How to Use LinkedIn Campaign Manager

LinkedIn Campaign Manager is one of the most powerful tools for B2B marketing, but it can feel a little intimidating when you first open the dashboard. We're going to break down exactly how to navigate it, from setting up your first ad account to launching a campaign that gets results. This guide will walk you through setting up, targeting, creating, and analyzing your LinkedIn ads, step by step.

First Things First: Finding Campaign Manager and Setting Up Your Ad Account

Before you can launch your first campaign, you need to know where to find the control panel. LinkedIn Campaign Manager is not a separate website, it's built right into your main LinkedIn experience. Here’s how you get there:

1. Click the "For Business" icon in the top right corner of your LinkedIn homepage (it looks like a grid of nine dots).
2. Select "Advertise." From there, you’ll be taken to the Campaign Manager dashboard.

If it’s your first time, LinkedIn will prompt you to create an ad account. This is a straightforward process where you'll name your account, select a currency for billing, and link it to your company’s LinkedIn Page. If you manage multiple clients or business lines, you can create multiple ad accounts under one login.

It's helpful to understand the basic structure before you start building. Everything is organized in a hierarchy:

• Campaign Group: The top-level folder for organization. You could have a campaign group for "Q4 Promotions" or "New Product Launch."
• Campaign: This is where you set your objective, target audience, budget, and ad format.
• Ad: The actual creative - the image, video, and copy your audience will see.

Step 1: Choose the Right Campaign Objective

Once you create a new campaign, the first question LinkedIn asks is, "What's your objective?" This isn't just a simple label, your choice tells LinkedIn’s algorithm what you want to achieve, which directly affects who sees your ad and how your budget is spent. The objectives are organized into a classic marketing funnel.

Awareness

This is all about getting your brand in front of as many relevant people as possible. The main objective here is Brand Awareness, optimized to maximize impressions (the number of times your ad is shown).

• When to use it: Launching a new company, entering a new market, or promoting a major announcement. You’re not trying to sell anything yet, just introducing yourself.

Consideration

Here, you're looking for action and engagement. You want your target audience to interact with your content or learn more about what you do.

• Website Visits: The goal is to drive people to your website, blog, or a specific landing page. LinkedIn will show your ad to people in your target audience who are most likely to click a link.
• Engagement: If your ad is focused on getting likes, comments, and shares on a LinkedIn post, choose this. It's great for building a conversation around thought leadership content.
• Video Views: Just what it sounds like. LinkedIn will optimize delivery to get the most plays on your video creative.

Conversion

This is where the magic happens for most B2B marketers. You’re asking your audience to take a high-value action, like becoming a lead or expressing interest in a job.

• Lead Generation: This is arguably one of LinkedIn's most popular objectives. It attaches a native lead form directly to your ad. When a user clicks your CTA, their contact information (name, email, job title) is pre-filled from their LinkedIn profile, dramatically reducing friction and increasing conversion rates.
• Website Conversions: Use this when you want someone to take a specific action on your website, like signing up for a demo, downloading an e-book, or making a purchase. Note: This requires you to install the LinkedIn Insight Tag on your website.
• Job Applicants: Perfect for recruiters, this objective shows your job postings to a highly targeted audience of potential candidates.

Choosing the right objective is the foundation of your campaign. Pick the one that truly matches your goal, not just the one that sounds good.

Step 2: Define Your Target Audience - LinkedIn's Superpower

Targeting is what makes LinkedIn advertising special. You can get incredibly specific about who sees your ads, moving beyond basic demographics to professional attributes. When building your audience, think about the ideal customer for the product or service you’re promoting.

Audience Attributes

This is where you build an audience from scratch based on their professional data. You can layer multiple criteria to make your audience as narrow or as broad as you need. Some of the most valuable attributes include:

• Company: Target by company size, industry, company name (great for account-based marketing), or even how fast a company is growing.
• Job Experience: This is the big one. You can target people by their job title, job function (e.g., Marketing, Sales, Engineering), seniority (e.g., Directors, VPs, C-Suite), skills, and years of experience.
• Education: Target by school, degree, or field of study.
• Interests &, Traits: You can target users based on the groups they are members of or the professional interests they've shown on the platform.

Pro-Tip: Use the "narrow audience" and "exclude" functions wisely. For example, you might target people with "Director" in their job title but exclude those in the "Human Resources" function if your product is for marketers.

Matched Audiences

This powerful feature lets you target people who have already interacted with your brand. It requires a bit more setup but can deliver incredible ROI.

• Website Retargeting: By installing the LinkedIn Insight Tag (a small piece of code) on your website, you can create audiences of people who have visited specific pages. For instance, you could show one ad to everyone who visited your pricing page but a different ad to those who read a specific blog post.
• Contact &, Company Lists: You can upload a list of email contacts or target companies (Account-Based Marketing), and LinkedIn will match them to user profiles. This is perfect for running targeted campaigns at a specific set of leads or strategic accounts.

Step 3: Pick the Right LinkedIn Ad Format

Now that you know who you’re talking to, it’s time to decide what they'll see. LinkedIn offers several ad formats, each with its own strengths.

Single Image Ad

The classic sponsored content ad you see in the feed. It features one image, text, and a link. It’s versatile, easy to create, and great for driving website visits or promoting content.

Carousel Ad

This format lets you use two or more images in a swipeable format. It's excellent for telling a story, showcasing multiple products or features, or breaking down a complex idea into digestible steps.

Video Ad

Video grabs attention in the busy LinkedIn feed. Use it for product demos, client testimonials, quick-tip tutorials, or sharing your brand's mission. Keep it short and make sure it delivers value even with the sound off (by using captions!).

Document Ad

A B2B goldmine. This allows you to promote a document - like a PDF, PowerPoint, or Word Doc - directly in the feed. Users can read it without leaving LinkedIn and even download it with a single click. It's perfect for polishing whitepapers, case studies, or reports.

Lead Gen Form Ad

This isn't a separate visual format but an attachment you can add to Single Image, Carousel, and Video ads. When someone clicks your CTA, an instant, pre-filled form appears. Because it's so easy for users to complete, it's one of the most effective ways to generate high-quality leads on the platform.

Step 4: Set Your Budget, Schedule, and Bidding

Here, you tell LinkedIn how much you want to spend and when. It feels technical, but it’s pretty simple once you get the hang of it.

• Budget: You can choose a Daily Budget (the maximum you want to spend per day) or a Lifetime Budget (the maximum for the entire campaign duration). A daily budget gives you more control, while a lifetime budget tells LinkedIn to spend the money more flexibly to get you the best results over time.
• Schedule: Set a start date for your campaign and, optionally, an end date.
• Bidding: For your first few campaigns, the simplest option is Maximum Delivery. This tells LinkedIn to get you the most results possible for your chosen objective within your budget. As you get more advanced, you can switch to manual bidding strategies for more control over your cost-per-result.

Step 5: Design a High-Performing Ad Creative

This is your last stop before launch. A perfectly targeted ad will fall flat if the creative doesn't resonate. Keep these best practices in mind:

• The Hook Is Everything: The first line of your ad copy is the most important. Ask a question, state a surprising fact, or directly address a pain point your audience experiences.
• Focus on Value, Not Features: Instead of saying what your product does, explain what it helps your audience do. How does it save them time, make them more money, or remove a frustration?
• Clear Call-to-Action (CTA): Tell your audience exactly what you want them to do next. "Learn more," "Download now," "Request a demo," "Sign-up." Be direct.
• Professional Visuals: Use clean, high-resolution images or videos. Avoid cheesy stock photos. If possible, show real people using your product or celebrating a win. Graphics with simple text overlays also perform well.

Before launching, click the "Preview" button to see exactly how your ad will look on desktop and mobile.

Step 6: Launch, Monitor, and Optimize

Once you’ve reviewed everything, hit the "Launch Campaign" button. But your work isn't done! Let your campaign run for a few days to gather data, then head back to the Campaign Manager dashboard to see what's happening.

Pay attention to key metrics like:

• Impressions: How many times your ad was seen.
• Clicks: How many people clicked your ad.
• Click-Through Rate (CTR): The percentage of impressions that resulted in a click. A low CTR might mean your creative isn't compelling enough.
• Cost Per Result: Your total spend divided by the number of objective-based results (e.g., cost per lead, cost per click). This tells you how efficient your campaign is.

Running a successful LinkedIn campaign is a process of testing and optimizing and learning. Don't be afraid to duplicate your campaign, change one variable (like the headline or the image), and see which one performs better. Over time, you’ll discover exactly what resonates with your professional audience.

Final Thoughts

LinkedIn Campaign Manager offers a huge opportunity to reach your ideal B2B customers with precision. By starting with a clear objective, building a well-defined audience, choosing the right ad format, and continuously analyzing your results, you can turn the platform into a predictable source of leads and growth for your business.

Once your campaigns start driving traffic and interest, managing the flood of organic and paid interactions can become a job in itself. That's where we wanted to step in. A successful ad strategy is often supported by strong organic content, and keeping both aligned used to mean jumping between a hundred different browser tabs. With Postbase, we built a single platform where you can plan your content calendar, schedule all your organic LinkedIn posts, and manage all your comments in one unified inbox. It simplifies your workflow so you can focus on building your brand, not wrangling your tools.