Introduction
When you’re looking for LinkedIn ad campaign examples that drive revenue without draining your budget, the secret is precision targeting. LinkedIn ads deliver quality B2B leads, but the platform’s premium pricing means every campaign decision matters.
The difference between campaigns that waste spend and those that generate pipeline comes down to reaching accounts that are actively in-market for your solution.
Smart demand gen teams are combining LinkedIn’s detailed professional targeting with real-time buyer intent data to dramatically improve campaign performance. By focusing ad spend on companies that are already researching relevant topics, you can achieve nearly 2x better click-through rates at costs 13% lower than LinkedIn’s benchmarks.
Here’s how this approach works and six specific campaign strategies you can implement to maximize your advertising ROI.
Where the B2B action is: Social networks
A savvy combination of behavioral and objective-based advertising empowers revenue teams to be highly targeted and effective with their advertising.
Social networks excel at supporting these business goals, and of the bunch, B2B leaders prefer investing in LinkedIn ads over those on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.
- Nearly 85% of buying teams use LinkedIn as part of their purchase process
- 4 out of 5 LinkedIn members drive business decisions
- LinkedIn’s audience also has 2x the buying power of the average web audience
One factor above all often informs why revenue teams invest in LinkedIn: the depth, richness, and quality of LinkedIn’s user data, which enables ad buyers to target B2B audiences with more
LinkedIn’s data quality = Superior targeting
This is because LinkedIn’s data is different. LinkedIn members are incentivized to provide accurate information about themselves to help grow their professional networks, improve their professional development, look for jobs, and more.
With visibility into granular contact information like skills, job history, education, and interests, advertisers can engage accounts with unparalleled precision.
With LinkedIn, revenue teams can create ads that exclusively target professionals who use Marketo. Or Salesforce. Or who attended Wharton from 1980 to 1988. No other social platform provides this kind of precise targeting for B2B sellers.
What is 6sense?
6sense is the only revenue technology platform that captures intent signals from every known and anonymous source, and connects it all to prospect accounts. It delivers complete insight into the buying journey.
6sense’s patented AI platform scores over a quarter-billion accounts and people every day in order to reconstruct the account-based buyer journey for your business, monitoring and analyzing changes in buyer intent at a massive scale.
The importance of in-market data to prioritize ad spend
Marketers have been buying digital ads for decades, yet still struggle to properly prioritize audiences and budgets. That’s because the audience is bigger than ever, the ads are expensive, and we never have enough money to reach all the constituents we want to reach. We have to prioritize our investments.
A powerful — and differentiating — combination of 6sense + LinkedIn is a revenue team’s ability to target companies that are in-market for a solution now. This allows for prioritizing certain accounts while continuing to use all the other targeting data LinkedIn offers.
This ability to target based on timing isn’t otherwise available in LinkedIn.
When buying teams are tasked with finding products or solutions for their organizations, they spend time conducting research online anonymously on third-party sites, such as industry publications, blogs, social networks, and product review sites like G2 and TrustRadius.
On their own, advertisers can’t detect this invaluable-yet-invisible data. But 6sense’s platform can illuminate and analyze it. Through AI and machine learning, the platform automatically determines who is in-market now and most likely to buy from you, giving you new tools for prioritizing ad spending and improving ad performance.
Dynamic 6sense segments are available for any LinkedIn campaign and provide new insights, including:
- Unparalleled visibility into where buyers are in their respective journeys (we call these
- “in-market” stages)
- The topics buyers are most interested in (or concerned about) based on their journey stage
- Timing on when buyers may — or may not — be interested in personalized engagement
These data points, plus many others, are accessible in real time through 6sense and actionable through our LinkedIn integration. Revenue teams have greater control over the types of accounts and buyers to target.
This control minimizes ad spend and maximizes ad impact. With the power of predictive analytics, 6sense customers:
- Perform nearly 2x better than the standard LinkedIn clickthrough rate benchmark
- And at costs 13% lower for cost per click than LinkedIn’s CPC benchmark
6 LinkedIn Ad campaign examples that deliver game-changing engagement
When you combine the robust audience data from LinkedIn with the intent signals from 6sense, you can engage the right customers for your solution with the right message, right when they’re ready to buy. Here are step-by-step instructions for creating campaigns that address five unique use cases.
Campaign example #1: LinkedIn lead gen campaigns
Lower your cost-per-lead by targeting in-market accounts that are currently researching specific and relevant keywords associated with your business. (At 6sense, we use the term “in-market” to represent moments in a buyer’s journey where their interest in buying intersects with their interest in your solution.)
In this example, we’re using keywords associated with ABM that would be related to your business and/or competitors.
6sense segment filter
- Keywords Researched (used to ensure relevancy and timeliness of ad content)
- In-Market Stage: Decision and Purchase
LinkedIn campaign objective
- Lead Generation
- Website Conversion (preferred for future retargeting capability and higher quality conversions)
LinkedIn audience targeting
- Your typical buyer persona
LinkedIn ad type
- Single image ad
Content to use:
- Middle- to bottom-of-funnel assets:
- Ebooks
- Buying guides
- Case studies or customer stories
Campaign example #2: Highly targeted remarketing campaigns
Combine 6sense in-market data with accounts that have already visited your website to create higher-performing remarketing campaigns.
6sense segment filter
- URLs Visited
- In-Market Stages: Consideration, Decision, and Purchase
LinkedIn campaign objective
- Lead Generation
- Website Conversion
LinkedIn target audience
- Your 6sense segment
- Your typical buyer persona
LinkedIn ad type
- Single image
Content to use:
- High-value and middle- to bottom-of-funnel assets:
- Analyst reports
- Demo/“Contact Us” offers on pages visited, but forms not completed
- Case studies
Campaign example #3: Pipeline acceleration campaigns
Target these accounts with open opportunities to accelerate the deal cycle.
6sense segment filter
- Salesforce Opportunity
- Opportunity Value
LinkedIn campaign objective
- Website visit
- Video views
LinkedIn audience targeting
- Your 6sense segment
- Expanded targeting from your typical buyer persona to also include C-level executives and finance leaders
LinkedIn ad type
- Single image ad
- Video ad
Content to use:
- Custom landing page featuring a mix of case studies, customer testimonials, and analyst reports
- Landing page highlighting current G2 review
Campaign example #4: Event registration
This targets customers and prospects to drive registrations for an in-person or virtual event. The content for these campaigns can connect interest, industry, or buying stage to key event takeaways.
6sense segment filters
- In-Market Stage: Awareness, Consideration, Decision, Purchase
- Keywords Researched: Event title, 30-day timeline
- URLs Visited: Event website, 30-day timeline
LinkedIn campaign objective
- Website Conversions
- Website Visit
- Event Registration
LinkedIn target audience
- Your 6sense segment
- Your typical buyer persona up to C-level executives
LinkedIn ad type
- Your 6sense segment
- Your typical buyer persona up to C-level executives
Campaign example #5: Outbound
This targets top prospect accounts to drive inbound and/or provide brand air cover for the outbound sales motion.
6sense segment filters
- Accounts in Segment: Your high intent segment (Consideration, Decision, Purchase)
- Keywords Researched: All Competitors, Your Company, 30-day time frame
- Salesforce Opportunity Value (to remove activity opportunities)
LinkedIn campaign objective
- Website Visit
- Website Conversions
LinkedIn audience targeting
- Your 6sense segment
- Your typical buyer persona and above
LinkedIn ad type
- Single image ad
Content to use:
- Thought leadership
- Third-party reports
- Product information
Campaign example #6: Customer Retention
Proactively target existing customers that have researched competitors in the last 30 days to get your CSM team ahead of the competition.
6sense segment filters
- Accounts in Segment: Your customer segment
- Keywords Researched: All Competitors, 30-day time frame
LinkedIn campaign objective
- Website Visit
- Video Views
LinkedIn audience targeting
- Your 6sense segment
- The end-users of your product
Linkedin ad type
- Single image ad
- Video ad
Content to use:
- Analyst reports
- Landing page offering utilization or account “health checks” of your products
- Industry/partner technology-specific case studies
Conclusion
Just like today’s B2B marketers can’t imagine lacking the audience data we have at our fingertips, the time is soon approaching when we won’t be able to fathom B2B marketing without intent data.
Leveraging a revenue technology platform like 6sense (which is capable of accurately capturing buyer intent signals) combined with the rich user data LinkedIn provides will have you ahead of the curve when that time comes.
LinkedIn and 6sense work seamlessly together to help B2B marketers reach the audiences they care about with the content they want to see — at the time they’re most welcome to hear it.
The result? You minimize your digital ad spend while maximizing the impact of your ad campaigns.
FAQ
How does targeting with intent data improve LinkedIn ad performance?
When you combine LinkedIn’s targeting with intent data, you’re reaching accounts that are already researching solutions like yours. This means you’re not just targeting the right job titles—you’re targeting people who are actively showing buying signals. The result? Nearly 2x better click-through rates at 13% lower costs than LinkedIn’s benchmarks, because you’re reaching people when they’re actually ready to engage.
Are LinkedIn ads worth the higher costs?
The premium pricing makes sense when you consider the audience quality. You’re paying more per click, but you’re reaching decision-makers who are harder to find elsewhere. When campaigns are properly targeted — especially with intent data to identify in-market accounts — the higher engagement rates and better conversion quality usually justify the investment.
Can LinkedIn ads work for account-based marketing?
Absolutely. LinkedIn’s targeting is perfect for ABM because you can focus on specific companies and reach multiple stakeholders within those accounts. When you add intent data, you can see which target accounts are actively researching and time your outreach accordingly. It’s much more effective than hoping the right people see your ads.
What content performs best in LinkedIn Ad campaigns?
It varies by what you’re trying to accomplish. Lead generation campaigns do well with substantial content like research reports or buying guides—something valuable enough that people will give you their information. For accounts already engaging with your brand, case studies and customer stories tend to convert better because they’re looking for proof that you can solve their problem.
How should you measure success?
Clicks and impressions don’t tell the whole story. Look at pipeline influence—how many of your LinkedIn-sourced leads actually become opportunities. Track whether accounts are progressing through buying stages after engaging with your ads. Most importantly, connect your ad spend back to actual revenue, not just marketing qualified leads.
How often should you adjust these campaigns?
Give campaigns time to work before making changes. A week isn’t enough data to make big decisions. Generally, wait 10-14 days before adjusting targeting or creative, unless something is clearly broken. The best approach is setting up automated rules for obvious optimizations (like pausing low-performing ads) while doing strategic reviews monthly.
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