LinkedIn Ads management

LinkedIn lets you choose who sees an advert by job title, seniority, employer and industry, using the details members give about their own work rather than interests a platform has guessed. That makes it useful for UK firms that sell to other businesses, and expensive for anyone whose buyer could be reached more cheaply somewhere else. I set up and run LinkedIn Ads for B2B companies, recruitment agencies and professional services firms, and I judge the work on the qualified enquiries and pipeline it produces, not on clicks.

When LinkedIn Ads are worth paying for

Clicks on LinkedIn tend to cost more than clicks on Facebook or Instagram, and often more than many Google search terms, because the platform is selling access to a narrow, professional audience. So the useful question is not whether a click is cheap. It is whether one new client is worth enough to absorb a high cost per lead and still leave a healthy margin.

LinkedIn usually earns its place when:

• a single contract, retainer or placement is worth thousands of pounds, so a handful of good conversations a month covers the spend;
• the person who signs off the purchase can be described by role, for example finance directors at manufacturers with 50 to 500 staff, or operations leads at accountancy practices;
• you already have a list of companies you want to win and need those buyers to recognise your name before anyone calls them;
• someone on your side will reply to a new lead within a working day, not a week later.

It is usually the wrong first channel if you sell to consumers, if your average sale is small, or if buyers already search for what you offer. In that last case Google Ads search campaigns catch demand that already exists, whereas LinkedIn has to create it. If I think your budget would work harder elsewhere, I will say so before you spend anything.

Who this service suits

The firms that get the most from LinkedIn advertising have a clearly defined buyer and a sale worth a proper follow-up. That typically means:

• software and SaaS companies selling to teams rather than individuals;
• recruitment agencies winning new client accounts and building their name with hiring managers;
• accountants, solicitors, consultants, architects and other professional practices;
• training providers selling courses or programmes to employers;
• manufacturers and specialist suppliers whose buyers sit in procurement, engineering or operations.

Regulated firms need more care with the wording. Adverts on LinkedIn fall under the ASA’s CAP Code like any other online advertising, solicitors are bound by the SRA’s rules on publicity, and FCA-authorised firms must treat many adverts as financial promotions. I write copy with those rules in mind, but sign-off stays with your compliance lead. There is more on this in my notes on marketing for law firms and professional services.

How the targeting is put together

Ad formats and what each is good for

Lead Gen Forms, and the follow-up that makes them pay

LinkedIn’s Lead Gen Forms open inside the platform and pre-fill name, company and job title from the member’s profile. That makes them far easier to submit than a form on your website, and it is also their weakness: people send their details without much thought. I add one or two qualifying questions, such as company size or when they plan to buy, so your sales team can tell a serious enquiry from a casual one. Every form must link to your privacy policy.

The form is only half the job. Leads need to land in your CRM automatically through one of LinkedIn’s built-in integrations or a connector, and someone needs to call or email them while they still remember filling it in. A lead left sitting in Campaign Manager for a fortnight has usually gone cold. For warmer audiences, or offers that need more explanation, I often send people to a landing page built for the campaign instead, accepting fewer leads in return for better ones.

Tracking under UK consent rules

The Insight Tag sets cookies used for ad measurement and retargeting, so under PECR it should only fire once a visitor has given consent to marketing cookies through your banner. That is correct and also costly in data: retargeting audiences are smaller, and LinkedIn will under-report conversions. I set expectations for that from the start rather than treating a lower number as a failure.

Two things close most of the gap. LinkedIn’s Conversions API can send conversions from your server or CRM, which still needs a lawful basis and a privacy notice that covers it. More valuable for B2B is feeding back what happened after the lead: which became a sales opportunity and which turned into a signed client. That lets campaigns be judged, and eventually bid, on pipeline instead of form fills. Links from LinkedIn should carry campaign tags, which my UTM link builder creates in a consistent format, and it is worth running through how to check your conversion tracking works before any budget goes live.

How I run a LinkedIn Ads account

1. Discovery. We agree who buys, what a deal is worth, the usual sales cycle length and what counts as a qualified lead. That definition becomes the number we judge on.
2. Account and tracking. The ad account sits under your company page and is billed to your card, set up in pounds sterling. I join as a user you can remove at any time. The Insight Tag goes in behind your consent tool and conversions are defined and tested.
3. Audiences and offers. I build two or three audiences and match each to an offer: something useful to read for people who have never heard of you, and a conversation for those who already know you.
4. Copy and creative. I write the adverts in plain British English and check every claim. You approve everything before it runs.
5. Launch. For the first fortnight I check delivery, spend pacing and form submissions daily, because most set-up mistakes show up in that window.
6. Regular review. On a schedule agreed before work starts, I report leads, cost per qualified lead, feedback from your sales team and pipeline created, along with what I changed and why.

Common problems in UK B2B accounts

• Audience expansion and the Audience Network left on, so part of the budget reaches people who will never buy.
• Audiences cut so narrow that costs climb and the same few hundred people see one advert until they stop noticing it.
• Success measured by click-through rate rather than by how many leads were worth a call.
• Lead form submissions downloaded by hand, irregularly, or not at all.
• The Insight Tag firing before consent, or not firing because the consent tool blocks it permanently.
• Cold audiences asked to “book a demo” by a company they have never heard of.

Budget, fees and what you receive

There are two costs. Your ad spend is paid directly to LinkedIn, and my management fee is separate. Each quote is written after a free audit or a first call, in pounds sterling, and agreed in writing before any work starts. I set the advertising budget with you from the size of your audience and the value of a client, aiming for enough reach to learn something within the first two to three months. If the budget is too small for that, I will tell you, and we can look at a cheaper starting point.

You receive a written plan before launch, a checked account and tracking set-up, the ad copy and form questions, regular reports in plain English, and full ownership of the ad account, the audiences and the data throughout.

Where LinkedIn fits with your other channels

LinkedIn is best at making the right people aware of you before they are actively looking. Search catches them when they are. A common pattern is that a buyer sees your adverts for a few weeks, then later searches for your company name or for the service itself, which is why LinkedIn works better alongside B2B SEO and paid search than on its own. If you want every paid channel run against one cost-per-lead target, that is what my performance marketing service covers.