How to Create LinkedIn Ads

Creating your first LinkedIn Ad can feel intimidating, but it's one of the most powerful ways to get your B2B business in front of the right decision-makers. This guide cuts through the noise and walks you through every step of the process, from picking the right objective to launching a campaign that actually works. We'll cover how to define your audience, choose the best ad format, and set a budget that makes sense for you.

Before You Start: Laying the Foundation for a Successful Campaign

Jumping straight into the Ad Manager without a game plan is a recipe for wasted spend. Taking a few minutes to lay the foundation is the difference between an ad campaign that works and one that just drains your budget. Three things matter more than anything else: your goal, your audience, and your Company Page.

1. Set a Clear Objective

Before you ever click "Create Campaign," ask yourself a simple question: What do I want people to do after seeing this ad? The answer defines your entire strategy. Are you trying to:

• Generate leads? Your goal is getting email addresses for a webinar, a demo, or a downloadable resource like a whitepaper.
• Drive website traffic? You want to send high-intent professionals to a specific landing page or blog post.
• Build brand awareness? Your goal is simply to get your company's name and message in front of a new, relevant audience.
• Promote an event? You need registrations for an upcoming online or in-person event.

Having a specific, measurable goal will guide every decision you make, from the ad format you choose to the copy you write.

2. Understand Your Target Audience

Who is your ideal customer? Be specific. LinkedIn’s superpower is its professional targeting data. You can move beyond basic demographics and target people based on their professional lives. Think about details like:

• Job Title: "Marketing Manager" or "Chief Financial Officer"
• Industry: "Computer Software" or "Hospital & Health Care"
• Company Size: 11-50 employees or 10,001+ employees
• Seniority Level: "Senior," "Manager," "Director," or "CXO"
• Skills: "Content Marketing" or "JavaScript"

The more clearly you can define your audience, the more effective your budget will be. You're not just shouting into the void, you're speaking directly to the people who can actually buy your product or service.

3. Dust Off Your LinkedIn Page

All of your ads will be associated with your LinkedIn Company Page. When a user clicks your company name on an ad, they’ll land there. Make sure it’s professional, fully filled out, and has some recent organic activity. An empty, outdated page breaks trust and can make potential leads question your credibility. Post a few relevant updates before you launch your campaign so your page looks active and welcoming.

Creating Your LinkedIn Ad Campaign: A Step-by-Step Guide

With your foundation in place, you’re ready to build your campaign. LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager will guide you through this process, but understanding each choice is what will make your ad effective.

Step 1: Get to the Campaign Manager

To start, sign into your LinkedIn account. In the top-right corner, click the "Promote" or "Advertise" button. This will take you into the LinkedIn Campaign Manager dashboard, the control center for all of your advertising efforts. Simply click the "Create Campaign" button to begin.

Step 2: Choose Your Campaign Objective

The first thing LinkedIn asks is: what's your goal? Your choice here helps LinkedIn optimize your ad's delivery for a specific outcome. The options are grouped into three familiar marketing funnel stages:

• Awareness: This is an upper-funnel goal focused on impressions. Select Brand awareness if your primary goal is to get your company seen by as many relevant people as possible.
• Consideration: This is for getting your audience to interact. Choose Website visits to send traffic to your site, Engagement to get more likes and shares on your posts, or Video views to get people watching your content.
• Conversion: This is where the results happen. Choose Lead generation to capture leads using LinkedIn's pre-filled forms, Website conversions to track actions on your site (like a form fill or purchase), or Job applicants if you’re hiring.

For most B2B marketers starting out, Website visits and Lead generation are the most common starting points.

Step 3: Build Your Target Audience

This is where your prep work on understanding your audience pays off. LinkedIn lets you layer targeting options to create a highly specific group of people who will see your ads.

Location

Start with geography. You can target entire countries (e.g., United States, Canada) or get more specific with states, provinces, or cities (e.g., California, Toronto).

Audience Attributes

Now for the exciting part. Under "Audience attributes," you can narrow your audience based on professional characteristics. You don't have to use all of them, but layering a few is a great practice. Here are the main categories:

• Company: Focus on attributes like Company Industry (e.g., "Information Technology and Services"), Company Size, or even target a list of specific Company Names.
• Demographics: You can target by Member Age and Member Gender, though it's often more effective to target based on professional traits.
• Education: Target by Fields of Study, Degrees, or even specific Member Schools. This is useful for recruiting or reaching alumni networks.
• Job Experience: This is arguably the most powerful category. You can target people based on their Job Function (e.g., "Marketing"), a member’s Seniority Level in an organization, specific Job Titles, their listed Skills, or Years of Experience.
• Interests and Traits: Target members based on the LinkedIn Groups they are part of or professional interests they’ve shown on the platform.

Example: Imagine you're selling project management software to small tech companies. Your targeting might look like this: Location = United States, Company Industry = Computer Software, Company Size = 11-50 employees, and Job Seniority = Manager, Director, VP.

Step 4: Select Your Ad Format

Next, you’ll choose how you want your ad to look. Different formats are better suited for different objectives.

• Single Image Ad: The most common format. It appears directly in the LinkedIn feed and is great for driving traffic with clean, eye-catching creative.
• Carousel Image Ad: Lets you use two or more swipable images in a single ad. This is perfect for showcasing multiple services, telling a step-by-step story, or diving into different product features.
• Video Ad: Video grabs attention like nothing else in a crowded feed. It’s perfect for product demos, customer testimonials, or thought leadership content. Just remember to add subtitles, as many users watch with the sound off.
• Text Ad: A simple, budget-friendly option. These ads appear at the top of the page or in the right column and consist of a headline, a short description, and a small image.
• Sponsored Messaging (Message Ad): This format delivers an ad directly to a user’s LinkedIn inbox. It feels more personal but needs to be used carefully to avoid being seen as spam. It works wonders for event invitations or demo offers.
• Document Ad: This allows you to promote a document (like a PDF, PowerPoint, or Word Doc) directly in the feed. Users can read it and download it without leaving LinkedIn, making it incredibly effective for lead generation with guides and reports.

Step 5: Set Your Budget and Schedule

Now you tell LinkedIn how much you want to spend and when you want your ads to run.

Budget Options

You have two main choices:

• Daily Budget: You set a maximum amount you're willing to pay per day. This is great for ongoing, always-on campaigns.
• Lifetime Budget: You set a total budget for the entire flight of the campaign. This is perfect for campaigns with a fixed start and end date.

Scheduling and Bidding

Set a start date for your campaign, and optionally, an end date. For bidding, LinkedIn offers a few options. The "Maximum Delivery" (formerly automatic bidding) option is a great place to start. It aims to get you the most results possible for your budget without you needing to manage manual bids.

Step 6: Build Your Ad Creative and Launch

You’re at the final step! This is where you write your ad copy, upload your image or video, and link it all to your desired destination.

Craft Compelling Ad Copy

Your ad text is made up of a few parts, primarily the introductory text and the headline. Follow this simple formula:

1. A Strong Hook: Address a pain point or ask a question. Gimmicky? Maybe, but it works (e.g., "Is manual data entry slowing your team down?").
2. Clear Value Proposition: Explain how you solve the problem. (e.g., "Our platform automates it all.")
3. A Specific Call-to-Action (CTA): Tell them exactly what to do next. (e.g., "Get a free demo today.").

Choose an Engaging Creative

Your visual (image or video) needs to stop someone mid-scroll. Use high-quality imagery that feels professional, features your brand colors, and isn’t overloaded with text. For video, make sure the first 3-5 seconds are captivating.

Review and Launch

Before you hit the launch button, use the preview pane to see exactly how your ad will look on desktop and mobile. Double-check everything: the text for typos, the landing page URL, and your targeting summary. Once everything looks good, click "Launch Campaign!" Your ad will go into a review process and will go live once approved.

After Launch: Monitoring and Optimization

Congratulations! Your campaign is live. But your job isn’t quite done yet. Good marketers monitor their campaign performance and make adjustments to improve results.

Key Metrics to Watch

Give your campaign a few days to gather some data. Then, head back to the Campaign Manager and look at a few core metrics:

• Impressions: The number of times your ad was seen.
• Clicks and Click-Through Rate (CTR): The number of clicks on your ad and the percentage of impressions that resulted in a click. A high CTR is a good indicator your ad is resonating.
• Cost Per Result (CPR): The amount you are paying for each desired action (e.g., a lead, a click).
• Conversions: The number of people who completed your campaign goal (requires setting up conversion tracking).

Over time, you can start A/B testing different elements, like using a new image or changing your headline, to see if you can lower your cost per result and get more for your budget. Optimization is an ongoing process of learning what your audience responds to best.

Final Thoughts

Creating effective LinkedIn Ads is all about building a solid foundation with clear goals and deep audience knowledge, then following a methodical process to build, launch, and optimize your campaign. It may feel like a lot of steps at first, but with practice, it becomes a powerful system for B2B growth.

After your ads bring in newfound attention and leads, keeping those people engaged is the next big step. This is where a seamless organic social media presence becomes essential to maintain momentum. We know managing all that content can feel like a full-time job, which is why we built Postbase to make it simple. Our visual calendar and modern scheduling tools - especially for short-form video - help you line up your content across multiple networks, so you can nurture the community your ads helped you create.