Draft: hidden from Google until Dan signs it off.
LinkedIn Ads let you put your business in front of people by job title, seniority, company, industry and company size, which no other platform does as well for B2B. Clicks usually cost more than on Google or Meta, so the work is choosing who really matters, showing up often enough to be remembered, and judging it on deals rather than form fills. I run LinkedIn alongside Google and Meta for B2B companies across Australia, from the Central Coast, NSW.
Written by Dan Picken, founder. Last checked 28 October 2026.Audience first
B2B deals are rarely one person's call. The person who uses the product, the one who signs, and the one who has to make it work all need a different reason to say yes. Most LinkedIn accounts target one job title with one message. I work out who's actually in the buying group from your own deals, then give each of them something worth remembering.
Map the buying group
From won and lost deals: who uses it, who signs, who blocks. Each gets a reason to say yes.
Build audiences that match
By role, seniority, company size and industry, checked against the 300-member minimum and your budget.
One message per person
The user hears about their day. The person who signs hears about risk and cost. The blocker hears how easy it is.
Worked example: payroll software for mid-sized companies
Same product, same company, two people in the buying group:
The payroll manager
Sees it in their feed between two posts about end of financial year
The CFO
Sees a short post from your founder, promoted as a Thought Leader Ad
One ad for 'finance people' would half-suit both. Two ads, each for one person in the group, get remembered by both.
From my audits
LinkedIn clicks aren't cheap, so mistakes cost more here than anywhere. These are the ones I find most.
People who have never heard of you are asked to hand over their details on day one. The leads come in, and sales can't reach any of them.
A carefully built audience widened to people who only look similar, often without anyone noticing. Worth a deliberate decision, not a default.
Five campaigns at the minimum spend, each reaching a sliver of its audience once. Nobody remembers any of them.
'Leading provider of innovative solutions.' It could be anyone's ad, so nobody remembers whose it was.
The cheapest leads win the budget, and they are usually the least likely to buy. Nobody checks which campaigns produced deals.
The same ad shown to the same small audience for months. By month three, they've stopped seeing it.
How LinkedIn decides who sees your ad
LinkedIn's targeting is precise, which tempts people to make audiences tiny and budgets thin. These are the parts that decide whether an account works.
You choose people by job title or function, seniority, company, industry, company size and more.
What I do: Start from the buying group in your won deals, not a list of every title that sounds right.
LinkedIn needs at least 300 members in an audience for a campaign to run.
What I do: Very narrow audiences are allowed but expensive to reach often. Check the reach planner below.
The minimum daily budget is $10 for any ad format.
What I do: The minimum runs. It rarely reaches enough of an audience often enough to be remembered.
LinkedIn can take in offline conversions such as phone sales and event leads, including through its Conversions API.
What I do: Send back which leads became deals, so you and LinkedIn can see which campaigns produce revenue, not just forms.
Thought Leader Ads let you promote posts from employees or other members, with their permission.
What I do: A useful post from your founder or an engineer often gets more attention than the same point from a company page.
Worth knowing: LinkedIn's own benchmarks and case studies are written by LinkedIn. I treat them like any platform's claims about itself, and judge your account on your own CRM numbers.
Reach planner
On LinkedIn the question isn't only 'how many clicks?'. It's whether the right people see you often enough to remember you when they're ready to buy, which for most of them isn't this month. Put in your own numbers.
Average views per person, per month
1.3
Averages hide a lot: some people see an ad many times, others never. The 'about right' band (roughly 2 to 6 views a month) is my rule of thumb from running accounts, not a LinkedIn figure.
Consumer psychology
Most people who see a LinkedIn ad will not buy for months or years. The research on what makes them remember you when they do is clear.
01Most of the year
LinkedIn's B2B Institute and Ehrenberg-Bass argue that most of your future buyers are not in the market at any one time.
An ad that only works on people buying this month is talking to a small slice of the audience.
What I do: Split the budget: some to be remembered by the many, some to capture the few who are ready now.
02Planning the budget
Binet and Field's B2B analysis suggested about 46% brand building and 54% activation as a starting balance for B2B.
All-leads, no-brand accounts tend to get cheaper leads and fewer deals over time.
What I do: Treat the split as a starting point, then test it against your own pipeline.
03Seeing the ad again
Zajonc found that simply seeing something more often makes people like it more.
Familiarity matters. A buyer who has seen you a few times is more open when you finally speak.
What I do: Keep the same people seeing you over months, with fresh creative so it never feels like the same ad.
04Feeling it
Binet says brand building is primarily emotional and activation primarily rational, even in B2B.
B2B buyers are still people. Relief, pride and fear of getting it wrong stick better than a feature list.
What I do: Lead with the feeling of the problem, then the facts. Save the specs for the website.
Research by psychologists and economists, not me. I've linked each study and kept my part to what it means for your ads.
Method: Buyer State Mapping
On LinkedIn you are mostly interrupting people, not answering a search. So the ad has to suit where they are, not where you want them to be.
1Not looking
Scrolling the feed on the train
B2B
2Starting to look
Has visited your site twice this month
B2B
3Ready to talk
Visited your pricing page last week
B2B
Ad types
LinkedIn has a lot of formats. Most accounts only need two or three. Here's what each is for.
Posts in the feed, sponsored to your audience.
Best for: Being remembered by people who are not buying yet. The workhorse of most accounts.
Promoted posts from a real person, like your founder or a specialist, with their permission.
Best for: When a person has something useful to say. Usually better than the same point from the company page.
A guide or checklist people can read in the feed.
Best for: Giving something useful away. Gate it only if it's worth an email address.
A form that opens inside LinkedIn, pre-filled from the profile.
Best for: Warm audiences who already know you. Easy to fill in, so check the leads are real.
Ads to people who visited your site, watched your video or opened a form.
Best for: Moving people who are interested towards a conversation. Small audiences, so watch frequency.
How it works
I check who you are reaching, how often, what it costs and whether it turns into deals. Top 3 fixes and a 20-minute call.
From your won and lost deals, then audiences built to match and checked for reach.
A message for each person in the group, with Thought Leader Ads where you have someone worth hearing from.
Offline conversions from your CRM, so the account is judged on pipeline, not forms.
What you get
Signals this works on
Out of the 8 signals every page and ad sends.
Often, when you sell to specific roles or company types and have a buying cycle longer than a few weeks. Clicks typically cost more than on Google or Meta, so judge LinkedIn on deals, not cost per lead.
LinkedIn's minimum daily budget is $10 for any ad format. Whether that's enough depends on your audience size. The reach planner on this page shows how often your audience would see you.
A campaign needs at least 300 members in its audience to run. Small audiences are fine for account-based campaigns, but they are expensive to reach often.
Ads that promote a post from a person, like an employee or expert, with their permission, instead of from the company page.
For warm audiences, yes: they are easy to fill in. For people who have never heard of you, they tend to produce leads sales can't reach. Check every lead source against what turns into deals.
Yes. LinkedIn accepts offline conversions, including through its Conversions API or a CSV upload, so you can see which campaigns led to sales.
Usually both, for different jobs. Google catches people already searching. LinkedIn reaches the right people before they search, so they know your name when they do.
Takes a minute. You'll hear back within 1 to 2 business days.
What happens next
Keep going