HOW TO ADVERTSIE ON LINKEDIN?

At Lillian Purge, we specialise in Local SEO Services and provide practical step-by-step guidance on How to Advertise on Linkedin, from choosing objectives to targeting your audience for maximum returns.

At Lillian Purge, we specialise in local SEO services, helping businesses grow their visibility, attract qualified leads, and reach the right audiences online. While SEO strengthens your long-term visibility, paid advertising can deliver faster results—and one of the most effective platforms for professional outreach is LinkedIn. With over a billion members, LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network and an ideal place to connect with decision-makers, promote services, and grow your brand.

Why Advertise on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is unique among advertising platforms because it targets professionals based on industry, job title, company size, skills, and seniority. This precision makes it especially valuable for B2B marketing, recruitment, and service-based businesses.

Advertising on LinkedIn can help you:

  • Build brand awareness among key decision-makers.

  • Generate high-quality leads for your products or services.

  • Promote events, webinars, or job opportunities.

  • Drive traffic to your website or landing pages.

Unlike other social platforms, LinkedIn users are often in a professional mindset, meaning engagement tends to lead to more meaningful business outcomes.

Step 1: Set Up a LinkedIn Campaign Manager Account

To run LinkedIn ads, you’ll need a Campaign Manager account. This is LinkedIn’s advertising dashboard where you can create, manage, and track all your ad campaigns.

  1. Go to LinkedIn Campaign Manager.

  2. Log in with your LinkedIn credentials.

  3. Connect your business page if you have one (this helps build credibility).

  4. Enter your billing information to set up payment.

Once your account is ready, you can begin creating your first campaign.

Step 2: Choose Your Campaign Objective

LinkedIn allows you to choose from three main objective categories that align with your business goals:

  1. Awareness: Ideal for building brand recognition or increasing followers.

  2. Consideration: Focuses on engagement, website visits, or video views.

  3. Conversions: Targets leads, sign-ups, or purchases.

Selecting the right objective ensures LinkedIn optimises your campaign for the best possible performance based on your goals.

Step 3: Define Your Target Audience

LinkedIn’s targeting capabilities are what make it so powerful. You can narrow your audience using criteria such as:

  • Location (country, region, or city).

  • Industry or company type.

  • Job title, seniority, or function.

  • Education, skills, or professional interests.

  • Company size or specific employers.

You can also create matched audiences by uploading email lists or retargeting users who visited your website.

Precise targeting helps ensure your budget is spent on people most likely to convert.

Step 4: Choose Your Ad Format

LinkedIn offers several ad formats, depending on your campaign objective and content style:

  • Sponsored Content: Appears directly in users’ feeds as native posts. Great for promoting articles, videos, or company updates.

  • Sponsored Messaging: Sends personalised messages directly to users’ inboxes. Effective for event invitations or lead-generation offers.

  • Text Ads: Simple, image-and-text ads that appear in the sidebar. Best for driving traffic or awareness.

  • Dynamic Ads: Personalised ads that adapt to the viewer’s profile (e.g., showing their name or company).

  • Video Ads: Ideal for storytelling, brand promotion, or showcasing testimonials.

  • Carousel Ads: Let you display multiple images or messages within one ad.

Choose the format that aligns best with your audience and message.

Step 5: Set Your Budget and Schedule

LinkedIn ads operate on a bidding system, where you set a daily or total budget and choose how you’re charged—per click (CPC) or per impression (CPM).

To start, it’s wise to test with a smaller budget (for example, £10–£25 per day) until you see what works. You can always scale up once you’ve identified high-performing ads.

You can also:

  • Choose start and end dates for your campaign.

  • Set daily limits to avoid overspending.

  • Adjust bids manually or let LinkedIn’s system optimise automatically.

Step 6: Create Your Ad

Now it’s time to craft your ad content. The key is clarity, relevance, and value.

  • Write concise, engaging copy that speaks directly to your audience’s needs.

  • Use a strong headline that captures attention.

  • Include a clear call to action (for example, “Register Now,” “Download Guide,” or “Get a Free Quote”).

  • Choose high-quality visuals that match your brand identity.

If you’re promoting content like a blog post or guide, ensure the landing page aligns with your ad and provides immediate value to visitors.

Step 7: Launch and Monitor Performance

Once your ad is ready, click “Launch Campaign.” From there, monitor performance regularly through Campaign Manager.

Key metrics to track include:

  • Impressions: How often your ad was seen.

  • Clicks and click-through rate (CTR): The number of people engaging with your ad.

  • Conversions: How many users completed your desired action.

  • Cost per click (CPC) and cost per lead (CPL): Measures the efficiency of your spend.

Use these insights to identify which ads, audiences, and creatives perform best, then optimise accordingly.

Step 8: Optimise and Improve

LinkedIn advertising works best when it’s continually refined. Review your campaigns weekly and make data-driven adjustments.

You can:

  • A/B test different headlines, visuals, or calls to action.

  • Narrow your targeting to focus on high-performing audience segments.

  • Reallocate your budget to ads generating the most conversions.

  • Refresh creatives regularly to maintain engagement.

LinkedIn’s analytics tools make it easy to see what’s working and what needs improvement.

Tips for Successful LinkedIn Advertising

  1. Know your audience: Tailor your content to specific job roles or industries.

  2. Add value: Use ads to promote educational or helpful content, not just sales messages.

  3. Optimise your company page: A strong LinkedIn profile boosts trust and ad performance.

  4. Use retargeting: Reconnect with users who visited your website or interacted with previous ads.

  5. Track conversions: Set up the LinkedIn Insight Tag to measure actions taken on your site.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

  • Setting overly broad targeting, which wastes budget.

  • Writing generic copy that doesn’t resonate with professionals.

  • Ignoring analytics or failing to test multiple variations.

  • Sending traffic to poorly optimised landing pages.

Avoiding these mistakes ensures your campaign delivers maximum return on investment.

Final Thoughts

Advertising on LinkedIn offers a powerful way to connect with decision-makers and grow your business. By combining precise targeting, engaging creative, and ongoing optimisation, you can use the platform to generate leads, boost awareness, and strengthen your brand authority.

At Lillian Purge, we help businesses run data-driven marketing campaigns across platforms like LinkedIn, Google, and Facebook to complement their SEO strategies.

If you want to create LinkedIn ads that convert and reach the right audience, get in touch today.

We have also written in depth articles on how Much Does it Costs to Advertise on Linkedin? and Common mistakes businesses make with LinkedIn Ads as well as our Linkedin Advertising Guidance Hub to give you further guidance.