Used by more than 850 million professionals worldwide, including 25 million in France, LinkedIn is an ideal prospecting ground for B2B. Its advertising tool, LinkedIn Ads, allows you to leverage qualified data through various types of sponsored campaigns. Set your budget, goals, target audiences, and ad formats, and generate leads automatically.
The downside? The high price of ads which, when translated into cost per lead, can be significant… How much does a LinkedIn campaign really cost and how can you get the most out of LinkedIn ads in B2B? How can you take full advantage of the world’s largest professional social network? Here’s everything you need to know about the real cost of LinkedIn Ads and the best strategy to adopt.
The article summary
LinkedIn Ads, the advertising solution of the world’s largest professional social network, allows companies to create their own ads and sponsored posts on the platform to gain visibility and acquire new customers. While its pricing appears higher than on Facebook or Instagram, well-managed campaigns can be extremely profitable for your overall growth. In summary:
- Setting a clear objective and precise budget for each campaign is essential.
- LinkedIn Ads offers very advanced targeting to intelligently segment your audience.
- Testing different formats on your audience helps you see what works and what doesn’t, so you can optimize future campaigns.
- The tool makes it easy to track ad performance via key KPIs: cost per click (CPC), cost per impression (CPM), cost per view (CPV)…
Why advertise on LinkedIn?
Showcasing your brand on LinkedIn means putting yourself in front of thousands of companies and decision-makers. In fact, it’s estimated that 4 out of 5 members have the power to influence business decisions on LinkedIn. The price of LinkedIn Ads is largely explained by its major benefits:
- Highly advanced targeting (by industry, age, gender, job function…)
- Enrichment of your database with qualified leads
- Guaranteed impression volume and accurate reach forecasts
- Support for multiple languages
- Performance tracking and analytics tools
It’s important to note that direct sales are not the platform’s primary goal. The real value lies in lead generation, customer loyalty, and recruiting talent. A genuine opportunity for both large enterprises and SMEs.
Discover all the techniques to sell on LinkedIn!
Setting up your first LinkedIn Ads campaign
So how do you launch your first ad campaign on LinkedIn Ads? Before talking about cost, let’s talk about setup. Don’t worry: the platform is both comprehensive and intuitive. Here’s how to create your account, choose your objective, and define your budget.
Create and configure your Campaign Manager account
To get started, you need to create a Campaign Manager account, LinkedIn’s advertising platform.
- Click on “Create account”.
- Select the currency in which you’ll be billed for your ads.
- Link your LinkedIn company page by entering its URL or name.
Important: if you don’t have a company page, you can’t run ad campaigns.
You can also create multiple campaign groups to stay organized by project, location, budget, and more.
Choose the right objective for your campaign
To create a campaign, click on the “Create campaign” button in the top-right corner.
LinkedIn offers three main objective categories, which determine the formats you will be able to use:
- Awareness: increase your visibility.
- Consideration: engage your audience and drive traffic to your website.
- Conversions: generate qualified leads from campaigns either on your website or directly on LinkedIn via Lead Gen Forms.
Set your daily budget and schedule
Select the budget, bidding strategy, and schedule that best fit your goals. You can adjust costs over time based on campaign performance.
So what about the actual price of a LinkedIn Ads campaign? While ad costs vary by advertiser, the platform requires a minimum bid of €2 for cost-per-click (CPC) and cost-per-impression (CPM) campaigns. On average, companies pay around €5.26 per click and €6.59 per 1,000 impressions, as well as about €0.80 per send for InMail campaigns. On top of that, there is a minimum daily budget of €10 per campaign.
Targeting the right audience on LinkedIn
Targeting is one of the most important steps, because you want your content to be shown only to professionals who match your buyer persona. This is what enables truly personalized prospecting.
Use classic criteria (job title, industry, company size…)
LinkedIn Ads provides prebuilt audiences for marketers who are unfamiliar with the user base or short on time. We strongly recommend that you still take the time to refine your targeting—especially once you see the cost of these campaigns.
You will then narrow your audience further by combining criteria such as:
- Location: target specific countries, regions, or cities.
- Language: make sure your content matches the language spoken by your audience.
- Education & professional experience: focus on people who can influence purchasing decisions for your solution.
- Company: target specific companies if needed.
Once your audience is set, you can save it and reuse it later.
Our tips for effective segmentation
You can also target users based on groups and interests. This helps you reach people who are genuinely likely to care about your message, products, services, and brand.
For your first campaign, LinkedIn Ads recommends targeting between 50,000 and 150,000 people for sponsored content and text ads. For message ads, it’s better to stay around 15,000 people. Avoid selecting too many criteria (age, region, job function, etc.), or you risk over-segmenting your audience.
Create advanced audiences with Matched Audiences
Running email campaigns as well? Matched Audiences sits slightly outside the standard campaign creation flow but is extremely powerful. It lets you run campaigns to contacts already in your CRM. You can upload contact lists in the form of email addresses or company lists. This option is ideal for developing Account-Based Marketing strategies.
If your sales team is trying to win specific accounts, import your contact list directly into the platform, then refine it further using user attributes. LinkedIn Ads also allows you to create lists of users who have visited individual pages of your website. Configuration is fairly simple: you enter URL patterns for the pages to track and can add multiple URLs using logical (OR) conditions.
Choosing the right LinkedIn ad format
LinkedIn generally offers higher click-through rates than other social networks. It’s not unusual to see CTRs between 0.5% and 2%. Why? Because the ability to show content to a highly precise audience makes campaigns much more relevant and engaging. But it’s not only about the audience—you must also choose the right format.
Text Ads, Sponsored Content, Dynamic Ads… which one should you choose?
To optimize your click-through rate and, ultimately, the number of leads generated, you need to choose formats that match your message. LinkedIn Ads offers several options, with different levels of intrusiveness. Pricing also varies by format. For lead generation, you’ll find in particular:
- Single image or video ads: a single creative appearing in the news feed.
- Carousel ads: several images that users can scroll through.
- Message & Conversation Ads: ads delivered directly in LinkedIn Messaging.
This last format is often perceived as more intrusive by users. That’s why we usually recommend using automated, well-targeted email sequences for more relevant campaigns.
Want to go further? Learn how to automate your B2B marketing campaigns on our blog.
The main key is to TEST, TEST, TEST. You might have a good idea of what will work, but ultimately it’s your market that decides which message performs best. Here are a few tips to optimize your creatives:
- Make your ad strong, punchy, concise, and outcome-focused. Keep in mind you only have about 150 characters before the “See more” link cuts off your text—your value proposition must be clear within those first 150 characters.
- Ensure your ad is mobile-friendly: pay attention to the size of your visuals and, once again, run tests.
- Use video whenever possible: video formats often deliver higher engagement, better click-through rates, and give you room to explain your offer or send viewers to your main site directly from their feed—on a platform your prospects already trust.
Lead Gen Forms: generate leads without friction
LinkedIn Ads allows you to maximize campaign conversions with Lead Gen Forms. When someone is interested in your content, they click on a “Download” button (for an ebook, for example) or “Register” (for a webinar). A form then opens, prefilled with the information from their LinkedIn profile, and they only need to click “Submit”. No manual data entry.
This option is extremely important: it improves your conversion rate compared to ads that send users to an external landing page. The reason is simple—LinkedIn rewards advertisers who keep users on the platform instead of sending them off-site.
Also check out our complete guide to Sales Navigator.
How much do LinkedIn Ads cost?
You’ll only be able to make your campaigns profitable relative to LinkedIn Ads pricing if you understand how billing works. The platform operates on bidding strategies. Here’s what you need to know.
CPC, CPM, CPV, CPL: understanding the metrics
Your bidding strategy has a direct impact on ad visibility. Each model has its own advantages depending on your goals:
- Cost per click (CPC): you pay when people click your ad. This is a good option if you want to drive traffic to a landing page.
- Cost per impression (CPM): you pay for every 1,000 impressions. You’re paying for people to see your ad, not necessarily interact with it. This model is best suited for awareness goals.
- Cost per view (CPV): you pay each time someone views your video, useful for product demos.
- Cost per lead (CPL): this model optimizes delivery toward users most likely to complete your Lead Gen Form—exactly what you want for lead generation.
Which factors influence your campaign costs?
According to LinkedIn, two main factors influence the cost of your campaigns:
- Target audience: when you advertise on LinkedIn, you’re competing with other advertisers to reach the same users. If you target a highly sought-after audience, you can expect to pay more due to its value and the increased competition.
- Ad relevance: a high ad relevance score can reduce your spending, because LinkedIn wants to show users ads that are useful and engaging.
Example of a LinkedIn Ads budget for a B2B SME
The B2B prospecting potential on LinkedIn is huge… but not everyone has a multinational’s marketing budget. With a cost per lead around €6–€9, LinkedIn’s built-in lead generation tools are expensive and require in-house expertise to properly define campaign criteria. Fortunately, there are alternative ways to leverage the platform’s power.
By focusing on automated messaging sequences and carefully tailoring the content to your target audiences, you can achieve a far lower cost per lead. You’ll find more information on this in our LinkedIn prospecting guide.
Optimize your performance and track your ROI
Your ads won’t necessarily be a hit from day one. LinkedIn Ads includes performance tracking tools in its pricing. You can monitor impression rates, click-through rates, average interactions, and conversion rates. These KPIs help you adjust your budget and refine your next actions. If the CPC strategy doesn’t perform well, you might switch to another bidding model…
Here are a few extra tips:
- If reach and impressions are low, increase your daily budget.
- If your budget disappears too quickly, lower your daily spend.
- If you have a lot of unused budget, increase your bids to be more competitive.
LinkedIn Ads pricing: key takeaways
Thanks to its precise targeting and flexible bidding models, LinkedIn Ads is generally worth the investment. It is one of the best ways to acquire qualified leads in the professional space. However, fully leveraging LinkedIn Ads is no simple task. For best results, seek guidance from B2B prospecting experts to help you structure and optimize your campaigns. Leadin is here to support your growth.
Frequently asked questions about LinkedIn Ads
What is the minimum recommended budget?
LinkedIn Ads requires a minimum daily budget of €10 per campaign and a minimum bid of €2 for CPC and CPM strategies.
Is it suitable for small businesses?
Yes. LinkedIn Ads offers tools and guidance tailored to small businesses that want to grow their brand and generate leads.
What is the difference between CPC, CPM, and CPV?
These are different bidding models: cost per click (CPC), cost per impression (CPM), and cost per view for video ads (CPV).