LinkedIn Ads
LinkedIn Ads, and
When Not to Run Them
LinkedIn carries the most expensive clicks in paid social and the narrowest fit. For most consumer brands it is the wrong room. Where it does fit, nothing else reaches the same person, and this page is about telling those two cases apart.
The Case
When LinkedIn
Actually Earns Its Cost
Three situations. If none of them describes you, the budget does more on Meta, and it costs nothing to say so.
You sell to businesses
Targeting by job title, company size, industry and seniority is the thing LinkedIn has that nothing else does. If your buyer is a role rather than a person with an interest, this is the only platform that can address them directly.
Your order value is large
Clicks here cost multiples of Meta. That is survivable when one customer is worth thousands and fatal when they are worth forty. The arithmetic is the whole decision, and it is worth doing before the first campaign rather than after.
You are hiring
Recruitment is a legitimate use that has nothing to do with selling, and it is often the first thing a growing ecommerce business genuinely needs LinkedIn for.
Lead Gen Forms
The One Format
Worth Knowing About
If you run anything on LinkedIn, this is usually where it should start.
A Lead Gen Form opens inside LinkedIn and pre-fills from the member’s own profile, so name, company, job title and email arrive without anybody typing them. The friction of a landing page disappears, and so does the mismatch between what somebody types and what is actually true about them.
The trade is that the lead never reaches your site, so they are not in your analytics and they are not cookied for retargeting. Leads also arrive cheaper and softer than from a landing page, because filling a pre-filled form asks almost nothing of the person. That is worth knowing before judging the cost per lead against another channel: the two numbers are not measuring the same commitment.
So the forms need to be wired into wherever leads are followed up, and the qualifying happens after the form rather than in it.
The Work
What Running LinkedIn
Actually Involves
01
Decide it is worth doing
Order value against likely cost per click, before any budget moves. This is the step most often skipped, and it is the one that decides whether everything after it was a waste.
02
Build the audience narrowly
Job function and seniority rather than job title alone, which is inconsistent and self-reported. Audience expansion off by default, because on a platform this expensive a loose audience is money leaving quietly.
03
Track past the form
The Insight Tag on site, and conversions defined at something that matters commercially rather than at the form submission. A cheap lead that never becomes revenue is the standard way this channel flatters itself.
Cost
What LinkedIn Ads Cost,
and Why
Anybody quoting you a cost per click without asking what you sell is quoting a number they read somewhere.
LinkedIn runs an auction like every other platform, so the price is set by who else wants the same person. The people bidding on a senior job title at a large company are usually selling software or services worth thousands per customer, and they can afford to. That sets the floor, and it has nothing to do with what your own product costs.
Three things move your price within that: how narrow the audience is, because a smaller pool is a thinner auction; which format you run, since message formats price per send rather than per click; and how good the creative is, because relevance affects what you pay in the same way it does on every other platform.
The number that matters is not the cost per click but what a customer is worth to you. Expect LinkedIn clicks to cost multiples of Meta. If your gross margin per customer cannot absorb that, the answer is not better bidding, it is a different platform, and that is worth establishing before any budget moves.
Formats
The Formats,
and What Each Is For
Four worth knowing about. The rest are variations on these.
Sponsored Content
A post in the feed, single image, video or carousel. The default, and the one to start with. It behaves most like paid social elsewhere, which makes it the easiest to judge against what you already run.
Lead Gen Forms
Attached to Sponsored Content, opening inside LinkedIn and pre-filling from the profile. Higher conversion, softer leads, and no visit to your site. Covered in full further up this page.
Message Ads
Delivered into the LinkedIn inbox and priced per send rather than per click, so the cost is fixed before anybody engages. Intrusive by nature, and worth reserving for an offer specific enough to justify arriving unannounced.
Document Ads
A document readable in the feed without downloading, usually gated partway through. Suits genuinely useful material and wastes money on anything thin, because the reader can see how good it is before deciding to trade an email for it.
Fit
Who This Is
And Is Not For
Do not run LinkedIn if
- You sell direct to consumers at a normal ecommerce order value
- Your budget is small enough that one platform has to work
- You have not yet made the offer work on a cheaper platform
- You want volume, because this is the narrowest audience in paid social
LinkedIn is worth it if
- You sell to businesses and the buyer is a role rather than an interest
- One customer is worth enough to carry a click that costs multiples of Meta
- You are hiring and want to reach people who are not job hunting
- You already have a follow-up process, because leads arrive soft
Questions
Questions About
LinkedIn Ads
If yours is not here, ask it on the call.
What does a LinkedIn ads consultant cost?
It sits inside the retainer. Channel Management starts at $1,500 a month for one channel, and Growth Partner starts at $4,000 and includes every channel priced as one. Ad spend is separate and paid to the platform.
Why are LinkedIn ads so expensive?
Because the targeting is worth it to advertisers who sell to businesses, and they bid accordingly. You are competing for attention against companies whose customers are worth thousands, which sets the floor regardless of what your product costs.
Are LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms better than a landing page?
They convert at a much higher rate because the form pre-fills from the member’s profile, but the leads are softer for the same reason and they never reach your site, so they are not in your analytics and cannot be retargeted. Use forms for volume, a landing page when you need the visitor on your own property.
Do LinkedIn ads work for ecommerce?
Usually not, and it is worth being direct about that. For a consumer product at a normal order value the same budget does more on Meta. The exceptions are selling to businesses, a genuinely high order value, or hiring.
What is the minimum budget?
LinkedIn enforces its own daily minimums, and beneath a few thousand a month there is rarely enough volume to learn anything before the budget is gone. My own minimum is $5,000 a month in spend for Channel Management.
Can you run LinkedIn alongside Meta and Google?
Yes, and that is the normal case rather than the exception. Growth Partner covers every channel priced as one, which is usually the sensible structure when LinkedIn is a supporting channel rather than the main one.
Pricing
What Does It Cost
to Work Together?
Published, so you can rule me in or out without booking a call.
Channel Management
Starting at $1,500 /month
You own the plan. I run the channels.
- Campaign build and management
- Conversion tracking and reporting
- Monthly performance call
- SEO is not included at this tier
- Additional channels +$500 each
- Minimum ad spend $5,000/month
- 6 month commitment
Most Popular
Growth Partner
Starting at $4,000 /month
I own paid strategy end to end.
- Everything in Channel Management
- Every channel included, priced as one
- SEO included: technical, on-page and content
- Channel mix and budget allocation
- Creative direction and briefs
- Quarterly CRO roadmap
- 25 hours a month included
- Minimum ad spend $10,000/month
- 3 months, then month to month
Fractional CMO
Starting at $7,000 /month
I own the whole marketing function.
- Everything in Growth Partner
- Email, SEO and site direction
- Contractor sourcing and management
- Quarterly planning with you
- 40 hours a month included
- Minimum ad spend $20,000/month
- 6 month commitment
Let’s Talk
Book a free 30 minute call. I will tell you what I would do with your accounts, whether or not you hire me.
Book a Discovery Call
30-minute strategy session
Prefer to Reach Out Directly?
Happy to talk it through over email or a quick call. I usually reply within a few hours on weekdays.
- greg@digitalkarbon.com
- Massachusetts • Nationwide
Who You Talk To
Me, Every Time
What to Expect
- 30 minutes with me, not a salesperson
- What I would change in your account first
- No pitch deck, no obligation