Are LinkedIn Ads worth it??

Quick intro for those that don’t know me:

I’ve been running LinkedIn Ads since 2015, and my agency, Remotion, specializes in running LinkedIn Ads for B2B SaaS and Cybersecurity companies.

So a question I get asked a lot is “are LinkedIn Ads worth it?”.?

The only real way to answer this is to rephrase the question:?

“Are LinkedIn Ads Worth it for me?”

The answer really depends, so I’ve broken it down into 5 parts:

1. Are LinkedIn Ads expensive??
2. Is LinkedIn Ads right for you??
3. Do you have everything you need to succeed??
4. How are you measuring effectiveness??
5. Do you know what to do??

1 - Are LinkedIn Ads expensive??

Let’s first address the elephant in the room:

Yes, LinkedIn Ads can be very expensive in terms of CPMs, CPCs and CPLs - in relative terms.

How expensive??

Anywhere between $10-$20 CPC is normal for competitive audiences like marketing, HR, IT and cybersecurity - especially in the US, Canada, UK and Australian markets.?

But costs can be much lower for less competitive industries and geos.?

But not all impressions, clicks and leads are created equal.?

Compared to Google you might pay as low $2-$5 for similarly competitive keyword categories, and with higher intent - but you have no control over ICP and persona factors like:?

Industry, company size, title/role, seniority.

The more tight your ICP/persona is - the less likely it is that those that are searching, are the ones you’re searching for.

On Meta Ads (Facebook and Instagram) clicks can also be much cheaper - but without 3rd party data from a tool like Metadata or 6sense - you’ll still be getting a much lower percentage of relevant audience.?

So, the media itself is more expensive - but the percentage of relevant media ought to be much higher. And depending on how specific or niche or market is - that could be anywhere between 2x to 20x more relevant.?

2 - Is LinkedIn Ads right for you??

I’ve written about this topic extensively in previous posts.

LinkedIn Ads is not for everyone.?

A few questions you need to ask yourself before you start running LinkedIn Ads:?

Would I be able to target my audience just as easily elsewhere? If so, maybe try those channels first, as they tend to be cheaper.?

The inverse is also true:

The harder to reach your audience (think, cybersecurity engineers at financial service companies with more than 1,000 employees), the better LinkedIn Ads are for you.?

Does my product cost enough to justify the higher than average cost of the media? Then it’s possible that LinkedIn Ads might be too expensive for you.?

Just like you wouldn’t run say, Google Ads for a product that costs $2, if the average CPC is $1 -?

You probably shouldn’t run LinkedIn Ads if your LTV is too low.

How low is too low? $20K per year is a safe spot to be in. Less can work as well, especially if your churn is low.?

You should also consider your goals. If what you need right now is ROI in the short term, LinkedIn Ads might be the right fit for you.?

As a paid social ad platform, LinkedIn Ads works better for demand creation than for capture.

That isn’t to say that you can’t capture existing market demand via LinkedIn Ads - it’s just harder to do, and not always a given that you’ll be able to do so.?

The other main things to consider around whether or not LinkedIn Ads is right for you - your target audience.

3 - Do you have everything you need to succeed??

Do you have a good offer?

Do you have content? Do you have a decent mechanism for constantly churning out new content?

Do you have creative? And the ability to iterate and create more?

Do you product/market fit?

Do you have your messaging cracked?

Do you have someone from marketing to lead this initiative?

Do you have a CRM/MA? Better yet, do you have Hubspot?

Do you have SDRs/BDRs?

Do you have the buy-in to run this for at least few months?

Do you have enough budget? At least $45-50K/Q to start?

If the answer to the above isn't all yes - you might want to reconsider if now is the right time.

4 - How will you be measuring effectiveness?

Reporting and measurement is a big deal in marketing.

The problem is that attribution tools have been failing us for a long time now.

The reasons are complicated, but to keep it simple - a combination of more privacy compliance, ad blockers and cookieless browsers - together with the multitude of devices we all have now, and only a relatively small percentage of conversions are properly attributed to the source, especially when that conversion happened over a period of time.

So this might be less of a problem for Google Ads, where the conversion typically happens in the same session - but in LinkedIn Ads, it's very possible that your leads will click, or not - and convert only days, weeks or months later!

Hubspot is a decent tool for tracking conversions and down-funnel activity, but from attribution/measurement it suffers from the same imperfections as most attribution tools.

It's crucial that you have an open and honest conversation with your leadership about the limitations of what can and can't be accurately measured when running LinkedIn Ads.

There are all sorts of other ways to measure effectiveness - besides using attribution.

Asking "how did you hear about us" in your forms is a very good way to get a better sense of how your channels are performing, since it works even if the lead never clicked on your ad - but might have seen dozens of them.

5 - Do you know what to do?

LinkedIn Ads is deceptively simple.

The truth is even seasoned PPC managers make huge mistakes with LinkedIn Ads.

This can have a major impact on whether or not LinkedIn Ads would be worth it for you. If you don't have someone that can take responsibility for running your campaigns - either in-house, freelance or agency.

It can take months of training and years of experience to become a specialist at LinkedIn Ads.

Beyond the avoidable mistakes, there's the matter of know what to expect.

What good looks like - and what bad looks like.

Without knowing what to do, and trying to simply replicate the experience of other channels - LinkedIn Ads is almost always bound to fail.

So are LinkedIn Ads worth it, or not?

Bottom line. Yes, I believe that LinkedIn Ads can be extremely worthwhile to all sorts of businesses - mostly B2B, but not only.

Carefully consider if it's right for you, and if now is the right time.

And if you're not sure - you can always ask me - I promise to tell you the cold hard truth.

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Want help with your LinkedIn Ads campaigns? Or even just a chat to see if LinkedIn Ads is right for you? Get in touch with me, or request a proposal through our website at: www.remotion.io.

We work with B2B tech companies with budgets starting at $20,000/month and up.