LinkedIn Ads Guide: How to Create Your First Campaign

LinkedIn advertising offers something no other platform can match: direct access to 1 billion professionals organized by job title, company, industry, and seniority level. For B2B marketers, this means reaching decision-makers with surgical precision rather than hoping your ideal customer happens to scroll past your ad. But LinkedIn's premium positioning comes with premium costs and a learning curve that trips up many first-time advertisers. Understanding how to structure campaigns, select objectives, and optimize targeting separates successful LinkedIn advertisers from those who burn through budget without results.

This guide walks you through everything you need to create your first LinkedIn campaign, from account setup through campaign launch and initial optimization. Whether you're promoting B2B software, professional services, recruiting, or thought leadership content, you'll learn the fundamentals that drive LinkedIn advertising success in 2026.

Getting Started with LinkedIn Campaign Manager

LinkedIn Campaign Manager is the self-serve advertising platform where you'll create, manage, and measure all your LinkedIn advertising efforts. Before launching your first campaign, you need to set up your advertising account and install tracking, both of which take just a few minutes but are essential for success.

Setting Up Your LinkedIn Ad Account

To access Campaign Manager, you'll need a LinkedIn personal profile and a company page for your business. If you're advertising on behalf of a company where you're not an admin, request admin access to their LinkedIn Page first.

1. Navigate to linkedin.com/campaignmanager or click "Advertise" from LinkedIn's top navigation
2. Click "Create Account" and enter your account name (typically your company name)
3. Select your currency (cannot be changed later) and link your LinkedIn Company Page
4. Add a payment method: credit card, debit card, or for larger accounts, invoicing options
5. Verify your billing information and account details

LinkedIn organizes advertising into a hierarchy: Account > Campaign Groups > Campaigns > Ads. This structure allows you to organize campaigns by product line, region, or objective while maintaining separate budgets and reporting at each level. For beginners, start with a single campaign group containing your first campaign, then expand structure as your advertising grows.

Installing the LinkedIn Insight Tag

The LinkedIn Insight Tag is a piece of JavaScript code that tracks website visitors, enabling conversion tracking, website retargeting, and demographic insights about your site visitors. Install it before launching campaigns to start building audiences immediately.

Find your Insight Tag in Campaign Manager under Account Assets > Insight Tag. You'll get a unique code snippet to add to every page of your website, typically in the header or through a tag manager like Google Tag Manager. Once installed, verify it's working by checking the Insight Tag page for "Active" status and seeing visitor data populate.

After installation, set up conversion tracking by defining the actions you want to measure: form submissions, page views (like thank-you pages), or events tracked by your tag manager. LinkedIn offers URL-based tracking (fires when users hit specific pages) and event-based tracking (fires based on custom events). For most B2B campaigns, track demo requests, content downloads, and contact form submissions at minimum.

Understanding LinkedIn Campaign Objectives

LinkedIn campaigns begin with selecting an objective that tells the platform what outcome you want to optimize for. This choice affects available ad formats, bidding options, and how LinkedIn's algorithm optimizes delivery. Choosing the wrong objective can waste budget on the wrong actions, so understanding each option matters.

The Seven Campaign Objectives Explained

For most B2B marketers, Lead Generation is the highest-value objective because it uses LinkedIn's native Lead Gen Forms that pre-fill user information, dramatically increasing conversion rates compared to sending traffic to external landing pages. Website Conversions works well when you need users to complete longer forms or explore your site before converting.

Choosing the Right Objective for Your Funnel Stage

Match your objective to where prospects are in their buying journey:

• Top of funnel (awareness): Brand Awareness or Video Views to introduce your company to new audiences
• Middle of funnel (consideration): Website Visits or Engagement to nurture interested prospects with content
• Bottom of funnel (conversion): Lead Generation or Website Conversions to capture qualified leads ready to engage

A common mistake is jumping straight to conversion objectives with cold audiences. LinkedIn's professional audience responds well to value-first content marketing: share insights, solve problems, demonstrate expertise. Then retarget engaged users with conversion-focused campaigns. This approach typically delivers lower cost per qualified lead than pure direct response.

LinkedIn Ad Formats: Choosing Your Creative Approach

LinkedIn offers a variety of ad formats, each suited to different objectives and content types. Understanding what's available helps you match format to message for maximum impact.

Sponsored Content Formats

Sponsored Content appears directly in the LinkedIn feed, looking similar to organic posts with a "Promoted" label. This native placement drives high engagement because users encounter ads within their normal browsing experience.

• Single Image Ads: One image with headline and intro text. Best for straightforward messages, offers, and content promotion. Easiest format to create and test.
• Carousel Ads: Multiple swipeable images (2-10 cards). Ideal for showcasing multiple products, telling sequential stories, or highlighting different benefits.
• Video Ads: Native video playing in-feed. Effective for product demos, testimonials, brand storytelling. Videos under 30 seconds typically perform best for engagement.
• Document Ads: Share PDFs, slideshows, or documents users can scroll through in-feed. Excellent for lead magnets, reports, and educational content.
• Event Ads: Promote LinkedIn Events with registration directly from the ad. Use for webinars, conferences, and virtual events.

For beginners, start with Single Image Ads. They require minimal creative resources, allow quick testing of messages and audiences, and work across all objectives. Once you understand what resonates, expand to carousel for multi-point messages or video for richer storytelling.

Message-Based Formats

Message Ads and Conversation Ads deliver directly to LinkedIn member inboxes, creating a more personal, direct communication channel.

• Message Ads: Single message delivered to inbox with one CTA. High open rates (50%+ typical) but requires careful targeting to avoid feeling intrusive.
• Conversation Ads: Interactive messages with multiple response options, creating a choose-your-own-adventure experience. Better for segmenting intent or offering multiple paths.

Message formats work best for high-value offers to warm audiences: event invitations, exclusive content, personalized outreach. Avoid using them for cold prospecting or generic promotions, which can damage brand perception and generate low-quality responses.

Additional Format Options

• Text Ads: Simple text-based ads appearing in the right rail and top banner. Low cost but also lower engagement. Good for supplementing feed campaigns.
• Dynamic Ads: Personalized ads that incorporate the viewer's profile photo and name. Available as Follower Ads, Spotlight Ads, and Job Ads.
• Lead Gen Forms: Not a format per se, but a conversion mechanism attached to Sponsored Content that pre-fills user data for frictionless lead capture.

B2B Targeting Fundamentals on LinkedIn

LinkedIn's targeting capabilitiesare its primary competitive advantage. While other platforms offer demographics and interests, LinkedIn provides verified professional attributes that let you reach specific roles, companies, and seniority levels with precision unavailable elsewhere.

Core Targeting Attributes

Building Effective Audience Segments

The key to LinkedIn targeting is balancing precision with scale. Over-targeting creates tiny audiences that don't deliver or cost excessively. Under-targeting wastes budget on irrelevant impressions. Here's how to find the balance:

• Start with core attributes: Job function + company size + industry typically defines your ICP without over-narrowing
• Aim for 50,000+ audience size: Smaller audiences struggle to deliver and lack optimization data
• Use OR within categories, AND between them: Target "Marketing OR Sales" function AND "Director OR VP" seniority AND "51-200 employees"
• Avoid combining too many attributes initially: Each added filter dramatically reduces reach
• Test broad vs. narrow: Sometimes broader targeting with good creative outperforms hyper-targeted campaigns

For account-based marketing (ABM), upload company lists or use LinkedIn'sMatched Audiences to target specific accounts. This approach works for enterprise sales cycles where you're pursuing named accounts rather than casting wide nets.

Targeting Dos and Don'ts

Setting Your LinkedIn Advertising Budget

LinkedIn advertising costs more than most other platforms, reflecting its premium professional audience. Understanding LinkedIn ad costsand how to budget appropriately prevents both overspending and underfunding campaigns that can't gather enough data to optimize.

Understanding LinkedIn Pricing

LinkedIn operates on an auction system where you compete with other advertisers targeting similar audiences. Your actual costs depend on audience competitiveness, ad relevance, and bid strategy.

Budget Allocation Strategy

For your first LinkedIn campaign, budget enough to gather statistically meaningful data. With $5-12 CPCs, a $50/day budget delivers approximately 5-10 clicks daily. Over 2-3 weeks, this provides 70-210 clicks, enough to assess initial performance and make informed optimization decisions.

Consider these budget allocation approaches:

• Testing phase: $50-100/day for 2-4 weeks to validate targeting and creative
• Scaling phase: Increase budget 20-30% every 1-2 weeks for winning campaigns
• Maintenance phase: Steady budget with periodic creative refresh to prevent fatigue

Set both daily and total campaign budgets. Daily budgets ensure consistent delivery; total budgets cap spend for time-bound campaigns. LinkedIn allows you to pause, adjust, or end campaigns at any time, so starting conservatively while you learn is sensible.

Bidding Options

LinkedIn offers several bidding strategies depending on your objective:

• Maximum Delivery (Automated): LinkedIn optimizes bids to spend your full budget. Best for beginners and when you want maximum reach.
• Cost Cap: Set a maximum cost per result (CPC, CPM, or CPL) and LinkedIn stays at or below it. Useful once you know your target economics.
• Manual Bidding: Set exact bids yourself. Requires more management but offers most control for experienced advertisers.

Start with Maximum Delivery to learn what costs look like for your audience, then switch to Cost Cap once you have benchmark data and want to control efficiency.

Creating Your First LinkedIn Campaign: Step-by-Step

With account setup complete and fundamentals understood, here's how to build your first campaign from scratch in Campaign Manager.

Step 1: Create a Campaign Group

Campaign Groups organize related campaigns and can have their own budgets and schedules. For your first campaign, create a group named for your product, service, or initiative (e.g., "Q1 2026 Lead Generation" or "Enterprise Product Launch").

Step 2: Create Your Campaign

1. Click "Create Campaign" within your Campaign Group
2. Select your objective (Lead Generation recommended for B2B beginners)
3. Name your campaign descriptively: include objective, audience, and date

Step 3: Configure Audience Targeting

1. Start with location targeting (required)
2. Add job function or title targeting for your ICP
3. Layer company size and industry filters
4. Add seniority to focus on decision-makers
5. Review forecasted audience size (aim for 50,000+)
6. Enable Audience Expansion only if audience is small

Step 4: Choose Ad Format and Placement

Select Sponsored Content > Single Image for your first campaign. This format works across all placements and is easiest to iterate on. Enable LinkedIn Audience Network to extend reach to partner sites (optional but can increase reach significantly).

Step 5: Set Budget and Schedule

1. Set daily budget ($50-100 recommended minimum)
2. Choose start and end dates (or run continuously)
3. Select bid strategy (Maximum Delivery for beginners)
4. If using Lead Gen Forms, set an optional cost per lead target

Step 6: Create Your Ad

1. Write compelling intro text (up to 600 characters, first 150 most visible)
2. Upload your image (1200x627 pixels recommended)
3. Add headline (up to 200 characters)
4. Enter destination URL or create Lead Gen Form
5. Preview across devices and placements
6. Save and launch

Step 7: Create Lead Gen Form (If Using Lead Generation Objective)

Lead Gen Forms capture leads without sending users to external pages:

1. Create form in Campaign Manager under Account Assets
2. Add form name and language
3. Craft offer headline and description (why should they fill this out?)
4. Select fields to collect (name, email, job title, company pre-fill automatically)
5. Add custom questions if needed (keep to minimum for conversion rate)
6. Write privacy policy text and link
7. Create thank you message and CTA

Ad Creative Best Practices for LinkedIn

LinkedIn's professional context means creative that works on other platforms may fall flat here. Members are in work mode, scrolling between industry updates, colleague posts, and professional content. Your ads need to match this mindset.

Writing Effective LinkedIn Ad Copy

LinkedIn ad copy should be professional but not stiff. Lead with value, address specific pain points, and be direct about what you're offering.

• Intro text: Hook with a question, stat, or challenge. First 150 characters appear before "see more"
• Headline: Clear benefit or offer. Avoid clickbait; LinkedIn audiences are skeptical
• CTA: Match to objective. "Download now" for content, "Request demo" for sales
• Tone: Conversational professional. Write like a knowledgeable colleague, not a billboard

Image and Visual Guidelines

Testing Creative Elements

Create 3-5 ad variations for each campaign to let LinkedIn's algorithm identify winners. Vary one element at a time to understand what drives performance:

• Test different headlines with the same image
• Test different images with the same copy
• Test different CTAs with identical everything else
• Test long vs. short intro text

After 2-3 weeks, pause underperformers and create new variations building on winning elements. This iterative approach continuously improves results over time.

Measuring LinkedIn Campaign Performance

Campaign Manager provides comprehensive reporting, but knowing which metrics matter at each stage prevents drowning in data while missing important signals.

Key Metrics by Campaign Objective

Understanding LinkedIn Analytics

Campaign Manager's Analytics tab shows performance across campaigns, ads, and audiences. Key reports to review:

• Demographics: See who's engaging by job title, company, industry, seniority
• Performance Chart: Track trends over time for key metrics
• Ad Performance: Compare individual ads to identify winners
• Audience Performance: Analyze which targeting segments perform best

For lead generation campaigns, integrate with your CRM to track lead quality and downstream conversions. LinkedIn lead count means little if leads don't convert to opportunities and revenue. This integration is crucial for calculating true return on ad spend.

Common LinkedIn Advertising Mistakes to Avoid

First-time LinkedIn advertisers often make predictable mistakes that waste budget and discourage continued investment. Here's what to watch for:

• Over-targeting audiences: Creating audiences under 50,000 that can't deliver or cost excessively
• Underfunding campaigns: Running on $10-20/day budgets that gather data too slowly
• Generic creative: Using the same ads that run on Facebook without LinkedIn-specific optimization
• Ignoring the Insight Tag: Launching campaigns without conversion tracking or retargeting capability
• Premature optimization: Making changes before gathering statistically significant data
• Targeting by title only: Missing qualified prospects with non-standard titles
• Selling immediately to cold audiences: Asking for demos before providing value
• Ignoring lead quality: Optimizing for volume without tracking downstream conversion

LinkedIn Ads vs Other Platforms

Understanding where LinkedIn fits in your marketing mix helps allocate budget effectively. LinkedIn excels in specific scenarios but isn't always the right choice.

When LinkedIn Outperforms

• B2B products with defined professional buyer personas
• High-value products justifying higher acquisition costs
• Recruiting and employer branding
• Thought leadership and professional content distribution
• Account-based marketing to specific companies
• Reaching decision-makers by job function

When Other Platforms May Work Better

• B2C products (Meta, Google typically better)
• Low-value products where CPA must be minimal
• Search intent-driven purchases (Google Ads)
• Broad awareness at scale with lower budgets (Meta)
• Visual/lifestyle product categories

Many B2B marketers find success combining LinkedIn for professional targeting with Meta Ads for cost-effective retargeting and Google Adsfor capturing search intent. The platforms complement rather than compete.

Next Steps After Your First Campaign

Once your first campaign is running and gathering data, you're ready to expand your LinkedIn advertising capabilities:

• Explore additional LinkedIn ad formats like video and carousel
• Set up Matched Audiences for retargeting and lookalikes
• Implement advanced Insight Tag configurations for deeper tracking
• Develop sophisticated targeting strategies based on performance data
• Build full-funnel B2B lead generation campaigns

LinkedIn advertising rewards patience and strategic iteration. Higher costs demand higher performance standards, but the platform's unique professional targeting makes it irreplaceable for B2B marketers serious about reaching decision-makers. Master the fundamentals covered here, then continue refining your approach based on what your specific audience and offer respond to.