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Campaign Manager, the advertising platform on LinkedIn, reports a wide range of metrics for every campaign you run. Learn how to use that info to measure ad performance and identify opportunities to improve your ROI.

1. Determine the goal of your campaign

Two common goals of marketing campaigns are to:

•  Build brand awareness (upper funnel)

•  Drive leads and conversions (lower funnel)

2. Identify your key metrics based on the campaign goal

If you want to build brand awareness, you’d want a lot of views and interest (indicated by clicks on ads). Focus on these metrics:

•  Clicks: The number of clicks on links in your ad. 

•  Impressions: The number of times people saw your ad.

•  Click-through rate (CTR): The number of clicks divided by impressions.

•  Average engagement: Total engagement (paid and free clicks) divided by impressions. Engagements can include social actions such as likes, comments, or shares.

If you want to drive leads and conversions, you’d want to see how many people complete a signup, download, or purchase. Focus on these metrics:

•  Conversions: The number of times someone took an action after clicking on or seeing your ad. This metric applies to campaigns using LinkedIn conversion tracking.

•  Conversion rate: How often your ads result in conversions on your website.

•  Cost per conversion: Ad spend divided by conversions.

•  Leads: the number of leads you get from your ads. This metric applies to campaigns using LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms.

•  Cost per lead (CPL): Ad spend divided by leads.

3. Set up conversion tracking and Lead Gen Forms

These features will help you measure bottom-of-funnel lead gen metrics.

Set up conversion tracking to measure:
•  Conversions
•  Conversion rate
•  Cost per conversion

Set up Lead Gen Forms to measure:
•  Leads
•  Cost per lead

4. Evaluate ad performance

Access your campaign data and download reports all in Campaign Manager. Focus on the metrics that map to your campaign goals.

How to view campaign metrics
How to download campaign reports

Establish your baseline by noting the key metrics on your initial ad campaigns. This sets you up to report growth based on past performance.

Set goals for improving on your baseline numbers. Use the optimization tips below to test, monitor your key metrics, and learn what works best for your business.

How to create an A/B testing strategy

5. Optimize with demographic insights

Use the professional demographic data on LinkedIn to discover and target new audiences.

Start by viewing who engages the most with your ads. Sort by your key metrics.

How to view demographic data

Once you understand which audiences respond best to your ads, create new targeting audiences based on your findings.

You can also use Audience Expansion to reach new audiences who are similar to your target audience. Just check the box underneath targeting criteria to enable this feature.

6. Optimize with performance insights

Access your campaign insights to understand how your ads are performing and get recommendations to improve bids and budgets.

Learn more about campaign insights

Test variations of your ad creative within each campaign. As you learn which versions of your ads perform best in your key metrics, adjust your ads to improve performance.

Sponsored Content tips
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Text Ads tips

You can also improve ROI by optimizing your targeting and bidding. Use these tips to get started, and then test to learn what works best for your business.

Use ad targeting best practices
How to set the right bids for your ads