The Ultimate Guide to LinkedIn Advertising

Social media advertising remains one of the most effective ways to promote your brand and connect with your desired customers.

However, successfully advertising on LinkedIn requires a strategy that can specifically target business-to-business (B2B) audiences.

In this LinkedIn marketing guide, we’ll dive into the many different elements that go into building a LinkedIn ad campaign that effectively reaches your ideal customers and achieves your advertising goals.

We’ll look at the following points:

• What Are LinkedIn Ads?
• 4 Types of LinkedIn Ads
• Pros and Cons of LinkedIn Advertising
• How To Advertise on LinkedIn: 8 Steps
• 5 LinkedIn Advertising Best Practices
• What’s New in LinkedIn for 2026?

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What Are LinkedIn Ads?

LinkedIn is the premier professional social networking site for companies and professionals across multiple industries worldwide. Due to its unique and highly targeted user base, it has become the top social media platform business-to-business (B2B) brands use to promote their business and connect with customers. Many companies looking to establish themselves as thought leaders hire dedicated LinkedIn marketing agencies to work on their brands.

LinkedIn ads refer to paid advertising solutions offered by LinkedIn to help businesses and professionals reach their target audience. These ads are particularly effective in supporting B2B marketing and recruitment efforts, driving brand awareness, website traffic and lead generation.

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4 Types of LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn Ad campaigns are perfect for connecting with industry leaders, decision-makers and professionals. If you’re looking to leverage this platform for your marketing efforts, it pays to understand the ad types it offers.

“LinkedIn offers a mix of ad types to cater to various marketing goals. From Sponsored Content and InMail messages to Document Ads and Conversation Ads, each format serves a unique purpose. The key is to match the ad type with your objective — whether you’re building awareness, driving engagement or capturing leads,” said Nada Khafaga, Client Content Manager at Thrive Internet Marketing Agency.

Here’s a quick LinkedIn ads guide for the different ad formats you can use in your campaigns:

1. Sponsored Content

Sponsored content or native ads blend seamlessly into people’s LinkedIn feeds. These ads appear and feel like regular posts, making them less disruptive and more engaging. This format is excellent for driving traffic, interacting with your audience and boosting brand visibility, whether you’re launching a new product or just sharing your insights.

For example, your page can post an infographic and turn it into a sponsored post. This way, audiences can interact and comment on your ad, increasing engagement and potential conversions. This type of ad can come in different formats, including:

• Single Image Ads: Post a single, straightforward image with a corresponding caption in your in-feed ads. This format is perfect for making announcements or highlighting a new product or service.

• Video Ads: Engage professional audiences with native videos showcasing your company’s unique offerings. Use video to tell a story, demonstrate a product or service or create an emotional connection with your audience.

• Carousel Ads: Tell a story or showcase multiple products and services through a series of images on your audience’s feeds.

• Event Ads: Specifically designed to promote events, these ads help drive registrations and attendance. Use them for webinars, conferences and other professional gatherings.

• Document Ads: Share relevant documents or resources, such as white papers, case studies, templates, eBooks or brochures directly in the feed, encouraging downloads and engagement.

• Thought Leader Ads: Highlight the knowledge and expertise of your company’s leaders by showcasing them in an ad, building credibility.

• Click-to-Message Ads: Encourage direct interaction by allowing your audience to message your business directly from the ad. This ad type works well for inquiries, consultations or support.

2. Sponsored Messaging

Sponsored messaging allows you to deliver personalized messages directly to your target audience’s inbox. It’s great for direct engagement, making it ideal for businesses wanting to connect with specific people.

This ad format reaches your target directly, ensuring your message doesn’t get lost in the feed. It’s an excellent way to spur direct action, especially when promoting events or personalized offers.

There are two main types of sponsored messaging on LinkedIn:

• Conversation Ads: These are interactive ads that allow recipients to choose a specific response path, much like a choose-your-own-adventure book. This format is great for nurturing leads or guiding them through a set journey.

• Message Ads: Send one-on-one messages to specific individuals with a clear call to action (CTA). This ad format is ideal for product announcements or invitations.

3. Lead Generation Forms

Lead generation efforts are crucial to attracting sales and LinkedIn allows you to promote lead generation forms as an in-platform ad. This format makes it a lot easier to collect valuable contact information from prospective customers.

What makes this ad format unique is that the form fields can come pre-filled with audience information, such as their name, job title or location. This feature reduces friction and makes it easier for people to complete the form with just a few clicks, increasing the likelihood of conversions.

You can use a maximum of 12 form fields for these ads, but LinkedIn recommends you use three to four.

Also read: LinkedIn Lead Generation: Best Practices and Why It’s Important for Your Business

4. Text and Dynamic Ads

If you’re looking for simple yet effective ad formats, you couldn’t go wrong with text and dynamic ads. The simplicity of this ad format lends itself well to personalization.

Despite being a bit more understated than other ad formats, well-optimized text and dynamic ad campaigns can still be powerful engagement and conversion magnets.

• Text Ads: Text ads are arguably the most cost-effective and the easiest format to set up. You just need a headline, description and a small image or logo to drive quick engagement.

• Dynamic Ads: These ad formats offer greater personalization by adapting to the individual user, making them highly engaging.

These ads appear on LinkedIn’s sidebars and use information from the viewer’s profile. The ad could include the user’s name and profile photo, making them more personal and increasing the likelihood of engagement.

There are two types of dynamic ads:

• Spotlight Ads: Spotlight ads highlight a specific product, service or event and speaks directly to the user, leading them to a dedicated landing page for conversion.

• Follower Ads: As the name suggests, follower ads are specifically designed to encourage users to follow you. Instead of leading users to a landing page, the CTA encourages your audience to hit the follow button for your company page or thought leader.

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Pros and Cons of LinkedIn Advertising

Learning how to advertise on LinkedIn offers a unique opportunity for businesses to engage with a professional audience. However, like any marketing channel, it comes with both advantages and challenges that may affect your campaign, even if you stick to LinkedIn advertising best practices.

This section explores the strengths and weaknesses of LinkedIn advertising to help you make an informed decision.

The Advantages of LinkedIn Advertising

LinkedIn stands out as a premier advertising platform, primarily for franchises, enterprises and B2B companies. Here’s a quick LinkedIn marketing guide on why it might be a good platform for you to launch your ad campaigns.

1. Precise Targeting

One of LinkedIn’s standard features is the ability to precisely target professional audiences. Aside from basic demographic information, you can refine campaign targeting based on professional criteria, such as job title, seniority and company size.

Precise targeting ensures that your ad reaches people who are most likely to find your product or service useful or desirable. As a result, you minimize wasted ad spend, which is a primary concern, whether you’re working with an in-house team or a LinkedIn advertising agency.

2. High-Quality Audience

LinkedIn has a reputation for being the go-to social media platform for professionals hoping to find founders, executives, decision-makers and other influential figures.

Advertising on LinkedIn thus empowers your business to reach key decision makers in each industry. You’re more likely to make a B2B sale when you’re marketing to a CEO instead of the general public.

3. Diverse Ad Formats

One of the best practices for LinkedIn advertising is diversifying your ad formats and the platform allows you to do just that.

LinkedIn provides a wide array of ad formats to cater to different campaign goals and content strategies. From basic text ads to pre-programmed conversation ads, there’s a perfect format for every objective. These options allow you to present your message in a way that best resonates with your audience.

4. Effective Lead Generation

LinkedIn’s native lead generation forms are a game-changer for collecting high quality leads and for advertising in general.

Once clicked, these forms become pre-filled with the user’s LinkedIn profile data, making it easier for them to share their information without leaving the platform.

Aside from lead generation forms, LinkedIn also offers a conversion-oriented campaign objective that optimizes ad campaigns to prioritize specific goals – lead generation being one of them.

The Disadvantages of LinkedIn Advertising

While LinkedIn advertising offers significant benefits, it also comes with its share of challenges. These disadvantages mean that the platform might not be the best choice for some businesses or campaign goals.

1. Higher Costs

LinkedIn’s premium audience and features come at a cost. The platform’s cost per click (CPC) and cost per impression (CPM) rates are significantly higher than those of other social media platforms.

LinkedIn’s average CPC is at $2.00–$3.00, which is at least three times higher than Facebook’s $0.72 per click.

For small businesses or companies with limited budgets, these higher costs are a major barrier. Despite applying LinkedIn advertising best practices, higher ad expenses can make it challenging to compete or achieve your desired ROI.

2. Less Diverse Audience

If your target audience includes younger demographics, casual internet users or non-professional groups, LinkedIn may not be the best platform for your brand.

If your business primarily serves consumers outside of a professional context, such as lifestyle or entertainment products or services, you’d probably find better success on platforms like Facebook, Instagram or TikTok.

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How To Advertise on LinkedIn: 8 Steps

Advertising on LinkedIn is one of the most effective ways to connect with professionals, decision-makers and industry leaders. LinkedIn ad campaigns can support various marketing goals, such as building brand awareness or boosting website traffic.

While different businesses have unique marketing approaches, the LinkedIn ads guide below can help you get started.

1. Set Up Your LinkedIn Ads Account

Before you can start advertising, you need to set up your LinkedIn Campaign Manager account. This platform will be your headquarters for creating, launching, managing and monitoring your LinkedIn ad campaigns.

To begin, click on the “For Business” icon on the top navigation bar and click “Advertise.”

Enter your desired account name and choose a currency. Then, link your LinkedIn page or create a new one if you don’t have one yet.

You can then add your billing information for a smoother launch process.

2. Choose Your Ad Objective

One of the best features of LinkedIn B2B marketing is the ability to create ad campaigns based on your marketing objectives.

Choosing the right one is crucial for optimizing your ad campaign’s performance. Aside from helping you determine your focus and appropriately track progress, your chosen objective also guides LinkedIn’s algorithms to prioritize specific actions, such as clicks or impressions.

“LinkedIn’s ad auction system doesn’t just prioritize the highest bid — it evaluates relevance and engagement likelihood, too. Your bid competes based on ad quality, estimated action rate and your bid amount. This means well-targeted, high-quality ads can outperform even higher bids,” Khafaga said.

LinkedIn offers three ad objectives for your campaigns:

Objective 1: Awareness

Awareness focuses on increasing visibility and reach among your target audience. Your target audience doesn’t know you that well yet. This objective is best applicable when you’re a new business or are expanding your market to reach new audiences. Key metrics you need to measure for this objective include ad impressions and reach.

Here are some ad formats that work best for awareness campaigns:

• Carousel ads
• Single image ads
• Spotlight ads
• Follower ads
• Event ads

Objective 2: Consideration

Consideration drives engagement, traffic and interaction with your content. It helps your brand meet the following goals:

• Website traffic
• Engagement
• Video views

This objective is best to retain audience attention and engagement, especially ones right in the middle of the sales or conversion funnel.

For consideration ad campaigns, here are some ad formats we recommend:

• Video ads
• Carousel ads
• Conversation ads
• Text ads
• Spotlight ads

Objective 3: Conversion

The conversion objective encourages specific actions, such as form submissions, messages or event sign-ups. It’s perfect for meeting these goals:

• Lead generation
• Website conversion
• Attracting job applicants

This campaign objective is ideal for when your audience already knows and trusts your brand and is ready to make a decision.

Here are some formats we recommend for conversion-focused LinkedIn B2B marketing or B2C campaigns:

• Lead generation forms
• Conversation ads
• Message ads
• Carousel ads
• Single image ads

3. Target Your Ideal Audience

LinkedIn targeting options are highly advanced, allowing you to reach a highly specific audience. Use these tools to connect with professionals most likely to engage with your company.

There are currently over one billion LinkedIn members and narrowing down your target audience is crucial to ensure your ads resonate with the right people.

Like other social media ad platforms, LinkedIn allows you to target your ad audience based on attributes like:

• Location
• Job title
• Job seniority
• Company size
• Skills and interests
• Schools, etc.

“To truly reach your ideal audience, it’s critical to combine LinkedIn’s demographic targeting with Matched Audiences. This lets you re-engage website visitors, email lists or company decision-makers with personalized content. The more aligned your messaging is to their profile, the higher your chances of conversion,” Khafaga said.

LinkedIn targeting options also include the Matched Audiences feature, which includes tools such as:

Company Targeting

This strategy allows you to focus your LinkedIn B2B marketing and advertising campaigns on specific companies that match your audience profile. You can further refine your targeting to reach company decision-makers, strengthening your campaign.

Account Targeting

Account targeting is company targeting’s more granular sibling, allowing you to advertise to individual users by confidentially uploading your email list of prospects. This information results in a highly personalized audience profile for whom you can tailor your campaigns.

Retargeting

Retargeting helps you connect with LinkedIn users who have already engaged with your brand. LinkedIn targeting options allow for further customization by segmenting your existing audience and delivering customized content depending on how they previously interacted with your content.

4. Select an Ad Format

LinkedIn offers a wide range of ad formats designed to achieve specific goals. Select the one that best suits your campaign objectives and LinkedIn marketing strategies.

Choosing the right ad format according to your needs and best practices for LinkedIn ensures your message comes across in the most engaging and effective way possible.

Each format serves a unique purpose. For example, text ads are great for budget-friendly, quick and conversion-oriented LinkedIn marketing strategies. However, if you have a higher budget and want to delve deeper into your product’s unique features, you’d want a video explainer ad.

Experiment with different formats and ad materials to see what resonates best with your target audience. Consider using a mix of multiple ad formats to maximize your reach and impact.

5. Set Your Budget and Schedule

Many marketers use social media sites like LinkedIn as their primary advertising channel, spending around 11% to 19% of their budget on social media marketing and advertising. With such a substantial amount, it’s critical to make every dollar count.

Determine how much you’re willing to invest and set a timeline for your campaign. The platform allows flexibility in budgeting and scheduling, making it easier to align your ads with your LinkedIn marketing strategies.

You can set a daily budget cap or an overall campaign budget for a specific period, allowing you to easily track your spending and avoid going over your limit.

LinkedIn can charge you one of three ways:

Cost Per Send (CPS)

Advertisers get charged on a CPS basis when running Message or Conversation Ads. You pay for every successfully sent message.

Cost Per Click (CPC)

LinkedIn charges on a CPC basis for action or conversion-oriented campaigns, such as lead generation.

Cost Per Impression (CPM)

The CPM payment model is ideal when you’re aiming to increase brand visibility through awareness-oriented campaigns.

6. Create Your Ads

This step is where you craft the content that will grab your audience’s attention. Combine strategy with creativity to capture audience attention and drive them to action.

LinkedIn provides the platform and algorithm to distribute your ads, but the success of your campaign hinges on the quality of your ad content. Great ad creative can mean the difference between a LinkedIn user interacting with your ad or just scrolling past.

Use engaging visuals, compelling copy and clear calls to action (CTAs) to drive more clicks and conversions.

Be concise yet interesting. Use high-quality and attractive visuals that align with your brand and catch the viewer’s eye.

In your headlines and captions, highlight how your product or service addresses a specific need or pain point for your target audience. Include a strong and straightforward CTA, like “Get Started” or “Download Now.”

If you have the time, A/B test different versions of your ads to identify what works best. Test variations in images, headlines and CTAs to find the most effective ones to use in your campaign.

7. Review and Launch

Before the launch, review your campaign to ensure everything is in place. Double-check your ad assets, as well as campaign settings like budget, objective and target audience.

Attention to detail in this step prevents costly mistakes. A thorough review process minimizes the risk of errors affecting campaign performance and return on investment (ROI).

You can use LinkedIn’s ad preview feature to check your final ad before it goes live. It’s also best to get a second pair of eyes to review the ad with you to make sure you didn’t miss anything.

8. Measure and Optimize Your Campaign

Once your campaign goes live, the next phase of your work begins. Monitor its performance using LinkedIn’s analytics tools. Go to Campaign Manager and choose the campaigns you wish to evaluate.

These insights will help you refine your strategy for better results. The key metrics you need to track will depend on your campaign objectives.

For example, if you’re running an awareness-oriented campaign, you’d want to look at your impressions, as well as the demographics and characteristics of the users you reach.

Tracking your analytics is crucial, as campaign optimization is an ongoing process. This step allows you to identify your ad campaign’s strengths and weaknesses, ensuring you get the most out of your investment.

Let’s say your current campaign is getting a lot of impressions but not enough clicks. You can then tweak your ad assets to find the best version that resonates with your target audience and encourages them to engage with your ad.

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5 LinkedIn Advertising Best Practices

To get the most out of LinkedIn advertising, it’s essential to handle your campaigns strategically. Following best practices from this LinkedIn marketing guide ensures that your ad campaigns resonate with your target audience and help achieve your business goals.

Here’s a LinkedIn ads guide you can use to refine your strategy, whether you’re working in-house or with a LinkedIn advertising agency.

1. Understand Your Target Audience

Successful LinkedIn advertising and social media management starts with a deep understanding of who you want to reach. This insight guides your ad campaigns, making them more relevant and improving their chances of success.

LinkedIn’s targeting capabilities also work better if you have a clear picture of your target audience. You can just input their different characteristics to improve your campaigns’ precision and overall performance.

For even better and more consistent targeting, create a detailed buyer persona, which is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and existing customer data.

Also read: Social Media Management 101: Everything You Need To Know

2. Conduct a Social Media Audit

Before launching your campaign, conduct a thorough social media audit. Review your current social media strategy and performance to identify your strengths, points for improvement and potential opportunities.

A social media audit helps you understand what’s working and ensures your LinkedIn strategy matches your social media marketing goals. It also allows you to pinpoint gaps in your strategy that LinkedIn ads can fill.

Also read: What Is a Social Media Audit and Why Your Business Needs It

3. Work With Your Ad Format

Each LinkedIn ad format has its own unique strengths that make them better suited for specific goals. When selecting an ad format, consider its alignment with your goals, content and audience preferences.

For example, if your goal is to invite participants to an upcoming conference, consider using lead generation forms in your ads. You can also accompany these forms with carousel ads explaining the conference’s program and activities.

“There’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to ad formats. Video ads and Carousel ads often work best for storytelling and engagement, while Lead Gen Forms are perfect for capturing user info without friction. I recommend testing formats against different objectives to find your performance sweet spot,” Khafaga said.

Selecting the right format ensures your message reaches the right people and is delivered in the most effective way.

4. Consider the Customer Journey

Potential customers need different things depending on where they are on the customer journey. Meet your customers where they are and tailor your ads accordingly, whether they’re in the awareness, consideration or decision-making stage.

Targeting ads to the right stage in the funnel increases their relevance and effectiveness. A single campaign rarely caters to all audience segments equally.

LinkedIn directly helps with this process by allowing advertisers to assign specific objectives to each ad campaign, ensuring that your campaign gets shown to the right people at the right time.

5. Leverage Thought Leadership

Thought leadership and credibility matter a lot on LinkedIn, where professionals and industry leaders meet to network and share ideas.

Positioning your business as an authority in your field is a smart move. You can achieve this by sharing insights, industry trends, original research and other similar content.

You can also partner with LinkedIn influencers to support your advertising and marketing efforts. These individuals can lend their credibility and expertise to your brand, expanding your reach and boosting your reputation.

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What’s New in LinkedIn Advertising for 2026

In 2026, two major shifts are shaping how brands approach LinkedIn ad strategy: the growing role of video content and the increased emphasis on trust and authenticity.

Video Advertising on LinkedIn Is Gaining Momentum

Now is the time to invest in video for LinkedIn. Through initiatives such as Brandlink, brands can appear alongside trusted and professionally produced video content and reach decision-makers in a more engaging and story-driven format. This type of engagement is effective not just for awareness but also for mid-funnel clients.

LinkedIn Is Placing More Emphasis on Authenticity

Professionals are becoming increasingly selective about who they engage with. This means, as a business, you need to invest in a verified profile, a credible company page and consistent thought leadership on the platform.

By adapting to these shifts, brands can stay competitive on LinkedIn and build campaigns that resonate with today’s B2B audience while preparing for the platform’s continued evolution.

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Master LinkedIn Advertising With Thrive

LinkedIn advertising is a powerful tool for businesses aiming to connect with professionals, decision-makers and industry leaders. Leveraging the platform’s unique features and highly targeted user base helps create meaningful, effective campaigns that drive actual results.

However, success on LinkedIn requires more than just running ads. It demands a well-crafted strategy and continuous optimization according to the demands of the market and your target audience.

As an expert in the digital marketing space and a trusted LinkedIn advertising agency, Thrive can help you work through the complexities of the platform and drive your LinkedIn presence to its highest potential through effective ad campaigns and account management.

Let’s launch LinkedIn campaigns that work. Call us today.

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Frequently Asked Questions About LinkedIn Advertising