LinkedIn Ads Best Practices: A Small Business Marketing Guide

LinkedIn is a powerful platform for small business marketing, offering highly targeted advertising options to reach decision-makers and professionals. To maximise your LinkedIn Ads ROI, it’s essential to follow best practices in audience targeting, budget planning, ad format selection, and performance tracking. Below, we break down the key elements to help you create a successful LinkedIn advertising strategy.

1. Audience Targeting: Reaching the Right Professionals

Effective LinkedIn ad campaigns start with precise audience targeting. LinkedIn’s robust targeting options allow you to reach professionals based on job title, company size, industry, skills, and more. Here’s how to refine your targeting:

Use LinkedIn’s Demographic Filters: Start with core factors such as job title, industry, and company size to ensure your ads reach relevant decision-makers.

Leverage Matched Audiences: Utilise retargeting, company lists and account-based marketing (ABM) to engage with users who have previously visited your website or interacted with your content.

Test Different Segments: Instead of broad targeting, create specific audience segments to see which group responds best to your ads.

Exclude Irrelevant Audiences: Avoid wasted spend by excluding job roles, industries, or company sizes that aren’t relevant to your business. You can see these in your demographic reporting. You will be amazed at how much money you might be wasting on clicks from the wrong type of people!

By refining your LinkedIn audience targeting, you can increase engagement and reduce wasted ad spend.

2. Budget Planning: Maximising ROI for Small Businesses

Budget management is crucial for small business marketing, as every pound needs to work efficiently. LinkedIn Ads require strategic budget allocation to ensure you’re getting the best return on investment.

Set a Daily and Total Budget: Start with a manageable budget, such as £20 per day (this is the minimum I’d recommend), and scale up based on performance.

Choose the Right Bidding Strategy:

> CPC (Cost-Per-Click): Best for driving traffic and lead generation.

> CPM (Cost-Per-Mille): Ideal for increasing brand awareness.

> Automated Bidding: Lets LinkedIn optimise your bids for better performance. (be careful of this one as they are likely to push your bids up to get clicks).

A/B Test Different Budgets: Run small tests with different budgets and adjust based on performance data.

Monitor Cost Per Lead (CPL): Keep an eye on how much you’re spending per conversion (depending on what your conversions are) and optimise accordingly.

A well-planned budget ensures that your LinkedIn Ads drive tangible results while keeping costs under control.

3. Choosing the Right LinkedIn Ad Format

LinkedIn offers a variety of ad formats to engage your target audience effectively. Selecting the right ad format is key to driving conversions for small business marketing.

Sponsored Content: These native ads appear in users’ LinkedIn feeds and are excellent for promoting blog posts, whitepapers, or product updates.

Sponsored Messaging: Allows you to send personalised messages directly to users’ inboxes, making it effective for lead generation although these are often not opened so definitely test this first..

Text Ads: A cost-effective option for driving traffic to your website or landing pages.

Dynamic Ads: Personalised ads that adjust based on the user’s LinkedIn profile details, increasing engagement.

Carousel Ads: Allow you to showcase multiple products or messages in a single ad.

Choosing the right LinkedIn ad format ensures that your campaign resonates with your audience and drives engagement.

4. Measurement and Tracking: Optimising Performance

Tracking and analysing performance is essential to ensuring your LinkedIn Ads are delivering value. Here’s how to measure and optimise your campaigns effectively:

Set Clear KPIs: Define key performance indicators (KPIs) such as click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate, and cost per acquisition (CPA).

Use LinkedIn Insight Tag: Install LinkedIn’s tracking pixel on your website to measure how users interact with your ads and track conversions.

Monitor Engagement Metrics: Keep an eye on CTR, impressions, and engagement rates to understand how well your ads are performing.

A/B Testing: Experiment with different ad creatives, headlines, and CTAs to see what works best.

Adjust Based on Data: If an ad isn’t performing well, tweak the audience targeting, creative, copy or bidding strategy.

By continuously monitoring and refining your LinkedIn Ads, you can improve performance and ensure your small business marketing efforts generate high-quality leads.

Elevate Your Small Business Marketing with LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn Ads offer a powerful way to target professionals and decision-makers, making it an excellent platform for small business marketing if you have the budget available. It’s not a cheap channel but it is effective when you get it right due to its targeted nature.  By following best practices in audience targeting, budget planning, ad format selection, and performance tracking, you can create highly effective ad campaigns that drive leads and sales.

If you’re looking to scale your small business with LinkedIn advertising, start with a well-defined strategy, optimise based on data, and refine your campaigns for maximum ROI. With the right approach, LinkedIn can become one of the most valuable tools in your digital marketing strategy.

If you require support or advice regarding your marketing strategy, I’m here to help. Book a consultation today for a personalised chat about your business requirements.