If you’ve ever uttered the words “LinkedIn ads don’t work”, you need to read on. LinkedIn ads can be a goldmine for B2B marketers – but they can also be one of the fastest ways to drain your budget if you don’t know the inside tricks. The platform is expensive, competition is fierce, and LinkedIn’s default settings are designed to spend your budget quickly, and make them the most money, which isn’t an efficient approach to any ads management strategy.
At Conv3rt Marketing, we’ve run enough campaigns to know what really works. Here’s our no-fluff guide to running LinkedIn ads that deliver results without burning cash.
1. Switch Off the LinkedIn Audience Network (LAN)
By default, LinkedIn will push your ads onto third-party partner sites through the LinkedIn Audience Network. On paper, it sounds good – broader reach, more clicks, more exposure. In practice, it’s usually where your budget goes to die.
The LAN often hoovers up your daily spend within hours, leaving you with clicks that are low quality at best and bot traffic at worst. Even worse, you lose visibility and control over where your ads are actually being shown. If you want to keep your spend working for you, turn it off and keep your ads where they belong – on LinkedIn itself.
2. Take Control With Manual Bidding
This is one of the biggest money-savers. LinkedIn will try to nudge you towards Maximum Delivery (default setting), which charges you for impressions. The problem? Impressions don’t tell you much about intent. With Manual Bidding, you pay for clicks instead, which are far more insightful because they reflect actual engagement.
Here’s how to make it work: start with a low CPC bid (around $7 in North America or £5 in the UK) and let it run. If you’re not spending your daily budget, nudge the bid up a little every few days until you are. Be sure to ignore LinkedIn’s recommended costs – again, these numbers are usually going to be more lucrative for LinkedIn and less efficient for your budget. This approach ensures every pound or dollar is working harder.
Yes, it takes a bit more monitoring, but the control you gain is worth it. Rather than LinkedIn spending your budget as fast as possible, you’re only paying for real clicks that give you usable data and actual leads. And yes, £5 per click as a starting point may seem high if you’re used to 10p CPCs or less on Meta, but remember that the data that LinkedIn have generated on their users and companies is a goldmine for B2B marketers and therefore, a much more expensive platform to advertise on.
3. Go Square With Your Creatives
Most LinkedIn users are on mobile. And on mobile, square creatives take up more space, grab more attention, and simply perform better than traditional landscape formats. If you’re still designing in the old-school 1200×628 format, you’re underselling yourself. Build for mobile first, and think square.
4. Use Thought Leader Ads to Warm Your Funnel
One of LinkedIn’s most powerful – and underused – formats right now is Thought Leader Ads. These aren’t company posts; they’re ads delivered from personal profiles but run through LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager. It’s a brilliant way to get your people in front of exactly the right audience.
They work best at the top of the funnel. Instead of trying to sell straight away, use them to share insights, perspectives, and stories from your execs, founders, or subject matter experts. This builds credibility and positions your brand as trustworthy and human. Once you’ve earned that attention, you can retarget engagers with lead generation campaigns further down the funnel. It’s a natural, low-friction way to move people from awareness to action. Creative for this ad format isn’t essential – as shown in the example below.
5. Don’t Forget Retargeting Windows
Retargeting is where LinkedIn ads really earn their keep, but too many advertisers only build one broad audience. Instead, experiment with different time windows – say, 30, 60, and 90 days – and tailor your messaging accordingly. Someone who engaged last week is closer to converting than someone who clicked three months ago, so don’t talk to them in the same way.
6. Nail Your CTA and Offer
Because LinkedIn ads are expensive, you can’t afford to waste clicks on weak CTAs. People aren’t there for “Click Here” or “Learn More.” They’re there for value. Whether it’s a guide, a webinar, or a practical checklist, your offer needs to be clear, relevant, and worth their time.
LinkedIn’s audience is in a professional mindset – they’re not doom-scrolling like on other platforms. If your ad makes it obvious how you can help them do their job better, they’ll respond.
7. Track Beyond the Click
It’s tempting to optimise for CTR or impressions because they look good on a dashboard, but they don’t pay the bills. Make sure you’ve got LinkedIn’s Insight Tag set up and track the actions that matter – demo requests, form fills, or sign-ups. Measure what’s actually driving pipeline, not just what’s racking up likes. Use the Conversions API to track website actions or use ‘thank you’ pages as the trigger when setting up your conversion events – if the user opts out of tracking though, this data won’t be fed back to the platform so always check real conversion figures on a website tracking tool like Google Analytics.
Final Word: LinkedIn Ads Are Expensive – But Worth It (When Done Right)
Most LinkedIn campaigns underperform not because the audience isn’t there, but because the setup is wrong. Switch off wasteful settings, control your spend, use the right formats, and focus on engagement that drives business outcomes – not vanity metrics.
Done right, LinkedIn ads are one of the most effective ways to reach B2B buyers. Done wrong, they’re just a very expensive experiment.
At Conv3rt Marketing, we help businesses cut through LinkedIn’s complexity with ad strategies that actually convert. From precise targeting to creatives that stop the scroll, we make sure every penny works harder. If you’re tired of pouring budget into ads that don’t deliver, let’s talk.