How to Build a B2B Sales Funnel with LinkedIn

The October issue was all set and ready to go, but I have to respond to the latest newsletter from my partner-in-crime, Antoine Walter . He went down the rabbit hole and surfaced with an incredible find: 13,745 LinkedIn ads for the keyword water.

If you haven’t seen the list yet, you can download it [here].

What Antoine has accomplished is fantastic—it’s the go-to resource for successfully placing ads on LinkedIn.

This newsletter is meant to build on his work and give you a tool—or rather a guide—that would usually some money.

Let’s dive in.

1) Audience

As I mentioned, this list is invaluable for anyone planning ads to promote their technology. It includes companies that could be potential customers on the one hand and can create so-called "look-alikes" on the other.

Here is how:

Simply go to the campaign manager and create a matched audience based on these source companies.

If you’re here, start by downloading the LinkedIn template to create your list. Now comes a bit of work—you’ll need to transfer Antoine’s list into this template, inserting only the company names. Be sure to delete any duplicates. And that’s the hardest part done!

Next, upload the list. Done.

Now, LinkedIn will take a few days to build an audience based on this list. It will search for and match these companies on LinkedIn.

Here’s the catch: LinkedIn will also find similar companies, giving you a precisely defined audience.

That's gold.

When you’re ready to start a new campaign, simply select this audience and you’re good to go.

2) Campaign

If you're running campaigns—whether it’s an image, video, or whitepaper download—keep the following in mind:

1. Allow at least 14 days for the algorithm to optimize. It needs time and data to perform effectively.
2. Use multiple creatives for each campaign, even if the goal is the same. Campaigns are shown multiple times to the same individual, so varying creatives increases the chances they’ll be noticed and clicked.
3. Create region-specific campaigns rather than one global campaign. Separate the USA, Canada, and UK from non-English-speaking regions; otherwise, the campaign will predominantly target English-speaking countries.

3) Funnel

Here’s the bitter truth: most campaigns fail not due to the audience or the campaign itself, but because of the funnel. For those with question marks on their faces, here’s a classic funnel I’ve seen so often in our industry:

This means the conversion rate drops at each stage of the funnel. Again: the conversion rate decreases at every stage.

No worries, that's normal.

There are two ways to improve this: either push more leads in at the top (which can be costly) or focus on increasing conversion rates within each stage—once you’re aware of where the drop-offs occur.

The biggest opportunity for improvement is here:

This often happens because a general website isn’t designed to support the funnel effectively. Instead, leads are usually directed to the company's homepage and left to navigate on their own. Once that happens, the lead is lost, and conversion rates drop.

If it’s not a brand awareness campaign and the goal is to capture emails or make direct contact with leads, you need a landing page.

It’s called a landing page for a reason—it’s where everyone in the funnel should land so that you maintain control and guide them through the next steps.

This page is hosted within your web domain but serves as a dedicated landing page that can’t be accessed through general navigation.

And it should focus on a single conversion goal.

That’s why it includes multiple CTAs, like this example from a Gartner webinar or for the Convertcart download.

These types of pages have become so common that we barely notice them anymore. Some companies don’t even maintain a traditional corporate website; instead, they rely on a series of dedicated landing pages.

It’s time to tap into this potential.

If others can do it, so can you.

Good luck with the implementation and Happy Halloween!

Cheers Bj?rn

Need more?

You can connect with me here on LinkedIn or check out the Interius Solutions webpage and book your call with me.