The Ultimate Guide To LinkedIn Ads [+Infographic]

Before Microsoft acquired LinkedIn for $26.2 billion in 2016, the platform was a complete ghost town.

Now in 2021, LinkedIn has around 310 million active monthly users, with 40% of the monthly users logging in to the platform daily.

Naturally, this creates a lot of potential for businesses to reach their target markets.

Believe it or not, LinkedIn is the most effective marketing platform available for many B2B companies.

According to Neil Patel, 93% of B2B marketers say that LinkedIn is the most effective platform for lead generation. And LinkedIn generates more leads for B2B companies than any other platform on the internet today.

Are you also thinking of leveraging LinkedIn to grow your business? Here’s a primer on almost everything you need to know under the sun about LinkedIn ads today and what’s coming down the pipeline.

Here’s your quick navigation for this article.

• LinkedIn Ad Types
• LinkedIn Ad Specs
• How To Create LinkedIn Ads?
• LinkedIn Ads Examples
• How To Edit LinkedIn Ads?
• LinkedIn Ad Pricing: How Much Do LinkedIn Ads Cost?
• How To Stop LinkedIn Ads?
• LinkedIn Ads Best Practices
• Go Forth & Conquer!

Click here to download detailed infographic on LinkedIn ad specs.

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LinkedIn Ad Types

LinkedIn offers a variety of ad types to promote your business. The key remains to choose the most suitable one for your business and make the most of it. Below is a synopsis of the top LinkedIn ad types.

LinkedIn Text Ads

LinkedIn text ads purely consist of pitches in the form of text to drive traffic. If you believe that your ad copy is strong enough to entice your audience, LinkedIn text ads are the best option for you.

Image Source: LinkedIn Marketing Solutions

If you have to target a very focused audience group, using LinkedIn text ads will make it easy for you to set up and manage your ad campaign.

LinkedIn text ads appear in two different formats. Either they appear on the right-hand side of the panel under the Promoted section or at the top of your LinkedIn feed as a single phrase.

Image Source: LinkedIn Marketing Solutions

LinkedIn Video Ads

If you want to show your brand's story to your audience rather than telling them, LinkedIn video ads will help you reach a large audience base. LinkedIn video ads can be easily used for boosting thought leadership, launching new products, sharing your customer experience and testimonials, etc.

LinkedIn Carousel Ads

LinkedIn carousel ads allow you to boost brand awareness and increase brand engagements by conveying your brand's story through a swipeable series of cards and graphics. You can easily add up to 10 different slides containing different images that will help you make your pitch better through LinkedIn carousel ads.

LinkedIn Dynamic Ads

LinkedIn dynamic ads are personalized ads that deliver messages to the influential audience to engage with them. They utilize your LinkedIn profile data like your profile photo, company name, & job title to personalize ads. Since personalized ads automatically tune people, LinkedIn dynamic ads are an excellent way to stand out in your users' feeds.

Image Source: LinkedIn Marketing Solutions

LinkedIn Message Ads

LinkedIn message ads are the most underrated yet effective and one of the most affordable lead generation mediums. LinkedIn message ads take personalized ads one step further by allowing you to send timely private and relevant messages to people who matter most to you.

Image Source: LinkedIn Marketing Solutions

LinkedIn Spotlight Ads

LinkedIn spotlight ads, a type of dynamic ads, directly send users to your website or landing page. You can showcase your products, services, events, etc., using LinkedIn spotlight ads, and when users click on your ad, they'll instantly land on your website or landing page.

LinkedIn Animated Ads

LinkedIn animated ads have now become the talk of the town, with more people wanting this feature. LinkedIn does not provide a direct feature to create animated ads, but with some tricks, you can easily create one. If you wish to create LinkedIn animated ads, here's how you can do it.

Upload GIFs as an

• Image page update format
• An article thumbnail
• In LinkedIn articles

LinkedIn Conversational Ads

LinkedIn conversational ads allow marketers to engage with their target audiences directly through messaging. Unlike message ads, LinkedIn conversation ads allow multiple CTAs within LinkedIn messaging to create an interactive user experience.

Image Source: LinkedIn Marketing Solutions

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LinkedIn Ad Specs

Designing your ads without knowing LinkedIn ad specs would be like shooting an arrow in the dark.

The only difference being your arrow is not allowed to release from the bow till you don’t meet LinkedIn ad specs. LinkedIn offers a helping hand to you by providing ad specs that can keep your campaign errorfree.

LinkedIn Carousel Ad Specs

• Use introductory text up to 150 characters
• A minimum of 2 and a maximum of 10 cards can be used
• The maximum file size of individual cards is 10 MB
• Individual image recommended specs are 1080×1080 pixels with a 1:1 aspect ratio
• Media formats supported are PNG, JPG, and GIF (non-animated)

Check out the complete guide to LinkedIn carousel ad specs.

LinkedIn Video Ad Specs

• Video length to be from 3 seconds to 30 minutes
• File size can be between 75 KB to a maximum of 200 MB
• The file format accepted is MP4 only
• Use less than 30 frames per second
• Video headline to be 70 characters maximum
• Audio formats accepted are AAC or MPEG4 only
• Audio size to be less than 64KHz

Check out the complete guide to LinkedIn video ad specs.

LinkedIn Image Ad Specs

• Introductory text can be maximum of 150 characters
• The headline to be of a maximum of 70 characters
• Description can use 100 characters approximately
• Maximum image size to be 7680 x 4320 pixels
• The maximum file size is 5 MB

Check out the complete guide to LinkedIn image ad specs.

LinkedIn Dynamic Ads Specs

• Ad description can use a maximum of 70 characters
• Ad headline can use a maximum of 50 characters
• Company names can use up to 25 characters
• Company image minimum image size to be 100 x 100px for JPG or PNG formats
• Call-to-action (CTA) button text can use a maximum of 18 characters

Check out the complete guide to LinkedIn dynamic ads specs.

LinkedIn Text Ads Character Limit

• Ad headline: Maximum 25 characters
• Ad description: Maximum 75 characters

Check out the complete guide to LinkedIn text ads specs.

Ideal Audience Size For LinkedIn Ads

• Minimum audience size: 300 members
• LinkedIn's suggestion to drive successful results for your campaign: 50000 members
• Ideal audience size for LinkedIn message ads: 300,000 members
• Ideal audience size for LinkedIn text ads: 60,000 to 400,000 members

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How To Create LinkedIn Ads?

If you are new to this advertising platform and have just started advertising, LinkedIn suggests these three simple steps lay the foundation and set you up to derive strong results.

1. To get started, create a LinkedIn page and post high-quality content to improve your bid auction results.
2. To create a customized campaign, select your objectives and decide what actions you want your audience to take after seeing your ad.
3. Get hold of all the LinkedIn ad types and formats.

Step 1: Create your campaign manager account

Campaign manager allows you to set up LinkedIn ad accounts, run your campaigns, and control your budget. To get started with creating excellent ads, all you need is a LinkedIn account and a credit/debit card.

Click on Campaign Manager to create your ad account. You will be asked to sign-in/log in to your LinkedIn account if you are not logged in. Once you have completed filling in all details, click on "Agree & Create account."

Note: Account name can be of 100 characters only.

To learn more about LinkedIn ad campaign managers, check out LinkedIn’s complete guide from here.

Step 2: Select a suitable objective for your campaign

If you are unsure of where you are heading with respect to your campaign, how will you even achieve your campaign goals? Hence, to create alluring LinkedIn ads, you need to define an objective that will impact your entire campaign, right from ad type to the budget.

Figure out everything about your audience, like who they are, what they want, & where you can prove to be of use to them. And then choose your campaign objective that best fits your marketing need. LinkedIn provides a wide range of objectives to select from corresponding to different parts of the marketing funnel.

Step 3: Build the perfect target audience

Next, you need to select by whom you would like your ads to be viewed and possibly those with a maximum probability of converting. LinkedIn is the perfect matchmaker for your ad campaign due to the detailed employment information it collects from its users. This feature of LinkedIn enables you to target people based on highly accurate data.

Image Source: LinkedIn Marketing Solutions

Protip: Save an audience once you have created it so you can use them in your other campaigns. This will enable you to skip this process in the future when you create similar targeting campaigns.

Next, you will have to customize your location settings. Click on the pencil icon on the right-hand side to expand the menu. You can start with the continent level and then proceed to select the country and the regions.

Apart from choosing the locations you wish to include, you can set the exclusions as well. Click on the drop-down menu, and a search box will appear to select locations.

An essential yet critical step in personalizing your ads is selecting profile language. LinkedIn offers 19 different language options.

From here, you start to choose granular targeting criteria for your campaign. Once you click on "Narrow" or "Exclude," you can choose from five different categories.

Once you have selected your target audience, your forecasted campaign results will appear on the right-hand side. The forecast results will automatically update if your make any changes in your target audience selection or campaign budget.

Image Source: LinkedIn Marketing Solutions

Step 4: Choose the optimal placement for your LinkedIn ad

If you want your campaign to gain more exposure and reach among LinkedIn's third-party platforms and sites, check the box of "Enable the LinkedIn Audience Network. "

LinkedIn allows you to exclude and block certain categories, applications, and sites in the network if you don't want your LinkedIn ads to be displayed on all certain networks. But this option is not available for every LinkedIn ad type.

Step 5: Pick the right LinkedIn ad type

The LinkedIn ad type you choose will depend upon your campaign objective and your budget.

Step 6: Place the best bid and budget

To ensure your LinkedIn ads are cost-effective, you must bid high enough that will help you to get exposure. But you should not bid so high that it leads you to spend more than actually needed.

Striking the right balance between the two is hard, especially when you're just getting started. The campaign manager will suggest a budget range based on current competing bids for your target audience.

You can either set a lifetime budget or daily budget or both as per your choice as the bidding frequency.

Once you select the budget type, you will be required to enter the amount you would like to spend according to the chosen frequency. Based on the budget type you select, you will have to choose a schedule for your campaign.

Note: The start date for the campaign will automatically set itself to the current date. You can select a future if you want your campaign to start.

When it comes to selecting an affordable bidding strategy, LinkedIn automatically sets and adjusts your bid according to your budget without stringent oversight required. LinkedIn also allows you to choose optimization goals to make the most of your budget, keeping in mind your requirement.

The optimization goals and the bidding strategy options that LinkedIn allows you to choose from will depend upon the objective you select.

Step 7: Track and field the efforts of your conversion (optional)

If you wish to track the action taken by your audience after they view your ad, you should also set "Conversion tracking" while setting up your campaign.

LinkedIn will ask you to choose from one of the below options (actions) that you want your audience to complete upon selecting this option.

Step 8: Create captivating ads that get all the clicks you want

Now, you are all set to create attractive and compelling ads for your campaign. As you create LinkedIn sponsored content and LinkedIn text ads, your campaign manager will generate previews for you on the right-hand side of the page.

To preview LinkedIn text ads, you can try sending a test message to yourself to preview. Learn more about How to Preview and Test a Sponsored Messaging Ad.

Image Source: LinkedIn Marketing Solutions

Step 9: Add your billing information to complete the ad set-up

The final step for launching a LinkedIn ad campaign is setting up your payment details. You need to enter your debit or credit card details and save them. After that, your campaign will enter a review process before its launched and made live.

LinkedIn reviews the new ads to verify their ad guidelines. This process by LinkedIn usually takes less than 24 hours.

Image Source: LinkedIn Marketing Solutions

Once your campaign is active, you can gather data and insights that will help you optimize and improve your campaign results. These data will help you draw conclusions and tweak several campaign elements based on what you see in the performance categories.

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LinkedIn Ads Examples

When creating LinkedIn ads at first, it can be hard to get hold of intriguing ideas. That's why we have compiled some of the best LinkedIn ads examples that will spark your creativity to create the next successful LinkedIn ad campaign.

LinkedIn Video Ad Examples

The Department of Culture and Tourism (DCT) of a world-renowned metropolis, Abu Dhabi, wanted to create an ad campaign that would not just capture the attention of new travelers but also those already traveling to the city. They created a video series of 'made in Abu Dhabi' experiences and used them in a LinkedIn video ad.

Some fantastic results of this LinkedIn video ad campaign are

• The engagement rate increased by 22% than the regular travel and tourism industry benchmark on LinkedIn.
• Uplift in company page visits by 45% month on month.

Image Source: LinkedIn Marketing Solutions

Examples Of LinkedIn Carousel Ads

Cotton Incorporated wanted to run a trade-focused campaign using which they were looking for a way to build awareness about their services. Adopting LinkedIn carousel ads in their campaign helped them connect with decision-makers in multiple industries, including fashion and retail.

Compared to their static ads, carousel ads increased CTRs and improved engagements with 200+ clicks per ad.

Image Source: LinkedIn Marketing Solutions

LinkedIn Single Image Ad Examples

Glassdoor for Employers is one of the best LinkedIn single image ad examples. The images they use in their ads catch the user's attention. Along with that, the ad's headline is clear, to the point, and states exactly what they offer.

Image Source: Glassdoor for Employers LinkedIn

LinkedIn Spotlight Ads Examples

One of the world's largest accounting bodies, CPA Australia, wanted to extend the visibility of its content to drive awareness for the training and career opportunities it offered. After they adopted LinkedIn spotlight ads, their content reached beyond their followers base, and the results were as below.

• Average click-through rate of 1%
• Up to 4% engagement rate
• 10% average conversion rate from click-through to becoming followers

Image Source: LinkedIn Marketing Solutions

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How To Edit LinkedIn Ads?

Many LinkedIn ads types can be edited to meet LinkedIn’s ad guidelines. Single image sponsored content cannot be edited as it is connected to your company Page.

LinkedIn message ads and LinkedIn conversation ads can be edited if the message has not been sent to your audience. Once the message ad is approved and delivered to the target audience, it can't be edited as they have landed in your audience's inbox then.

Your ad objective and campaign group cannot be changed once the campaign goes live. You won't be able to change your campaign budget type from a daily to a monthly budget via editing.

Edit LinkedIn ads directly in campaign manager using the below steps.

1. Login to your campaign manager and select the campaign group whose ad you wish to edit.
2. Click on the three horizontal dots at the right side of the campaign, which needs to be edited.
3. From the drop-down menu opened, select "Manage."
4. Scroll to that section of the campaign set-up that you desire to update. Make the necessary changes to the available fields and click on "Next."

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LinkedIn Ad Pricing: How Much Do LinkedIn Ads Cost?

LinkedIn ad pricing is objective-based. The campaign objective you chose broadly determines what you will be charged for.

Every campaign objective has different billable events. You will be charged when the event occurs. So, billable events are what you get charged for by LinkedIn.

Your campaign objective will determine your ad formats, bidding strategies, & optimization goals that are available and best suited for your campaign. LinkedIn has prepared a chart that outlines which optimization goals & campaign strategies correspond to the chargeable event.

LinkedIn ads require a $10 minimum for daily budget and a $320 minimum for lifetime budget. If you select daily and lifetime budget, then your daily budget needs to be a minimum of $10 and your lifetime budget needs to be a minimum of $5.

The actual budget of your LinkedIn ad campaign depends upon the amount of activity your campaign receives and the second-highest bidder's price.

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How To Stop LinkedIn Ads?

If you realize that some of your ads are underperforming and you would like to stop them and spend the same budget on a newly created ad, LinkedIn allows you to pause ads. Pausing LinkedIn ads is also a good idea if you wish to carry out A/B testing with several ads and see which LinkedIn ad type works best for your brand.

Learn how to stop LinkedIn ads that are running using the below steps.

1. Login to your campaign manager and select the campaign group whose ad you wish to edit.
2. Scroll to the ad you desire to stop. Click on the down-pointing arrow shown on the right-hand side of "Active" in the Status column.
3. From the drop-down menu opened, select "Paused."

Image Source: LinkedIn Marketing Solutions

How To Stop LinkedIn Ads Campaign?

1. Log in to your Campaign Manager and select the campaign group whose ad campaign you wish to stop.
2. Go to the correct campaign name and click on the pencil icon from the pop-up.
3. Click on the down-pointing arrow shown on the right-hand side of "Actions" from the top side and click on "Pause campaign."

Image Source: LinkedIn Marketing Solutions

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LinkedIn Ads Best Practices

Just like any other social advertisement, LinkedIn ads would be tricky to master at the start. If you are running LinkedIn ads but not getting the expected results, try out this set of LinkedIn ads best practices to get things right.

• Select the ad objective that best fits your campaign goals. If your ads fall under multiple categories, choose your primary goal as the foundation of your ad campaign.
• Make sure your LinkedIn messages ads are not just sales pitches. Offer value to your audience; otherwise, they will most likely add your message as spam.
• Switch from traditional media to animated GIFs to experience a tremendous boost in your engagements and marketing endeavors.
• Choose your target precisely because LinkedIn charges you for every click that's made on your ad. So make every click count by targeting those who have maximum chances of covering.
• Identify the LinkedIn ad type that works best for your business. Find your flavor, mix it with the industry's trend and create memorable ads with it.
• Release your LinkedIn ads at several places so that your brand remains on top of their mind. Advertise in their feed as well on their messaging inbox to create multiple touchpoints.
• Leave jargon out of your ad copy and write in simple, understandable language to create an impactful ad copy that your audience comprehends and engages with.

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Go Forth & Conquer!

A LinkedIn ad account is the greatest asset to have for your business. LinkedIn as a paid advertising platform gives more targeting options that allow you to reach out to a wide range of businesses & consumers alike.

You now have all the tips in your arsenal to get started with creating a rockstar-level LinkedIn ads campaign.

The only thing left to do is to actually implement these learnings for your brand.

So, go forth and conquer LinkedIn ads today!

Statusbrew helps you cultivate an online presence on LinkedIn to make your brand stand out, all from a single dashboard. Statusbrew's Compose feature allows you to target audience natively on LinkedIn so that your campaign gets delivered to the right people at the right time.

You can moderate comments and mentions, filter out conversations, create an organized conversation for every engagement to generate business easily from LinkedIn.

By composing and scheduling content and building efficient and secure team workflows with permission-based access, your everyday task gets automated with minimal errors.

Want to discuss further? Book a free demo or start your free trial today!

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