Thought Leader Ads
Strong for credibility, expertise and engagement. Particularly useful within awareness and consideration when content feels more natural and relevant coming from a person rather than a classic company ad.
LinkedIn Ads
LinkedIn Ads that go beyond collecting leads
LinkedIn gives access to specific companies, functions and decision-makers, but success doesn't automatically start with a lead form. ClickEdge looks at audience, message, campaign goal, reach, frequency and the role LinkedIn plays within the full customer journey.
A different type of advertising channel
Not everyone on LinkedIn is actively looking for your solution
Google Ads often captures an existing search demand. LinkedIn works differently. A large part of your audience doesn't open the platform because they're searching for your product, service or problem at that moment.
That's precisely why LinkedIn Ads is often about being relevant enough to surprise someone, create recognition and bring a topic to attention at the right moment.
The first ad doesn't always need to generate a lead straight away. Sometimes the goal is first to become visible within the right audience, then build interest, and only later steer towards action.
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Conversion
Awareness
Building visibility and recognition
Consideration
Driving interest, engagement and website visits
Conversion
Leads, downloads, demos or other concrete actions
Campaign goal
Not every LinkedIn campaign needs to achieve the same thing
LinkedIn offers different campaign objectives because the desired action varies by stage. The right choice depends on where the audience stands and what you're actually trying to achieve with the campaign.
Reaching a new audience
When a brand, product or solution is still largely unknown within a specific audience, the first value often lies in reach and recognition. The campaign then mainly needs to ensure the right people see the message several times.
Building interest
Not every potential customer is immediately ready for a demo or a conversation. Content, video, thought leadership and website visits can help an audience first become familiar with the topic and the organisation.
Generating leads and conversions
When the audience already has enough context or the proposition is directly relevant, LinkedIn can be used for lead generation, downloads, demo requests or conversions on the website.
Putting new business on the radar
LinkedIn can also be used to actively bring a specific proposition to the attention of relevant companies and decision-makers. Demand doesn't always arise from active search behaviour, but from someone encountering a relevant message that turns out to be recognisable or interesting at that moment.
A campaign doesn't always have to start at the top of the funnel. When intent and proposition justify it, you can target conversion directly.
Audience strategy
Specific targeting doesn't automatically mean the narrowest possible targeting
LinkedIn makes it possible to build audiences based on company, function, seniority, sector and company size, among other criteria. That makes the channel strong for B2B, but also sensitive to over-targeting.
An audience that looks perfect on paper can in practice be too small to build sufficient reach, data and scale. At the same time, too broad an audience can waste budget on people who are commercially of little relevance.
The right balance therefore depends on audience size, campaign budget, click price, campaign goal and how much time is available to build sufficient reach.
Too narrow
Too little scale
High relevance
Relevant & scalable
Sufficient reach + quality
Desired balance
Too broad
Less control
More reach
Budget & segmentation
Not every audience automatically belongs in the same campaign
Different audiences can vary significantly in size, competition and click price. When everything is combined into a single campaign, budget can end up mostly going to whichever segment LinkedIn finds the easiest or cheapest reach in.
That isn't necessarily the segment where the commercial value actually lies.
It can therefore make sense to run audiences or markets separately when budget allocation, CPC level, messaging or commercial priority clearly differs.
Different CPC levels
A senior enterprise audience can be considerably more expensive to reach than a broader middle-management audience. Separation gives more control over how much budget each segment receives.
Different propositions
A CFO doesn't need to see the same ad as a Head of Marketing. Different problems, arguments and content can justify a separate campaign structure.
Limited campaign budget
Segmenting isn't automatically better. When budget is spread too thinly across many small campaigns, none of them get enough volume. Structure should always be proportionate to the available budget.
Campaign duration
LinkedIn often needs time to truly reach an audience
An audience size in Campaign Manager doesn't mean all those people are actually active and seeing your ad during a short campaign.
People also don't all use LinkedIn with the same frequency. Some professionals are active daily, others only occasionally.
As a result, a short campaign can give a limited picture of the real potential. For awareness and consideration campaigns, a longer run time can help reach a larger share of the relevant audience and build sufficient repetition.
Short / tactical
Conversion
Consideration
Awareness / ABM
Longer build-up
Shorter duration
- tactical promotion or offer
- event
- deadline
- retargeting
- specific conversion push
Longer duration
- brand awareness
- new proposition
- category education
- ABM
- building consideration
There is no universal minimum duration. How long a campaign needs depends on audience size, how active that audience is, budget, campaign goal, desired frequency and urgency.
LinkedIn Audience Network
More reach isn't automatically better reach
The LinkedIn Audience Network can also show ads outside the LinkedIn feed, on external websites and apps. That can help build extra reach and volume and, in some campaigns, lower the cost per result.
But it also changes the context in which someone sees the ad. A professional consciously scrolling through LinkedIn is in a different environment than someone who encounters the same ad on an external website.
That's why ClickEdge doesn't automatically treat the Audience Network as good or bad. It needs to fit the campaign goal, message and desired level of control over placement.
When testing can make sense
- awareness and extra reach
- sufficient budget to assess placements separately
- video or content that still makes sense outside the LinkedIn feed
- campaigns where scale matters
When extra caution makes sense
- very specific ABM audiences
- campaigns where LinkedIn feed context matters
- limited budgets where you first want to understand pure feed performance
- when brand suitability or placement control carries a lot of weight
Results from the LinkedIn feed and the Audience Network should, where possible, be assessed separately before drawing conclusions.
Creative & message
The audience determines not just who sees the ad, but also what you need to say
Good targeting can't compensate for weak content. On LinkedIn, an ad competes with industry content, colleagues, news and personal updates. The message therefore needs to quickly make clear why someone should pay attention to it.
For awareness, that can mean the ad mainly introduces a recognisable problem or a new insight. Later in the funnel, the message can become more concrete and push more strongly towards a demo, download or conversation.
Showing the same creative for months on end is rarely a strategy. Reach and frequency need to be weighed against engagement, clicks and signs of creative fatigue.
- Problem / insight
- Evidence / depth
- Proposition
- Action
Ad formats & creative mix
Strong LinkedIn campaigns often combine different ad formats
Not every ad format does the same job. One ad can be strong in reach, while another delivers more engagement or clicks.
Thought Leader Ads, for example, can work well when expertise, credibility and a personal perspective matter. The content feels more natural in the feed and can therefore generate high engagement and click-through rates.
That doesn't automatically mean Thought Leader Ads perform better on every front. Single Image Ads, for instance, can build scale and reach more easily and give more control over message, branding and campaign volume.
That's why ClickEdge prefers to look at the combination of formats rather than declaring one ad type the winner. Enough variation makes it possible to assess reach, engagement, CTR, click behaviour and conversion alongside each other.
Single Image Ads
Suited to quickly testing a clear message and building reach within an audience. Works well for both awareness and more direct propositions.
Video & document content
Gives more room to explain a topic, demonstrate expertise or offer value before someone is directed to a website or lead form.
Which mix works best depends on audience, budget, campaign goal and available content. Not every campaign automatically needs multiple formats, but enough creative variation often makes comparison and optimisation stronger.
ABM
LinkedIn is strong when you know which companies you want to reach
In Account Based Marketing, the value of LinkedIn doesn't lie in individual leads alone. The channel can be used to become structurally visible within a selected group of companies and across multiple relevant roles within those accounts.
That means looking beyond clicks or forms, for instance at reach within target accounts, engagement, website behaviour and eventually the impact on pipeline.
That calls for different expectations than a campaign judged solely on direct CPL. You can read how this plays out by sector on our industries page.
Measurement
A cheap lead isn't automatically a good lead
LinkedIn can show results that look attractive inside Campaign Manager, while ultimately generating little commercial value. Conversely, a relatively expensive lead can be valuable when it comes from the right account and is genuinely followed up by sales.
That's why ClickEdge looks beyond CPL wherever possible. Think of lead quality, audience, account, pipeline, conversion on the website and the eventual commercial outcome.
The goal isn't to make LinkedIn as cheap as possible, but to understand where the channel adds value. You can read more about our approach on our website.
From the field
Not every LinkedIn campaign should be judged on leads right away
Introducing a new proposition to the right audience
When an audience is still barely familiar with a product or problem, a direct lead campaign can come too early. Building reach and content-driven recognition first can then make more sense than sending every impression straight to a form.
When one large audience gives too little control
Combining audiences with widely different costs, size or commercial value can lead to unequal budget allocation. Splitting them can then help deliberately steer investment and messaging per segment, as long as enough budget remains for each campaign to genuinely learn.
Examples of previous projects and markets can be found on our experience page.
LinkedIn Ads support
What can ClickEdge do for LinkedIn Ads?
Strategy & campaign structure
Choice of objectives, audiences, funnel, budget allocation and campaign structure.
Audience & ABM
Targeting relevant companies, functions and decision-makers, and setting up campaigns for specific account groups.
Creative & messaging
Developing ads and angles that fit the audience, campaign goal and stage in the customer journey.
Campaign optimisation
Steering on reach, frequency, CPC, engagement, conversions and commercial quality.
Measurement & reporting
Connecting LinkedIn data with website, analytics and CRM data to look beyond platform metrics.
Schedule a call
Explore our services for the full overview of online marketing services.
Frequently asked questions about LinkedIn Ads
Are you reaching the right audience, or mostly buying impressions?
In a first conversation we look at audience, campaign goal, structure, budget and how LinkedIn fits into the rest of your marketing. That makes clear where the channel can genuinely add value.