How to Run Thought Leader Ads on LinkedIn

Running ads from a personal profile on LinkedIn can feel a bit counterintuitive, but it's one of the most effective strategies for building a B2B brand right now. Instead of pushing ads from a faceless company logo, this approach leverages the authentic voice of a key leader to build trust and authority with your target audience. This article will walk you through exactly why this method works, how to choose the right content, and the step-by-step process for setting up these powerful campaigns inside LinkedIn Campaign Manager.

Why Running Ads from a Personal Profile is So Effective

In B2B, people don't buy from logos, they buy from people they know, like, and trust. While ads from a company page often trigger "ad blindness," content from a real person's profile cuts through the noise. It feels less like an advertisement and more like a valuable piece of advice from a knowledgeable peer. This shift from pure promotion to education and authority-building is the foundation of modern B2B marketing.

When you run ads from a personal profile, you create a "trust handoff." If your audience comes to respect the expertise and insights of your founder, CEO, or subject matter expert, that trust naturally extends to the company they represent. It's a strategy that pays dividends in the form of:

• Higher Engagement: Ads from personal profiles consistently see higher engagement rates than ads from company pages because they feel more authentic and conversational.
• Authentic Brand Building: It puts a human face on your brand, making you more relatable and memorable.
• Shorter Sales Cycles: When potential customers are already warmed up to your brand's expertise by following a leader, the sales conversation starts from a much stronger position.

The Two Ways to Run Thought Leader Ads on LinkedIn

LinkedIn offers two primary methods for amplifying content from an individual's profile. Understanding the difference is important because one is much better for creating a high-trust, authentic experience.

Method 1: Using the 'Employee as an Advocate' Format

This is the simpler, out-of-the-box option within LinkedIn Campaign Manager. When you create a single image or video ad for your company, you have the option to feature an employee as the "author." The ad will show the employee's name and profile picture at the top, but it's still clearly sponsored by the company.

• Pros: Quick to set up. All ad spend and controls stay within your main company ad account.
• Cons: It still feels visibly like an ad. Most importantly, any likes or comments on the ad are attached to the ad unit itself - they don't appear on the person's actual profile. This means you lose the valuable "social proof" that accumulates on a popular organic post.

Method 2: Boosting an Existing Organic Post (The Recommended Method)

This is the gold standard. In this approach, the thought leader first publishes an engaging, valuable post on their own LinkedIn profile. Then, using Campaign Manager, you sponsor (or "boost") that specific, existing post. The ad that people see is an exact replica of the real post, complete with all the organic likes and comments it has already received.

• Pros: It looks 100% authentic because it *is* an authentic post. All new engagement you pay for gets added directly to the original organic post, building up a powerful wall of social proof that lives on the leader's profile forever.
• Cons: It requires a bit more coordination and a slightly different setup process. However, the superior results are absolutely worth the extra few clicks.

From here on, we'll focus exclusively on Method 2, as it delivers the authenticity and social proof that makes this strategy so powerful.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Boosting a Thought Leader's Post

Launching this type of campaign involves three main stages: creating strong source material, setting up permissions, and configuring the campaign in LinkedIn Ads. Let's break it down.

Step 1: Create a Great Organic Post

Your ad campaign is only as good as the content you're amplifying. Paid spend is fuel, not a fix. A boring or salesy post will fall flat, no matter how much money you put behind it. The goal here is not to sell, it's to teach, inform, and build credibility.

What makes a great thought leadership post for LinkedIn?

• Take a Stand: Avoid generic advice. Share a strong, well-reasoned opinion on a topic your audience cares about. Challenge a common industry assumption.
• Tell a Story: People connect with narratives. Frame your insight around a personal experience - a mistake you made, a lesson you learned, or a surprising customer interaction.
• Provide Practical Value: Use clear formatting, like numbered lists or bullet points, to deliver actionable tips your audience can use immediately. Keep paragraphs short and scannable.
• Ask a Question: End your post with a thoughtful question to encourage comments and spark a conversation. The goal is engagement, not just views.
• Use Clean Visuals: Accompany your post with a high-quality headshot, a simple graphic that illustrates a point, or a short, subtitled video of the leader speaking.

Crucially, this post should be 0% sales pitch. Don't mention your product, don't link to a demo page, and don't use marketing jargon. Just focus on giving value freely. The rest will follow.

Step 2: Connect the Profile to Your Company Ads Account

To give your company permission to sponsor a post from a person's profile, you need to establish a connection. There are a couple of ways to do this, but the most straightforward is handled inside Campaign Manager.

To give an Advertiser access to boost your posts:

1. The person whose post you want to sponsor logs into their LinkedIn Profile.
2. Navigate to the company's LinkedIn Page.
3. On the Company Page, the Page Admin navigates to their Admin View.
4. Click on the Admin tools dropdown menu on the top right, and select Sponsor updates from employees.
5. Click Add employees to sponsor posts. You can then search for employees and request access to promote their posts.
6. The employee will receive a notification and an email to approve this request. Once they approve, you're ready to go!

This simple request gives your ad managers the ability to select that person's posts for sponsorship without giving them total access to their personal account.

Step 3: Build the Campaign in Campaign Manager

With the permissions in place and a terrific organic post live, it's time to build the advertising campaign.

1. Choose Your Objective: Log in to LinkedIn Campaign Manager and create a new campaign. For this strategy, the "Engagement" objective is usually the best fit. Your goal is to get comments, clicks, and shares to build social proof. Alternatively, "Brand Awareness" can work if you just want to maximize eyeballs on the content.
2. Define Your Audience: Build a target audience that matches your ideal customer profile. Don't overcomplicate it. A great starting point is to target by a combination of:
   • Job Title: (e.g., "Director of Marketing," "Software Engineer")
   • Industry: (e.g., "Computer Software," "Financial Services")
   • Company Size: (e.g., 51-200 employees)
   You can also use Matched Audiences to retarget your website visitors or existing leads for a warmer touchpoint.
3. Select Ad Format: Choose the format that matches the original organic post - likely "Single image ad" or "Video ad."
4. Find and Select the Post: This is the most important step. When you get to the "Ads" setup, don't click "Create ad." Instead, select the tab or button labeled "Browse existing content."
   A window will pop up. From there, select the "Posts from employees" or a similarly named view. You should see a feed of organic posts from any employees who have granted you advertising permission. Find the post you want to boost and click the "Sponsor" button next to it.
5. Set Your Budget and Launch: Set a daily budget you're comfortable with (starting around $25-50/day is fine for testing). Set the campaign to run and let it go. Resist the urge to make changes for the first 3-5 days, LinkedIn's algorithm needs time to find the people in your audience most likely to engage.

How to Measure Success (It's Not Clicks)

It can be tempting to judge these ads by old metrics like clicks or conversions, but that's missing the point. The purpose is to build long-term authority and brand affinity. Therefore, your success metrics should look a bit different.

Primary KPIs to Watch:

• Engagement Rate: This is your north star. Are people resonating with the content? A high engagement rate (above 1-2% on LinkedIn is great) shows your message is hitting the mark.
• Quality of Comments: Go beyond just the number of comments. Are people asking insightful questions? Tagging their colleagues? Debating the issue? Deep conversations in the comments section are a sign of a massive win.
• New Follower Growth: The sponsored post will include a "Follow" button for the individual's profile. As you run these ads, you should see a healthy increase in their follower count, building a long-term audience you can engage with organically.

Secondary KPIs to Consider:

• Cost Per Engagement: How efficiently are you generating these engagement signals? Over time, you can optimize your content and targeting to lower this cost.
• LinkedIn Profile Views: A spike in views of the thought leader's personal profile is a great indicator that people are intrigued and want to learn more.
• Untracked Inbound Interest: Often, the biggest impact of these campaigns doesn't show up in a dashboard. You'll hear prospects say, "I've been following your CEO on LinkedIn for a while," or you'll see an uptick in direct traffic to your site. This is the "dark social" effect of building a memorable brand.

By focusing on engagement and follower growth, you align your metrics with the strategic goal: establishing your company's leader as a trusted authority in your space.

Final Thoughts

Running thought leader ads on LinkedIn is a simple but profound shift in your marketing perspective. It prioritizes building genuine connection and trust over immediate lead generation, a strategy that ultimately builds a stronger, more resilient brand. By boosting authentic content directly from a key leader's profile, you can engage your target audience in a way that generic company ads simply can't match.

Of course, the foundation of a great thought leader campaign is a steady drumbeat of high-quality organic content. This is where we designed Postbase to make a real difference. Our clear, visual calendar helps you plan out an executive's entire content strategy weeks or months in advance, making it simple to maintain consistency and quality. And with our unified inbox, you or your team can manage the comments and conversations generated by these key posts, ensuring no opportunity for engagement is missed.