How Elite marketers leverage LinkedIn Ads for Maximum Impact [Blueprint]

Ever wonder how the pros make every cent count on LinkedIn? Rumor has it that LinkedIn ads are expensive. If you only look at cost per click, that's absolutely true—on average, the price is 10 to 40 times higher than on Instagram.

But it does make a huge difference whether you're selling a red T-shirt or a dozen bulldozers. I've orchestrated hundreds of ads trainings and managed countless campaigns from 10 to 1,000 dollar daily budgets.

Experience accumulates and now I'm sharing my best strategy with you, dear reader.

Welcome to issue #21 of my 3x3 Strategies Newsletter! Ready to explore my blueprint for a rock-solid 2-tier campaign setup from scratch?

Find my ideas helpful? Please reshare / comment! It means a lot to me.

ROI: Let's do the Math

Let's suppose someone sells that shirt in their online shop at a premium price of 50 dollars.They run an Instagram campaign with a CPC of $1. The shirt seller optimized their landing page, and they're advertising with the right target audience, so the conversion rate is high: every fifth visitor buys the red shirt. The cost of customer acquisition for this one-time deal is $5 per shirt (5 clicks at $1 each) — or 10% of the price.

Let's head over to construction:

A small bulldozer costs about €300,000, and your potential clients buy them in bulk because they run large construction companies. The average sales volume is a dozen bulldozers per client or $3.6 million.

The vendor continuously runs multiple LinkedIn campaigns in parallel:

1. A tier 1 cold-outreach campaign aimed at maximum reach.
2. A couple of tier 2 retargeting campaigns: website visitors, page visitors, leads who engaged with the cold outreach campaign.
3. A tier 3 message campaign targeted at warm leads. (Not possible in Europe due to GDPR.)

The customer journey is complex and involves multiple touchpoints and a high frequency at the beginning. The combined CPC of tier 1 and two is $25. The landing page conversion is meager. Overall, the average acquisition cost for a tier-3 lead is $600. The conversion rate after a couple of meetings is 5%, which raises the client acquisition cost to the ridiculous amount of $12,000—or 0.334% of the price.

Catch my drift?

Yes, I simplified my examples for the sake of the argument.

Yes, constructing and selling a bulldozer is a lot more complex than designing and selling a T-shirt.

As LinkedIn is becoming increasingly popular, more marketing departments experiment with various ad formats. The problem is: most of them have previously used Meta's ad manager. On the surface, everything seems similar, but looks can be deceiving.

In the meta eco system, you target "interests." On LinkedIn, you're targeting real CV data in tier 1.

There are many nuances and different ways of setting up your tier 1 (uploaded company lists, website visitors, company page visitors...). Explaining them all would turn this humble newsletter into an ebook.

So instead of explaining all the options, I will share with you my best practices for a default cold-outreach setup for medium-budget campaigns

Stop reading here if you detest the idea of free basic ads training.

Best Practices for the Bold | Small to Medium Budgets ($25-$100/day)

Tier 1 Execution - Cold Outreach

• For the first couple of weeks, put 100% of your budget into the cold layer. You're going to need an audience of 300 engagers before you can set up a retargeting campaign.
• Ads need to address pain points, outline 2 (max.) main product advantages, and include social proof via showcasing client results. Use at least 5 ads, preferably 15 to 20. Make sure the visuals are VERY different within the restrictions of your corporate identity. The more ads, the better—that's why I recommend simple image/text ads here.
• Target by region/industry/job title OR by region/industry/seniority/function. Leave the language setting at English to reach all users in the selected region. Deactivate audience expansion and audience network. Make sure to combine your criteria with AND, not OR.
• The campaign target is CPC. If your budget allows it, duplicate the campaign and split-test awareness vs. CPC.
• Use square format, optimize the font size on images for mobile. Limit ad copy to 160 characters max—that will prevent a "read more" link. Use the same copy on all ads for 1 week. Keep only the 3 top-performing ads and split-test the copy on each of those for another week.
• Your goal is to optimize for clicks and click-prize. The budget depends on the size of the audience. There is no dedicated frequency capping, so you want to fine-tune audience size and budgets depending on the desired ad view count per recipient. At least three views per recipient are preferable here.
• The landing page needs to be super-aligned with the target audience. Go for their emails. If you need more data to qualify leads, offer some kind of calculator or quiz promising value.Bonus tip: Let them answer three gamified questions first, then ask for THEIR EMAIL ONLY. "Sunken cost fallacy" works miracles on forms.

Tier 2 Execution - Retargeting

• Once you have collected 300+ clicks, shift 25% of your budget to your new retargeting campaigns. Run both campaigns in parallel to create a constant trickle of new warm leads.
• The goal is now to build trust, credibility, and increase the conversion rate. You must not use the same landing page as in tier 1. Inclue testimonials and social proof.
• Use two different types of ads, five to ten of each type:1. Offer a lead magnet, preferably a download on a landing page. Again, ask for their email only.2. Do not send them to a landing page at all but to an in-depth article, a video, a podcast — all hosted on your website, of course. Always include a CTA, BUT DO NOT MAKE IT MANDATORY.
• If you use the right lead magnets, trust will build over time. Even without a form / landing page, clients will go to your website when they are ready to buy.
• A/B test ads in each group, after 2 weeks keep the 3 top-performing ones in each group. DO NOT A/B test both groups; they serve different purposes.
• Optional: Depending on the size of your tier 2 target audience and your budget, you might want to add a 3rd tier only targeted at those who engaged with your tier 2 ads. In this case, only activate group 2 ads here and send them to your landing page in stage 3.

Summing up:

A/B testing and at least two funnel stages are crucial. Media production for ads is greatly underrated.

LinkedIn is a B2B platform, but our visual perception doesn't care. I see three major mistakes with campaigns. Always avoid:

• 1-ad campaigns / Super-boring ad visuals/ad copy.
• Mismatch of target audience size and budget.
• Campaigns aiming for conversions in tier 1.

Need help with your ad campaigns? I turn your marketing team into LinkedIn ad manager experts while we optimize your setup and campaigns. Send me dm. (My profile is always OPEN.)