley and the All Dots Connected podcast for hosting this conversation.

The Future of Online Advertising: AJ Wilcox and Dennis Yu on Paid Social in 2022 and Beyond

Posted on by Dennis Yu

By AJ Wilcox

What Does the Future of Paid Social Look Like?

In this webinar facilitated by Phil Gerbyshak, I sat down with Dennis Yu of BlitzMetrics to explore what the future holds for paid social advertising. We covered everything from the rising importance of first-party data to the growing maturity of LinkedIn as an ads platform. Dennis brought deep expertise from the Facebook and Meta side, while I shared insights from managing over $150 million in LinkedIn ad spend at B2Linked. The conversation spans both platforms and reveals where B2B marketers should be focusing their budgets heading into 2023 and beyond.

LinkedIn Ads: Maturing Into a Real Platform

One of the central themes of our discussion was how LinkedIn has been steadily improving its advertising tools. From the introduction of lookalike audiences and target cost bidding to improvements in conversation ads, LinkedIn is closing the gap with more mature platforms. I shared how advertisers are finally getting enough features to run sophisticated campaigns on LinkedIn, though there are still meaningful gaps compared to Meta and Google. The key takeaway is that LinkedIn offers unmatched B2B targeting, and the platform improvements make it a stronger investment every quarter.

Dennis Yu's Dollar a Day Strategy Applied to LinkedIn

Dennis shared his famous Dollar a Day strategy and we discussed how it can apply to LinkedIn advertising. The core idea is to test content with small budgets before scaling winners. On Facebook, Dennis recommends starting at just one dollar per day per audience. On LinkedIn, where costs are higher, the equivalent approach means starting around ten dollars per day. The framework still works beautifully: test thought leadership content with small budgets, measure engagement, and then amplify the winners with larger spend. Dennis emphasized that the combination of authentic content and smart budget allocation works across every paid social platform.

The Rise of First-Party Data and Privacy

We both agreed that the shift away from third-party cookies is changing everything for digital advertisers. Dennis discussed how businesses need to build their own audiences through email lists, customer databases, and engaged communities. On LinkedIn specifically, I noted that uploading company and contact lists gives advertisers a major advantage, especially for account-based marketing. The advertisers who invest in building first-party data now will have a significant competitive advantage as privacy regulations continue to tighten across all platforms.

Cross-Platform Strategy: Facebook and LinkedIn Together

Perhaps the most valuable part of our conversation was the discussion of using Facebook and LinkedIn together. Dennis pointed out that many B2B buyers are reachable on both platforms. A smart strategy uses LinkedIn for top-of-funnel awareness and precise targeting by job title and company, then retargets those same people on Facebook or Instagram where costs are lower. I added that this cross-platform approach can reduce overall cost per acquisition significantly. By combining the targeting strength of LinkedIn with the scale and lower CPMs of Meta, B2B marketers get the best of both worlds.

Get Expert Help From B2Linked

If you want to implement these cross-platform strategies or need help scaling your LinkedIn Ads, reach out to the B2Linked team. B2Linked has managed over $150 million in LinkedIn ad spend and offers custom strategies for every client. Contact them through the B2Linked website to see how they can help you drive results and lower your cost per lead.

Related Articles

– LinkedIn Ads: The Ideal Budget for Your Campaign – how to set the right budget for your LinkedIn campaigns.

– LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads: How to Supercharge Your Campaigns – using personal content to drive brand impact.

– LinkedIn Ads Audience Penetration: Hacks to Optimize Your Reach – learn how to maximize audience coverage.

– Dennis Yu's BlitzMetrics – learn more about the Dollar a Day strategy and digital marketing training.

Watch the Full Conversation

Watch the full 1 hour 27 minute webinar above to hear AJ Wilcox and Dennis Yu discuss the future of paid social advertising. Share your thoughts in the comments or email podcast@b2linked.com.

What LinkedIn Lacks: Can It Become a Tier‑One Ads Platform?

Posted on by Dennis Yu

By AJ Wilcox

Identify What LinkedIn Ads Still Lacks

LinkedIn is investing heavily in video and creator content, but the platform still lacks some of the automation and optimization features advertisers expect. Features like algorithmic bidding, better conversion tracking and the ability to import offline conversions are table stakes on Meta and Google yet missing on LinkedIn. AJ notes that LinkedIn’s API is expanding and the company is pouring money into the creator economy, so he believes these features will eventually roll out. In the meantime, advertisers should focus on fundamentals: crafting clear offers, honing audience targeting and creating ads that speak directly to decision‑makers.

Get Expert Help From B2Linked

If you want help maximizing your return from LinkedIn Ads, reach out to the B2Linked LinkedIn ads specialists. With over $150 million spent across hundreds of accounts, they know how to squeeze value from the platform and can help you build a strategy that works today while preparing for tomorrow’s features.

Watch the Episode & Share Your Thoughts

Watch the full episode below and then join the conversation: what features do you think LinkedIn Ads still needs to become a true tier‑one platform? Share your thoughts in the comments or reach out to the B2Linked team if you’d like expert help crafting and optimizing your LinkedIn Ads campaigns.