How to Set Up Retargeting Ads on LinkedIn

Don’t let warm leads walk away for good - bring them back with LinkedIn’s powerful retargeting ads. If someone has visited your website or engaged with your LinkedIn content, they’ve already raised their hand and shown interest. This article provides a complete, step-by-step guide to setting up LinkedIn retargeting campaigns that re-engage this valuable audience, keeping your brand top-of-mind and turning warm interest into real conversions.

Why B2B Marketers Can't Ignore LinkedIn Retargeting

In the world of B2B, the sales cycle can be a marathon, not a sprint. Decision-makers rarely convert on their first interaction with a brand. They might visit your pricing page, download a whitepaper, or watch a product video, but then get pulled into a meeting or move on to another task. Without a strategy to re-engage them, that initial spark of interest quickly fades. This is where retargeting becomes your most valuable player.

LinkedIn retargeting allows you to serve targeted ads specifically to people who have already interacted with your business. This isn't cold outreach, it's a warm conversation with an audience that already knows who you are. The benefits are clear:

• Higher Conversion Rates: You're advertising to people who are already familiar with your value proposition. They are significantly more likely to convert than a completely cold audience.
• Increased ROI: Since you're focusing your ad spend on a highly relevant and engaged audience, your cost per acquisition (CPA) is often much lower compared to broader targeting methods.
• Nurturing Leads Through the Funnel: You can guide prospects along their buying journey with tailored content. Someone who read a blog post might see a case study next, while someone who visited your services page gets a demo offer.
• Brand Reinforcement: Staying visible keeps your brand at the forefront of their minds, so when they are finally ready to make a decision, you’re the first one they think of.

In essence, LinkedIn retargeting helps you finish the conversations you’ve already started, making your entire marketing funnel more efficient and effective.

Step 1: Install the LinkedIn Insight Tag

Before you can retarget anyone based on your website activity, you need to let LinkedIn "see" who is visiting your site. This is done by installing the LinkedIn Insight Tag, a small snippet of JavaScript code that you place in your website's global footer.

Think of it as a security camera for your website that reports back to LinkedIn, but for marketing purposes. It allows LinkedIn to match your website visitors to their LinkedIn profiles, creating an audience you can then target with ads. Without it, you can’t run website retargeting campaigns at all.

How to Find and Install the Insight Tag

1. Navigate to your LinkedIn Campaign Manager dashboard.
2. Click on Account Assets in the top navigation bar and select Insight Tag from the dropdown menu.
3. On the Insight Tag page, you'll see a button that says Manage Insight Tag, and then a tab for Settings. If you've never installed it before, LinkedIn will guide you through the process right from this screen.

You’ll be presented with three installation options:

1. I will install the tag myself

If you're comfortable with code, this option provides the JavaScript snippet for you to copy and paste. You’ll need to place this code in the global footer of your website, right before the closing <,/body>, tag on every page. This ensures it loads on every page your visitors land on.

2. I will send the tag to a developer

Not a coder? No problem. This option allows you to email the tag and instructions directly to your website developer. Just enter their email address, and LinkedIn will handle the rest.

3. I will use a tag manager

This is the most popular and recommended method for most marketers. If you use a tool like Google Tag Manager (GTM), Microsoft Clarity, or Adobe Tag Manager, installation is incredibly simple. All you need is your unique Partner ID, which is the string of numbers shown in the dialog box.

Using Google Tag Manager (GTM) for Installation:

• In your GTM account, create a New Tag.
• In the Tag Configuration box, search for and select the LinkedIn Insight Tag 2.0.
• Paste your Partner ID from LinkedIn Campaign Manager into the appropriate field.
• In the Triggering section, choose All Pages to ensure the tag fires on every page of your site.
• Save, preview, and then publish your changes in GTM.

Once the tag is installed, return to the Insight Tag section in LinkedIn Campaign Manager. After a few hours or up to a day, you should see your website domain appear with a green "Active" status. This confirms that LinkedIn is receiving data correctly. Now, you’re ready to start building your audiences.

Step 2: Create Your Matched Audiences

With the Insight Tag active, you can now start defining who you want to retarget. These are called Matched Audiences, and they are the heart of your retargeting strategy. You can access this by navigating to Account Assets >, Matched Audiences.

Choosing Your Retargeting Source

LinkedIn offers several powerful ways to build audiences. For retargeting, these are the most effective ones to start with:

• Website Visitors: This is the foundation of most retargeting campaigns. Instead of just targeting "all visitors," you can get incredibly specific.
  • All Website Visitors: A great catch-all audience to maintain brand awareness.
  • Pricing Page Visitors: This is a high-intent audience. These people are actively evaluating your solution. You can retarget them with a special offer, a demo, or a comparison sheet.
  • Blog or Resources Visitors: These users are in the research phase. Retarget them with a related piece of content, like an e-book or webinar, to draw them deeper into your funnel.
  • Landing Page Visitors (No Conversion): Target people who landed on a page for a specific offer (like a demo request) but didn't fill out the form. You can serve them an ad with social proof (like a customer testimonial) to give them that final nudge.
• Video Viewers: If you use video in your organic LinkedIn posts or ads, you can create audiences based on how much of your video someone watched. Retargeting people who watched 50% or more of your video is a fantastic way to reach an already engaged group.
• Company Page Engagement: This creates an audience of people who have taken action on your company's LinkedIn Page - be it a like, comment, share, or click. They are actively following you and are prime candidates for targeted messaging.
• Lead Gen Form: This is a powerful feature for recovering leads. You can create an audience of people who opened your LinkedIn Lead Gen Form but didn't submit it. A gentle reminder or a slightly different value proposition can convince them to finish what they started.

When you create a new website audience, give it a descriptive name (e.g., "Website Visitors - Pricing Page - Last 30 Days") so you know precisely who you're targeting when you build the campaign.

Step 3: Build Your LinkedIn Retargeting Campaign

Now it’s time to put all the pieces together and launch your ad!

Inside Campaign Manager, click Create >, Campaign and follow these steps.

1. Choose Your Objective

Align your objective with what you want your audience to do. For retargeting:

• Website conversions: Best if you want them to book a demo, sign up for a trial, or purchase a product on your site.
• Lead generation: Ideal if your offer is a downloadable guide, webinar registration, or contact form, and you want to use LinkedIn's native Lead Gen Form.
• Brand awareness: Good for keeping in front of lower-intent audiences (e.g., all website visitors from the last 90 days) without a hard sell.

2. Select Your Target Audience

This is where you'll use the Matched Audiences you created. Scroll down to the Audience section. Under the "Targeting" tab, find the field for Matched Audiences. Here, you will be able to select one or more of your previously created retargeting lists.

Equally important is to use exclusions. For example, if you are targeting pricing page visitors with a demo offer, you should exclude anyone who has already booked a demo or has become a customer. This prevents you from wasting ad spend on people who have already converted.

You can also layer additional targeting on top, like Job Function or Seniority, but be cautious. Retargeting audiences can sometimes be small, and adding too many layers might shrink your audience below the 300-member minimum required for a campaign to run.

3. Craft Your Ad Creative and Copy

Don't serve a generic ad to a warm audience. Your copy should acknowledge their previous interaction subtly. Your offer should also be a logical next step in their journey.

Here are a few examples:

• For Pricing Page Visitors:
  • Headline: Still Deciding? See [Your Tool] in Action.
  • Copy: See exactly how [Your Company] helps teams like yours achieve [Benefit]. Grab a spot in a live 15-minute demo this week.
  • Offer: A live demo session or a pre-recorded demo video.
• For Blog Readers:
  • Headline: Liked Our Guide to [Topic]?
  • Copy: Take your knowledge one step further with our complete [Topic] playbook. This exclusive download gives you templates and checklists to put what you learned into action.
  • Offer: A more in-depth content asset like an e-book or a checklist.

After you’ve set your budget, schedule, and ads, you can launch your campaign. Give it a few days to gather data before making any major optimization decisions.

Final Thoughts

Setting up LinkedIn retargeting might seem complex at first, but by systematically installing the Insight Tag, thoughtfully segmenting Matched Audiences, and tailoring your ad creative, you can create a powerful system for re-engaging valuable leads. It bridges the gap between initial interest and final decision, ensuring your marketing efforts have the best possible chance to succeed.

A great retargeting strategy is fueled by a consistent flow of new website visitors, which starts with a strong organic social media presence. To make that part easier, we built Postbase from the ground up to simplify how brands plan and schedule the content that attracts their audience in the first place. With our visual calendar and reliable, multi-platform scheduling, you focus on creating great posts, building your organic traffic, and giving your paid campaigns a steady stream of engaged professionals to retarget.