Tag: LinkedIn targeting

By AJ Wilcox

In this PPC Town Hall episode, I walk through the three-stage LinkedIn Ads funnel that has consistently 5Xed conversions for our clients at B2Linked. Frederick Vallaeys and I discuss why traditional direct-response approaches fail on LinkedIn and what to do instead.

Why Direct-Response Fails on LinkedIn

Most B2B advertisers approach LinkedIn the same way they approach Google Ads — target the right people and ask them to convert immediately. The problem is that LinkedIn users are in discovery mode, not buying mode. They're consuming content, networking, and staying informed. Asking a cold audience to fill out a demo request form on first contact is like proposing on a first date. The intent mismatch explains why so many companies waste money on LinkedIn.

Stage 1: Awareness With Value-Driven Content

The first stage of the funnel focuses on building awareness and establishing credibility. Serve educational, value-rich content to your target audience — think industry insights, original research, thought-provoking perspectives, and practical how-to content. The goal isn't to generate leads; it's to make your brand familiar and trusted. Use Sponsored Content ads to put this content in front of your ideal buyers. Track engagement metrics at this stage rather than conversion metrics.

Stage 2: Engagement Through Retargeting

Once people have engaged with your awareness content, they move into stage two. Retarget these warm audiences with deeper content — case studies, detailed webinars, comprehensive guides, and video testimonials. These people already know who you are, so you can go deeper. The key is using LinkedIn's retargeting capabilities: video view audiences, engagement audiences, and website visitor audiences. This stage builds the consideration that precedes a purchase decision.

Stage 3: Conversion for Warm Audiences Only

The conversion ask — demo requests, consultations, free trials — should only go to people who've progressed through stages one and two. These are people who've consumed your content, visited your website, and demonstrated genuine interest. Your conversion rates at this stage will be dramatically higher than cold outreach because you've earned the right to ask. This patient approach consistently delivers 5X or better improvement in conversion rates compared to single-stage campaigns.

Google vs LinkedIn: Intent vs Identity

Frederick and I also discuss the fundamental difference between Google and LinkedIn advertising. Google captures intent — people actively searching for solutions. LinkedIn captures identity — you know exactly who you're reaching by their professional profile. These are complementary, not competing, channels. The smartest B2B marketers use Google to capture existing demand and LinkedIn to create new demand among their ideal buyers.

Get Expert Help From B2Linked

Want to implement this three-stage funnel for your business? B2Linked has perfected this approach across hundreds of campaigns and over $200 million in LinkedIn ad spend. Visit b2linked.com to learn how we can help you build a LinkedIn Ads strategy that consistently converts.

Related Articles

• AJ Wilcox's Playbook for LinkedIn Growth: Strategies from $200M in Ad Spend
• Free LinkedIn Ads Masterclass: The Complete Guide to B2B Advertising on LinkedIn
• Audience Penetration: How Much of Your Audience Are Your LinkedIn Ads Actually Reaching?

Watch the Full Episode

Watch the complete PPC Town Hall episode above for the full funnel breakdown, including live examples and a Q&A session. Thanks to Frederick Vallaeys and the PPC Town Hall team for hosting this deep dive.

By AJ Wilcox

In this comprehensive masterclass hosted by Real Business Connections, I walk through everything you need to know to launch, optimize, and scale LinkedIn Ads campaigns that drive real B2B results. This is the same framework I use at B2Linked to manage campaigns for companies ranging from startups to enterprise organizations.

What Sets LinkedIn Ads Apart From Other Platforms

LinkedIn is the only advertising platform where you can target professionals based on their actual business identity — job title, company, industry, seniority level, skills, and more. This means you're not guessing whether your ad is reaching decision-makers; you know it is. Other platforms can approximate this through interest-based or behavioral targeting, but LinkedIn has the definitive professional data because people update their own profiles with accurate career information.

Campaign Structure Fundamentals

The foundation of any successful LinkedIn Ads strategy is proper campaign structure. I recommend organizing campaigns by audience segment so you can clearly see which groups are performing. Each campaign should have a single, well-defined audience with a consistent message. This gives you the granular control needed to optimize effectively, rather than lumping everything together and hoping for the best.

Choosing the Right Ad Format

LinkedIn offers several ad formats, and choosing the right one depends on your goals. Sponsored Content (single image and video ads in the feed) is the workhorse format for most campaigns. Thought Leader Ads, which amplify organic posts from personal profiles, are the newest and most engaging format. Message Ads can work for highly targeted offers but should be used sparingly to avoid being perceived as spam. Document Ads are excellent for sharing valuable content like reports or guides directly in the feed.

Targeting Best Practices

Effective targeting on LinkedIn requires balancing specificity with audience size. Too broad and you waste money reaching irrelevant people; too narrow and your campaigns won't deliver enough volume. I typically recommend audiences between 20,000 and 80,000 for single image ads and slightly larger for video campaigns. Layer targeting dimensions like job function plus seniority plus company size to build focused audiences that are still large enough to optimize.

Bidding and Budget Optimization

One of the most impactful optimizations on LinkedIn is switching from the default Maximum Delivery bidding to manual CPC bidding. This single change can reduce your costs significantly. Start by bidding near the lower end of LinkedIn's suggested range and increase only if you're not getting enough delivery. For budget, I recommend a minimum of $3,000 to $5,000 per month to generate enough data for meaningful optimization.

Get Expert Help From B2Linked

Ready to put these strategies into practice? B2Linked is the only agency focused exclusively on LinkedIn advertising. We bring over $200 million in managed spend experience to every campaign we touch. Visit b2linked.com to learn how we can help you achieve better results from your LinkedIn Ads investment.

Related Articles

• Ideal LinkedIn Ads Budget: How to Set Yourself Up for Success
• LinkedIn Advertising: Waste of Time or B2B Gold Mine?
• Thought Leader Ads: The Future of LinkedIn Advertising

Watch the Full Masterclass

Watch the complete masterclass above for the full walkthrough including live campaign examples, audience building demonstrations, and advanced optimization techniques. Thanks to Real Business Connections for hosting this session.

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.

Related Articles

• Ideal LinkedIn Ads Budget: How to Set Yourself Up for Success
• Thought Leader Ads: The Future of LinkedIn Advertising
• Audience Penetration: How Much of Your Audience Are Your LinkedIn Ads Actually Reaching?

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.

By AJ Wilcox

What Is Audience Penetration in LinkedIn Ads?

Audience penetration measures the percentage of your target audience that has seen at least one impression of your ad. It’s calculated by dividing the unique reach of your campaign by the total audience size. This metric provides a clear view of how well your ads are reaching the people you care about.

Hack #1: Calculate Your Total Audience Size

LinkedIn only gives an estimated audience size when you’re setting up a campaign. By using the audience penetration metric together with your unique reach data, you can reverse-engineer the actual size of your audience. For example, if your campaign has reached 5,000 unique people and your penetration rate is 5%, you know your true audience size is around 100,000 people.

Hack #2: Understand How Bids Affect Reach

Audience penetration also helps you test the effect of your bid on reach. Start with a baseline bid, then gradually raise or lower your bid while tracking the penetration rate. If increasing your bid results in more reach, you’ll see penetration rise; if not, you might be hitting a ceiling or encountering diminishing returns. This hack helps you allocate budget more efficiently.

Hack #3: Measure Audience Overlap

You can use audience penetration to see whether two campaigns are hitting the same people. By comparing the penetration rates for different audience segments, you can estimate how much overlap exists between them. This insight lets you refine your targeting, avoid wasting budget on duplicate impressions, and ensure you’re reaching unique segments.

Get Expert Help From B2Linked

Want to make sure you’re leveraging audience penetration and other advanced metrics correctly? Reach out to the B2Linked LinkedIn ads specialists. Their team has managed over $150 million in spend and can help you set up campaigns, interpret metrics and scale results. They’ll also introduce you to our LinkedIn Ads Fanatics community for ongoing support.

Watch the Full Episode & Join the Conversation

Watch the full episode below, then share your thoughts. Have you tried using the audience penetration metric yet?

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Related Articles: How to Build a Unique Personal Brand in 2024 – strategies for building your brand with vertical or horizontal videos. Blog Posting Guidelines for Repurposing Long-Form Videos – learn our process for repurposing long-form videos into articles.

LinkedIn Ads Lightning Tip ⚡⚡⚡

If you plan to retarget website visitors on LinkedIn Ads, set up the Matched Audience before you start advertising because LinkedIn can't track website traffic retroactively.