LinkedIn Ads Growth Essentials
Drive conversions at scale to grow your business
Get the results you want
Accelerate campaign performance and increase conversions by using the below key features.
Measure conversions wherever they happen and optimize campaign spend.
With Conversions API, you can create a reliable, secure connection between your first-party marketing data and LinkedIn to get a complete view of your ad performance throughout the customer journey.
Collect more signals to drive campaign performance and optimize your investment, while respecting user privacy choices.
Track more conversions: 31% increase in attributed conversions.
Lower costs: 20% decrease in cost per action.
Source: Conversions API beta study across 829 campaigns from July 1 to August 26, 2023
Use Conversions API to:
Reduce cost per action:
Connect online and offline marketing data to LinkedIn to ensure your budget is prioritized for ads more likely to lead to valuable outcomes.
Reach the right audience:
Get a complete view of customer interactions along the buying journey and optimize campaigns to show ads to the most relevant audiences.
Accurately measure campaign performance:
Capture data from multiple sources to accurately attribute campaign effectiveness.
“By implementing Conversions API, we have been able to unlock advanced optimizations that help us drive fantastic down-funnel performance. In one month, we saw a 130% increase in attributed conversions.”
Ryan Ponton
Senior Paid Social Director, Jellyfish
Pro Tip: Leverage Conversions API data with Predictive Audiences to build high-intent, AI-powered audiences likely to take actions similar to those in your conversion data.
How to get started:
Conversions API is available through LinkedIn Marketing Partners or via direct integration. Decide which path makes most sense for you:
| Leverage a Marketing Partner | Direct Integration | |
| Overview | Work with a certified LinkedIn Marketing Partner to set up Conversions API without significant developer resources from your company. | Work with your developers to build a direct integration with Conversions API. |
| Use Case | You want a one-time setup and no ongoing resources required from your team. | You want to own data sharing from start to finish and to customize the integration to your exact needs. |
| Implementation Process | Typically fast to implement, but can vary and might have potential associated fees. | Requires developer resources and ongoing maintenance. Implementation can take two to four weeks (on average). |
Pro Tip: Check out the streamlined setup experience for Google Tag Manager and Zapier.
Learn more about Conversions API and how to set it up here.
Conversions API resources
Conversions API best practices
Get tips on how to effectively use Conversions API.
Unlock B2B Conversions with Confidence
Watch this video to learn best practices, hear from customers, and get a sneak peek into Conversions API roadmap.
Success story - Eftsure
Learn how Eftsure decreased cost per lead by 40% and increased return on ad spend by 10%.
Build high-intent, AI-powered audiences tailored to your business based on your data and engagements across LinkedIn.
Predictive Audiences uses LinkedIn’s AI and your first or third-party data to find an audience likely to perform actions similar to those within your dataset.
Lower costs: Decrease cost per lead by 21%
Based on pilot testers using Predictive Audiences and lead gen objective
Use Predictive Audiences to:
Find and reach your audience at scale:
Supercharge your data in the privacy-first era by harnessing LinkedIn’s AI to create tailored, high-intent audience segments.
Increase efficiency:
Take the guesswork away on identifying your high-intent audiences and easily implement your audience with just a few clicks.
Maximize ROI:
Reach audiences who are more likely to take action based on specific characteristics and behaviors.
“Our client was so pleased with the Predictive Audience campaign results and the 48% decrease in CPL that they requested we launch additional Predictive Audience campaigns for their other graduate business degree programs.”
Amy Orlando,
Director, Social Media Marketing & Digital Strategy,
Carnegie
Pro Tip: Maximize ROI performance by providing a data source that best represents the action you want your Predictive Audience to take, such as a lead gen form of demo requests.
How to get started:
Step 1: To create your Predictive Audience, you must have one of the following with a minimum of 300 members:
a. Contact or Company List (CSV template in CMT or third-party data integrations)
b. Lead Gen Form
c. Conversion (Insight Tag, Conversions API, Website Actions)
d. Retargeting
*If you don’t have an audience created yet, upload your contact list, or create a Lead Gen Form or Conversion Audience in Campaign Manager
Step 2: In Campaign Manager, click on “Plan” and then “Audiences”.
Step 3: Click, “Create” and select “Predictive Audience”.
Step 4: Name your Predictive Audience and select your type of data source (Contact list, Company list, Conversion, Lead Gen Form or Retargeting) from the drop down menu.
Step 5: Select the audience from the source dropdown, the geos you want to generate your audience from, and your desired audience size using the slider bar. Then click “Create” to build your Predictive Audience.
Step 6: Once created, your new Predictive Audience will appear in your Matched Audience list and can be applied to any campaign!
Learn more about Predictive Audiences and how to set it up here.
Predictive Audiences resources
Getting started guide
Get tips and best practices to effectively use Predictive Audiences.
Success story - ServiceNow
Discover how ServiceNow used Predictive Audiences to drive results like +33% MQL QoQ.
Success story - Carnegie
Learn how Carnegie drove 58% higher lead form completion rates with Predictive Audiences.
Success story - Zscaler
Explore how Zscaler drove quality leads at scale and reduced cost per lead by 58%.
Success story - Workday
Check out how Workday reduced cost per lead by 31% and achieved 81% increase in lead volume.
Start relevant conversations with your target audience and convert them into quality leads.
Engage your audience with Sponsored Messaging, where professional conversations happen.
Lower costs: On average, achieve up to 50% cheaper cost per lead.
Get results: Get up to 3.6x increase in form completion rates.
Compared to Sponsored Content campaigns, April 2024
Use Sponsored Messaging to:
Reach your audience in a personal way:
Send direct, one-to-one messages to your audience when they are active on LinkedIn.
Keep prospects engaged to drive quality results:
Deliver interactive messages that make it easy for your audience to get the content and offers they want, when they want.
Accelerate your lead pipeline:
Drive more website traffic and generate more leads with interactive features like Lead Gen Forms and automated calls-to-action.
Sponsored Messaging is available in two formats:
Message Ads
Send direct messages to your prospects to spark immediate action.
Use this format if you have a single CTA and want to drive stronger engagement and response than traditional email marketing.
Conversation Ads
Start quality conversations with your audience through a choose-your-own path experience.
Use this format if you have multiple CTAs and want to engage your audience in a chat-like experience. Use one of our templates in Campaign Manager to give yourself a jump start.
“The clickthrough rate with Conversation Ads was almost five times higher than what we’d seen previously, which goes to show the level of engagement is pretty wild when you’re able to provide multiple opportunities to click.”
Chase Gladden
Growth Marketing Manager, Hired
Pro Tip: Use a Lead Gen Form in Message Ads or Conversation Ads to seamlessly collect high-quality leads.
How to get started:
Step 1: Choose your campaign objective. For both formats, you can use Website Visits, Lead Generation, or Website Conversions. For Conversation Ads, you can also select brand awareness.
Step 2: Set up your campaign details including targeting, budget, schedule and bid type.
Step 3: Choose your message ad format, “Message” or “Conversation” based on your campaign goals.
Step 4: Select the sender of the ad, or who the message will come “from”. If Lead Generation is your campaign objective, add your Lead Gen Form to capture high-quality leads.
Step 5: For Message Ads, craft your subject line, message and CTA. Use LinkedIn custom fields to personalize your message. For Conversation Ads, create the conversation flow to drive your desired actions. Include up to five CTA buttons with corresponding actions and response messages.
Step 6: Once you’re ready to launch, hit create and turn the status of the ad to “active”.
Step 7: Optimize Sponsored Messages campaigns based on performance and audience insights in Campaign Manager.
Learn more about Sponsored Messaging and how to set up Message Ads here and Conversation Ads here.
Sponsored Messaging resources
A beginner’s guide to Sponsored Messaging
Use this playbook to get started and see best-in-class examples.
Conversation Ads best practices
Get tips to take your Conversation Ads to the next level.
Collect high-intent leads and accelerate interest throughout the funnel.
Engage your audience by promoting content-rich documents on or off LinkedIn with Document Ads.
Choose to share your content freely to build awareness, or capture interested leads by gating your document on the LinkedIn feed with a Lead Gen Form.
Increase form submissions: Get up to 2x higher Lead Gen Form completion rates.
Drive more engagement: Achieve up to 3.5x higher engagement rates.
Compared to other Feed formats (April, 2024)
Use Document Ads to:
Build awareness and nurture key audiences:
Boost engagement by sharing educational, inspiring content.
Measure audience interest in your content:
See how much of your document is read and downloaded to inform your strategy.
Collect quality leads:
Capture interested audiences by gating your content with a Lead Gen Form on the LinkedIn feed.
“When evaluating the characteristics of leads across Single Image Ads and Document Ads, we found that Document Ads generated 38% higher quality leads.”
Florine Gillebert
Cloud Marketing Program Specialist, Dassault Systèmes
Pro Tip: Share a preview of your document to generate interest and use a Lead Gen Form to collect high-quality leads at scale.
How to get started:
Step 1: Choose your campaign objective. You can use Document Ads with the Brand Awareness, Engagement, Website Visits, Website Conversions, and Lead Generation objectives. If you plan to gate your document and use a Lead Gen Form, you must select the Lead generation objective.
Step 2: Set up your campaign targeting. Select Document Ad as your ad format, and set your budget, schedule and bid type. If your campaign objective is Lead Generation, your ads will not be eligible to serve on the LinkedIn Audience Network.
Step 3: Hit save and you’re ready to launch!
Step 4: Measure the impact of your Document Ad through document-specific reporting to better understand how your content resonates and track full-funnel performance.
Learn more about Document Ads and how to set it up here.
Document Ads resources
Getting started guide
Learn tips to launch effective Document Ads campaigns.
Best practices
Learn best practices to prepare, launch and report on your Document Ads campaign.
Creative requirements
View the creative requirements to launch your campaign.