Experienced marketers know that each business has a unique formula for success. It takes time and testing to learn what works, including how to set and manage an advertising budget. Learn how to set, test, and adjust your budget to maximize your ROI (return on investment).

Set your goals

It’s all about results. Decide what you want to achieve for your business, so you can set your budget and measure success accordingly.

Common marketing goals include:

  • Generate qualified leads for your business
  • Drive event attendance or content downloads
  • Build awareness of your brand

Set your budget

The first 2-4 weeks on a new platform are an investment in testing and learning. During this time, you’ll lay a strong foundation for your long-term marketing strategy. We recommend testing with at least $100/day or $5,000 total (generally in a month).

Don’t go too small with your budget. It’s not about how little you can spend, but the growth you can drive. Your campaigns have to reach enough people to generate data, so you can evaluate ad performance (based on the goals you set above).

Allocate your budget

When setting up a campaign, you can set limits on how much to spend per day and in total. But how do you decide how much of your budget to spend on each campaign? Use these tips to allocate, and then adjust as you learn what works best for your business.

  • A good starting point is a 70/30 split: put 70% of your budget on campaigns that drive bottom-funnel conversions or leads, and 30% on campaigns that drive top-funnel awareness or engagement with your content. This strategy helps you generate revenue while you’re learning what works.
  • Another way to start is with a mix of ad formats (Sponsored Content, Sponsored InMail, and Text Ads). This allows you to test which types of ads and content yield the best results for your goals.

Troubleshoot your campaign budget

Once a campaign goes live, you may see it spending the budget allocation too quickly, or not spending it at all. Use these tips to adjust your settings.

  • If your campaign is exhausting its budget too quickly, lower its daily budget.
  • If your campaign is not spending its budget, set more competitive bids. To make sure your ad gets seen, bid one or two dollars above the suggested range to increase chance of winning. You will only pay the minimum needed to win, not your maximum.
  • You can also spend your budget faster by following ad targeting best practices, like targeting no more than 2 or 3 audience facets in a single campaign, using the LinkedIn Audience Network (LAN), and enabling Audience Expansion.
  • If you’re not getting enough clicks, your total or daily budget might be too low. Set it higher to gain data and insights based on audience behavior. You can always lower it after you’ve learned what works.

Optimize your budget

As you learn how your campaigns and tests perform, try these tips to refine your budget and maximize ROI. Build on the tactics that work for you, and you’ll develop a winning strategy that is unique to your business.

  • If you want to spend your budget faster, you can monitor campaign metrics and turn off ads that aren’t getting many paid clicks or impressions.
  • Want to make your total budget last? Set a daily budget to moderate the pace of your campaign.
  • Need results fast? Ditch the daily budget. For campaigns that benefit from faster results (like a time-sensitive offer or event registration), leave the daily budget open. You can still set a total budget for your campaign to control ad spend.
  • Frontload your daily budgets. Set daily budgets higher earlier in the lifecycle of a campaign to generate more activity and data. Use your learnings to optimize the campaign. You can always lower your budgets later.
  • Maximize your advertising budget with smart bid management. Apply bidding best practices, and then keep testing and learning.

The relevance of your ads directly impacts your budget. Improve your ad content as you learn what your audience responds to, and you will spend your budget more cost-effectively over time. Use these tips to improve your Sponsored Content, Sponsored InMail, and Text Ads.

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