LinkedIn Ads Playbook

Table of contents
Why Should I Advertise on LinkedIn?
What Is LinkedIn?
Conversion Tracking & Business Account
Cheat Sheet
Frequently Asked Questions
Campaign Name
STEP
02
Campaign Goals
STEP
01
03
04
05
07
Targeting
STEP
03 09
Budget & Time Period 20
STEP
04
Creative Assets
STEP
05
Tracking Results
STEP
07
Ad Approval
STEP
06
25
30
linkedin.com/ads | 2
32
34
39
40

What is LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional
network, with members from hundreds of
countries and territories.
LinkedIn members are active, influential
professionals in a business frame of mind. They
use LinkedIn to learn about new products and
services, keep up with industry trends, research
companies, network with peers, and conduct
business.
So whether your objective is to reach influential
decision makers at companies or affluent
consumers, advertising on LinkedIn is a great
way to drive new leads to your company.
LinkedIn members drive
business decisions
4 5OUT
OF
of members are senior-level
executives (and above)
39%
of members are responsible
for managing budgets
28%

Why should I
advertise on LinkedIn?
What account should I use for ads?
A business account allows you to separate ads and billing information from your personal
LinkedIn account and share business account access with other team members.
Multiple languages
Ads can be written in any of
the languages supported by
LinkedIn, and can be shown to
members in most countries.
High traffic pages
Our agile platform lets you
create and place ads on high-
traffic pages of LinkedIn.com
within minutes.
Target with precision
We make it easy to reach
your ideal audience without
wasting impressions or clicks.
Performance based
LinkedIn Ads is an easy-to-use,
self-service, performance-
based advertising solution.

First, let’s come up with some
goals for your campaign.

Define your
campaign goals
For any ad campaign to be successful, you need
to understand your business goals.
Are you trying to build brand awareness, drive
traffic to your website, or get new leads? The
clearer and more specific your goals are, the
more compelling your ad campaigns will be.
Your campaign goals will directly affect how
much you want to spend, who you want to
target, and what creative assets and messaging
you need to develop.
STEP
01
Imagine you’re ProStock*
, a small accounting software
company, that wants to sell software subscriptions. What
would your campaign goals be? The software is pretty
expensive, so your best bet is to gather and nurture leads –
then turn them into customers over time.
ProStock’s campaign goals are focused on driving leads in
two ways:
1. Offering free trials of their software
2. Providing educational material on the benefits of using
accounting software.**
ProStock Example
*
Fictional customer
**
A lead would need to fill out a form in order to download the material

Now that you’ve thought about
your campaign goals, let’s
create a campaign name.

STEP
02Create a
campaign name
Your customers won’t see the name – it’s just for you.
Choose a descriptive name that reflects the goals you’re
hoping to achieve.✓
If you’re just starting out, we suggest creating a name
that reflects your target audience. Make it super easy to
understand and remember!✓
When you have a lot of campaigns to keep track of,
having a clear naming system will keep you organized.✓ For example, one of ProStock’s campaigns
is called “Software Trial North America
Accountants.”
ProStock Example

Next up, targeting your ads,
where we’ll cover personas,
filters, and testing.

Develop your
targeting persona
Who should you target?
When choosing target options, start by
narrowing down your target audience to LinkedIn
members who are likely to be interested in what
you offer. Here are some things to consider when
thinking about your target audience:
STEP
03
Do they have specific job functions?
Do they have certain skills?
Where are they located?
Do they work in a certain industry?
Do they belong to certain LinkedIn Groups?
ProStock
Using personas to picture your audience
Put yourself in the shoes of your target audience by creating
a persona. ProStock, as an accounting software company,
would have a sample customer like this:
Mark Smith
Age 45
Title Accounting Director
Company ABC Investing Corp.
Location San Francisco Bay Area
Professional interests
Entrepreneurship, Leadership,
Finance/Accounting, Investing

STEP
03Choose your
targeting filters
Who should you target?
You can filter your target audience by criteria such
as: job title, job function, industry, geography, age,
gender, school, skills, company name, company size, or
membership within specific LinkedIn Groups.
✓
As you select your target options, we’ll show you an
estimate of the audience size you’ll be able to reach.✓
To start out, we recommend having at least 100,000
members per target group so you don’t miss out on
unexpected opportunities.✓
You’ll want to avoid gender and age
targeting until you get the hang of
the system and learn a little more
about what works for your business.
• Geography
• Company name
• Industry
• Company size
• Job Title
• Job function
• Seniority
• School
• Skills
• Age
• Gender
• Groups
Targeting Filters

STEP
03
Targeting
by geography
Choose who sees your ad based
on where they live or work.
Start by choosing at least one geographic
location for your campaign.
Select geographies based on where your
leads or customers are located.
You can target up to 10 regions,
sub-regions, or countries.
Use information you know about your
prospects to develop thoughtful targeting –
but don’t go so narrow that you miss other
opportunities by casting too small of a net.
If your products or services are applicable to members all
over the world, you can select all regions. However, for
higher engagement we recommend you focus only on those
audiences who are most likely to be interested.
Note

STEP
03
Company by name Company by categoryor
Targeting
by company
When you target by company, you can select:
If the product or service that you’re offering could appeal to employees at a particular company, you may want to target
by company name.
When you enter the name of a company you’d like to target, we’ll automatically suggest similar companies that you
could target as well.
Keep in mind that this is a very specific targeting method, and that we only recommend it to those who feel comfortable
going very narrow. Even in cases where you want to target a specific company, we recommend you also include some
“similar” companies to your campaign. Including similar companies will give you a better chance at getting impressions
and clicks.
Company by name
✓ ✓

STEP
03
Targeting
by company
Company by category
If you’re new to online advertising, still refining your target audience, or want to scale campaigns, this
broader targeting option is recommended for you. You can choose from company size and/or industry.
Target LinkedIn members based on the size of the
company they work for.
You can target companies with as few as one employee or
as many 10,000+ employees.
Some companies choose not to identify their size, so we
recommend testing out targeting to both “all sizes” and
your “target size.” Your results will show which works best
for your campaigns.
Company Size
Target based on your audience’s industry.
Choose broad industry categories or get more specific
with industry subsets. There are over 17 categories to
choose from.
Industry
Different industries may use different terminology so
consider creating separate campaigns and ad copy for
each industry you’re targeting.

STEP
03
Job by Title
When you enter a specific job title, we’ll suggest similar
titles for you to target.
Because different companies have different titles for the
same jobs, try using additional words in the job title.
LinkedIn will help you by suggesting additional titles.
If you know the job titles for the audience you’d like to
target, this is a good option for you.
If you’re looking for an Account Manager, also try targeting a Senior
Account Manager, Junior Account Manager, Director of Accounts,
Account Strategist, and so on.
Example
You can target up to 100 similar job titles in a single
campaign, so the more you choose, the broader your
ad’s reach.
Job Title Job Function and/or seniority
Targeting by job
When you target by job title, you can select:
✓ ✓or

STEP
03
Targeting by job
Job by Function and/or Seniority
Job function and seniority are two job title
categories you can use to hone your targeting.
Seniority
If you’re trying to target professionals with a certain level
of professional experience, you may want to try targeting
by seniority.
Since LinkedIn is a professional network, members don’t
list age on their profile. We recommend targeting by
seniority instead of age.
Job Function
Target by job function if you want to show your ad to
members in a specific job discipline. You can choose up
to ten job functions.
If your offering could appeal to multiple job functions,
consider creating separate campaigns with ads tailored
to each function.
Job function, seniority, and industry can be combined for
more accurate targeting.

STEP
03Targeting by Groups
Since over 80% of our members belong to at least one
group, targeting by Groups is an effective way to reach an
already highly engaged audience.
Get started searching for groups using the
LinkedIn Groups Directory:
www.linkedin.com/search-fe/group_search✓
Next, try testing a campaign just for Groups.
Target as many groups as possible with a
common theme and highlight that theme in
your ad copy.
✓
Since the autocomplete doesn’t pick up
ALL relevant groups when you enter a
certain word, it helps to experiment with
multiple word combinations.
The bigger and more aligned your overall
target audience, the better the chance
your ad will get multiple clicks.
✓
✓
You don’t have to be a part of the same LinkedIn Groups
as the members you want to target in your campaigns.

STEP
03
Because LinkedIn is a professional site, many members choose not to
list personal information such as age and gender on their profiles. We
recommend focusing on other targeting options instead.
Gender and Age
Target by a single school or many.
If you’re offering a GMAT prep course in the New York Area, for
example, you may choose to target members at schools like Columbia
University and New York University.
Schools
Reach LinkedIn members on other websites. Go to help.linkedin.com
and search “LinkedIn Audience Network” to learn more.
LinkedIn Audience Network
Imagine you’re organizing a developer conference in your area. You
may want to target professionals who have skills like HTML, CSS,
Javascript, or Flash listed on their profile.
Call out the skills you’re targeting in your ad copy.
Skills
Select from one of our many supported languages for your ad
campaign so you can target say, French speakers, no matter where
they’re located.
You’ll need to write your ad copy in the language you’ve selected.
Otherwise, we won’t be able to run your ad campaign.
Ad Languages
Targeting: More options
Once you’ve submitted your campaign for review, it’s no
longer possible to change the language of the ad.

Test and iterate
When you’re feeling comfortable running
campaigns, and are generating enough click
volume to measure performance, try testing
different targeting criteria. This way you can see
which combination of targeting filters is the most
effective in generating clicks and conversion.
Here are some suggestions along with examples
based on ProStock’s typical customer persona,
Mark Smith.
STEP
03
ProStock Example
ProStock Example
Try each targeting option as its own campaign. Once you
know which target works best, you can start optimizing for
that target.
Campaign 1. Geography (North America)
Campaign 2. Industry (Accounting)
Campaign 3. Groups (Finance)
Go a step further and create different targeting combinations
to see if a particular pairing performs better than others.
Campaign 1. Geography + Industry
Campaign 2. Geography + Groups
Campaign 3. Industry + Groups
Using 2+ targeting criteria can increase your
performance by up to 10% according to our
internal LinkedIn analysis. Keep in mind your
own campaign performance could vary.

We’ve covered a lot of
ground related to targeting.
Let’s move on to budgeting.

Setting a budget
& time period
You can control your advertising costs by setting
a daily maximum and total budget. Plus, you
only pay for performance, which means you only
pay when you receive clicks or impressions.
For additional flexibility, you can log in to the
LinkedIn Ads Dashboard at any time and switch
your campaigns on or off.
STEP
04
What’s a click, impression, CPC, or CPM campaign?
You can learn about these terms on page 23.
Some things you’ll want to decide:
The total budget you want to invest in your
LinkedIn Ads campaign.
The total number of campaigns you want to
create based on your total budget.
Your daily maximum, which is the amount you
want to spend per day.
Whether you want to run a CPC or CPM
campaign, and how much you’re willing to bid.
Whether you want your campaign to run
continuously or for a specific period of time.

STEP
04
Bid & budget details
The minimum CPC bid (cost per click) is $2.00
per click.
The minimum CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions)
bid is $2.00 per thousand impressions.
There is a $5 deposit the first time you use
LinkedIn Ads, which covers the initial clicks/
impressions that result after the ad has been
approved and posted. Once the $5 credit is
depleted, you will be billed periodically for the
clicks or impressions that your ad incurs.
Note
Although we turn off your advertisement for the day once
your daily budget is reached, the change isn’t instantaneous.
You will be charged for clicks or impressions that are
delivered during that time; sometimes this number is up to
20% over your daily budget.

STEP
04Here are some terms
you might find helpful
Clicks are exactly what you think – when a visitor actively clicks on your
ad.
Impression refers to when your ad is shown to a LinkedIn member.
Bid Price is the amount you’re willing to pay LinkedIn every time
someone clicks on your ad or every time your ad shows 1,000 times.
We’ll provide a Suggested Bid Range to help you choose the best
possible bid price. The range represents an estimate of the competing
bids by other advertisers for your target audience.
If you’re just getting started with LinkedIn Ads, we suggest you enter
a bid that’s within or above the Suggested Bid Range. In general, the
higher you bid, the more likely you are to get impressions and clicks.
Daily Budget is the amount you’re willing to spend per day. To set
your daily budget, multiply your CPC or CPM bid by the number of
clicks or impressions that you’d like to receive each day.
For example: If you want 1,000 clicks each day and want to spend no
more than $3 per click, you’ll want to set your daily budget at
$3,000/day.
Payment Methods
CPC is cost per click. You’ll only get charged when someone clicks on
your ad.
For CPC, if your maximum bid is $3.00 per click, you’ll be charged less
than or equal to $3.00 every time your ad receives a click. If your ad
doesn’t receive any clicks, you won’t be charged. Bid your maximum
CPC because your actual CPC will be lower.
CPM is cost per thousand impressions, so you’ll be charged. Every
time we show your ad 1,000 times.
CPM is a good option if you care more about the number of times your
ad is shown, versus clicks received. This is a good choice for campaigns
with brand awareness goals.
We generally only recommend this type of bidding option for people
with experience advertising on a CPM basis.
Most people visit LinkedIn on weekdays, so focus your
budget on those days.

STEP
04
Lead collection
Lead collection is ideal for advertisers whose goal
is to generate quality leads. This feature enables
you to collect leads directly through your ad
campaign.
When you activate this feature, members who
click on your ad will be taken to your landing page
where they can click on a button to request being
contacted by you.
Each time a member clicks on the button, you’ll
see their name, headline, and a link to their
LinkedIn profile. You’ll then be able to contact this
person directly via InMail. Members also have the
option of sharing their email address with you.
ProStock’s Website
Banner from LinkedIn for lead collection✓

Got the basics of budgeting?
Now, let’s start designing your
ad creative.

STEP
05
Deciding on
creative assets
Ads that perform best are relevant to the
target audience and are written with clear, and
compelling language.
Try writing different variations of ad copy to
determine which version speaks more to your
audience. To create a new version of your ad, with
the same target audience, click “Add a variation”
and you’ll see a new creative box to fill out.
Note: Your ad may be shown as a text only
version in locations such as the top of the LinkedIn
homepage.
Close Your Books Faster
Accounting software for small &
midsize companies. Get a free
30 day trial.
www.prostock-company.com
ProStock has 1,680 followers on LinkedIn
Image
50x50 pixel image
Headline
Up to 25 characters
From
Your name or company
URL
You can choose to send members to
your website, a specific landing page,
or a LinkedIn Company Page.
Description
Up to 75 characters
Choose words that grab the attention of your
target audience. Give LinkedIn members a
reason to click through by highlighting special
offers, unique benefits, downloadable white
papers, free trials, or product demos.

STEP
05Here are some tips
for creating great ads
Rotate in new creatives at least once a month.
Make sure text is concise and easy to read.
Clearly list the benefits of your products and services.
Include an image to grab your audience’s attention.
Ads with images perform significantly better than those without.
Images with bright colors are more likely to catch the attention of your
audience.
We’ve seen a 20% lift in CTR when ads include an image.
Include a strong call to action, such as “Try,”
“Download,” “Sign up,” or “Request a Quote.”
Words and phrases that encourage action and urgency tend to perform
well.
Double check your landing page
Make sure your landing page (the place where someone goes when
they click) matches your ad.
Create 3-4 variations of your ad per campaign.
Test images, text, and call-to-action phrases to see what works best
with your audience.
Speak directly to your target
audience through your headline and text.
For example, if you’re targeting finance professionals, include relevant
job titles or the word “finance” within the ad.
Use industry-specific language that customers can relate to.

STEP
05Creative assets:
Common mistakes
Not including an image
Use an eye-catching image that describes your product or service.
Only using one creative
Be sure to use at least two creatives so you can test out variations
of your ad. For example, try re-framing your headline as a question
or referencing the audience in the headline.
Not showing the “best” creative more often
Once you have multiple creatives in your campaign, select the
“optimized” strategy in your Ads dashboard, which automatically
selects the best performing versions and shows those over under-
performing versions.
Using only one targeting criterion
Consider using 2-3 targeting criteria, such as “Geography” and
“Job Function.”
Not including a call to action or
offer in the body or headline of the ad
One way to improve your ad is to grab your audience’s attention
with key phrases in your ad’s headline such as “Try Now,”
“Download,” or “Free for 30 days.”
✓
✓
✓
✓
7 7
7
7
7
7
Fully capitalizing your ad or repeating punctuation
No one wants to be yelled at – unfortunately, that’s what all caps
and lots of exclamation points feel like to your readers. Instead,
try using normal punctuation and use exclamation points in
moderation.
✓
✓

STEP
05Creative assets:
Designing your ad
Here are two ads that ProStock (our accounting software
company example) could write for their target audience.
Review the advertising guidelines for details on what’s acceptable to include in your ad.
Effective
Headline draws attention of the target customer
Description identifies the product
Ends with a strong offer
Less Effective
Headline too generic
Image not relevant to the products offered
Close Your Books Faster
Accounting software for small &
midsize companies. Get a free
30 day trial.
www.prostock-company.com
Improve Your Productivity
Innovative accounting software. Easy,
secure, robust – Switch to us today.

Once you’ve designed your
creative, it’s time to get it approved.

STEP
06
Getting your
creative approved
After you create and submit your ad, our team will
automatically review your creative to make sure it
meets our Ads Guidelines. You don’t have to do
anything.
During this review period, your ads won’t be shown
on LinkedIn. You don’t need to take any further
action while your ad is under review. It will be
turned on once it’s been approved (usually within
24 hours).

When your campaign goes live,
you’ll want to start tracking results.

Tracking results
Track how your campaigns are performing using
the LinkedIn Ads Dashboard. From here you can:
STEP
07
Track the number of clicks and impressions
you’ve received at any given time.
Track click through rates (CTR)
The more relevant and interesting your ad is to
your target audience, the higher your CTR will
be. The higher your CTR, the more times your
ad will be shown.
In general, a good CTR is 0.030% or greater.
Monitor CPC and total spend.
You may bid higher to get more impressions.
Let all ads run to see which perform the best for
each campaign, then pause the ones that are
not performing as well. This will help the system
show your best ads as often as possible.
Turn ads or campaigns On and Off based on
how they are performing.

Great! You’re on your way to getting
great results with LinkedIn Ads.
Before you go, here are some bonus
topics you might want to review...

Business
account overview
We recommend you create campaigns with
a business account instead of your personal
LinkedIn account.
A business account allows you to separate
ads and billing information from your personal
LinkedIn account and share business account
access with other team members. Here’s why
it’s a good idea to have a dedicated business
account:
To learn more about our business accounts, please
read the “Business Accounts (PDF)” found on
linkedin.com/ads.
Managing campaigns for multiple clients on your
personal account is not recommended
The ads can’t be shown at the same time, in the same placement.
The ads will compete for ad unit vs. ad impression.
Performance and optimization triggers of your ads will blend across all
of your campaigns.
Client Account Client
Having a business account to manage multiple
campaigns and clients is highly recommended
Ads will compete for each ad impression in an optimal manner.
Client campaign performance will remain independent between your
various clients.
Performance will be optimized for each of your clients.
Account ClientAccountClient

Here are a few more reasons why it makes
sense to create dedicated business accounts
Multiple users can access a single business account.
✓
You can create multiple business accounts (you can
only create one personal LinkedIn Account).✓
Business accounts are conveniently associated with a
specific Company Page on LinkedIn.✓
Business accounts don’t have profiles or network
connections, and cannot be found in search.✓
To start a business account
1. Go to your LinkedIn Ads dashboard.
2. Click on the dropdown menu under your name in
the top right of the page.
3. Select “Create Business Account.”

Monitoring
conversion rates
Why is conversion important and how can you
track it?
Let’s start with a definition. What’s a conversion? A
conversion is simply the event that you’re tracking,
like sales or the number of leads your campaign
generates. Your conversion rate is the percent of
new leads or customers you were able to get out
of the number of visitors that your ad drove to your
website.
ProStock Example
This week ProStock had 100,000 impressions (which means
that their ad was seen 100,000 times). Their CTR was 0.025%,
which means that 25 people clicked on their ad and landed
on their landing page. Now, this is the point in the process
where LinkedIn tracking stops and your conversion tracking
begins.
By using tools such as Google Analytics, ProStock can
now see that of the 25 people who came to their site from
LinkedIn, 5 subscribed for a free trial of their software. That
means that this week’s conversion rate was 20% (5 divided by
25).

Monitoring
conversion rates
It’s critical that you know how many actual
customers you managed to get from your ad
campaigns. And since you’re probably running a
variety of marketing programs, you want to know
which marketing channels are working best for
you.
So if you don’t have one, go out and get a
website analytics solution that can help you track
conversion.
Regardless of which tools you choose –
conversion tracking tools are a great investment
so that you have visibility into which marketing
channels are working for your business.
If you want more information on conversion
tracking, check out our LinkedIn Ads
Optimization Guide.

Cheat sheet for creating ads on LinkedIn
Go to linkedIn.com/ads and click “Start Now”
Strategic elements For each ad you plan to create (see page 25)
Decide on your campaign name (see page 7)
Choose your landing page and destination URLDetermine your campaign goals (see page 5)
Choose a 50x50 pixel square image
Decide on your target audience & targeting criteria
(see page 9)
Add a 25-character headline for your ad
Think through your budget and campaign dates
(see page 20)
Add a 75-character description
Analysis and tracking
Set up your conversion tracking tools (see page 34) Monitor your performance and optimize your campaign

Frequently
asked questions
Where will my ads appear?
Your ads will be eligible to appear in various positions on a variety of
prominent pages on me Linkedln.com website, such as the following:
How does the auction work?
You set a bid for each of your campaigns. A real-time auction is run
each time a Linkedln user visits a page that contains an ad unit. If
the user falls into your targeting options, your ad will be entered
into this auction along with the bids of other advertisers. If you do
not enter a bid within the suggested range, your ad will be less
likely to beat other advertisers’ bids in the auction, resulting in fewer
or no impressions or clicks. Remember that the bid you choose is
the maximum you’re willing to pay, and we will discount your click
or impression so that you’re only paying the minimum necessary
to beat the advertiser below you. For example, if you bid $3 and
someone bids $2.50, we will only charge you $2.51 (1 cent more
than the next highest advertiser).
Where does Linkedln get the information used to target
members?
All of the information used for targeting is based on the information
members add to their profiles. Keep in mind that this information
isn’t personally identifiable. And you won’t be provided with any
identifying data about the specific members who view or click on
your ad.
Homepage - The page members see when they sign in to
LinkedIn.
Profile Page - The page members see when they view the profile
of another LinkedIn member.
Search Results Page - The page that displays when you search for
a member by name.
Groups - The page members see when they visit their group.

Using this feature will increase the volume of impressions that your
ad gets.
There’s no additional cost to run ads on the LinkedIn Audience
Network.
You can include or exclude the LinkedIn Audience Network at any
time, even after your ads have started running.
You pay the same way you do on LinkedIn.com, either via CPC or
CPM.
Additional Information about the LinkedIn Audience Network:
Frequently
asked questions
Where else can I show my ad?
In addition to showing your ad on Linkedln, you can
also show your ads through the Linkedln Audience
Network. The LinkedIn Audience Network is a
collection of partner websites that display LinkedIn
Ads on their pages. This allows you to reach the
LinkedIn members you’re targeting, even when
they’re visiting other websites. This is a good option
if you want to maximize the number of clicks and
impressions you receive. Conveniently, you’ll pay
exactly the same amount per click or impression as
you do on LinkedIn.com. (Note: CTR may vary when
ads are shown on LinkedIn and off of the network).
Here’s how it works: Suppose that you’re targeting
Linkedln members who are CEOs. If you choose to
run your ads on the Linkedln Audience Network, your
ads will be displayed to those CEOs when they visit
Linkedln and when they visit other websites in the
Linkedln Audience Network.

More advertising
options on LinkedIn
LinkedIn also offers display and social advertising solutions
as part of LinkedIn Marketing Solutions. You can learn
more at marketing.linkedin.com.
What’s the difference between LinkedIn Ads and
LinkedIn Marketing solutions?
LinkedIn Ads are self-service, performance based text ads that can
include a small image. Advertisers are able to pay on a CPC or CPM
basis.
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions are display ads (IAB-compliant) with
guaranteed inventory and delivery. The minimum campaign budget for
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions is $25K.

So, that’s it! Ready to get started? Great!
Go to linkedin.com/ads and click “Start Now.”
And remember – we’re always here to help! Just
visit us at our Help Center for some quick Q&A
(help.linkedin.com).

LinkedIn Ads Playbook

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