Skip to main content

Do you know what goal to choose for your LinkedIn ad campaigns or ads? Wondering which goals deliver the most profitable results?

In this article, you'll discover how to use five LinkedIn ad targets. Find out which goal will give you the results you're looking for, find tips for getting the lowest cost per click or the lowest cost per conversion, and more.

LinkedIn goal-based advertising

If you are used to advertising on Facebook, you will notice that the goals of LinkedIn ads are very similar. LinkedIn wants to offer Facebook advertisers a similar LinkedIn experience.

LinkedIn has had goals for quite some time, but essentially they have been checkboxes and offer types. Now the process is very defined. When you set up a LinkedIn ad and you click Create campaign, you will see many different lenses to choose from.

Let's focus on a few of the main ones because some are mixed or very similar. If you know that you want to drive a website conversion, you may be able to make the website conversion cheaper by using a different objective. Don't worry, we'll decode each goal to make sure you get the most out of your LinkedIn ad spend.

Note: This article assumes that you know how to properly set up a LinkedIn ad. Read this article for step-by-step instructions.

# 1: Commitment target

The first objective of the LinkedIn ad campaign that we will look at is engagement. To this end, you can pay per click or impression. It is almost always recommended to go for clicks, because it is the least risky.

The engagement goal will be optimized for any type of action on your LinkedIn ad. That means a social action like liking, commenting or sharing; a follow-up to your company page; a visit to the page of the same; and even a click on your call to action link.

Engagement is the lowest cost LinkedIn goal and is the one to select if you want to get more Company Page followers along the way.

# 2: Website visits objective

If your goal is to get people to your landing page so they can convert there, choose the website visits goal.

Professional advice: As a little trick, you can bid with one click to watch a video, which can also get you the cheapest video traffic possible through this LinkedIn goal.

# 3: Video Viewing Purpose

Obviously, the video views goal applies to video creative only, but it's helpful to understand that by using this goal, you can bid by impression or view. A LinkedIn video ad view is considered to be 2 seconds.

You can expect to pay around $0.06 to $0.14 per 2 second view on LinkedIn. Obviously, this is much more expensive than Facebook, but again, you are reaching a very specific and hyper-targeted audience.

It is advisable to use any type of offer (cost per view or cost per impression) that offers you the cheapest cost. But there is another way to potentially optimize this: you can run creative videos with the goal of receiving website visits and paying only per click.

Run all three side by side in separate LinkedIn campaigns so you can find out which one gives you the lowest cost per click or the cheapest cost per conversion.

# 4: Lead Generation Objective

If you want to use LinkedIn lead generation form ads, you must select the lead generation goal. This will allow you to have a form directly within the ad itself so that you can bypass the landing page experience entirely.

You can use the lead generation objective in any type of sponsored content or sponsored messaging ads. You can pay by cost, per click, or cost per impression. Going with cost per click provides the least risk up front and you can always change it later.

#5: website conversion goal

The last LinkedIn goal we'll cover is website conversions. It's similar to website visits, except that LinkedIn is now starting to make decisions about who they want to show their ads to because they have some data on who tends to convert and who doesn't. Surely, as time goes by and LinkedIn gets more data about its users, this will be more and more useful.

The best LinkedIn ad format and target mix for beginner advertisers

It's time to talk about the correct LinkedIn ad format and target to use when you're just testing things and want the least amount of risk.

It is a good idea to always start by paying per cost per click with LinkedIn ads. If you pay per impression and you have a bad ad that nobody clicks on, you will continue to spend money and have nothing to show. But if you are driving per click and you have a bad ad, you will only pay for the traffic you get. A bad ad is not going to penalize you; you just didn't spend any money.

The LinkedIn ad format for sponsored content is by far the most versatile. Start with the single image version because still images are easy to create, change, and fix.

If you are sending traffic to your website, go with the goal of website visits. If you want to keep that traffic on LinkedIn and use LinkedIn's lead generation forms, use the lead generation objective.

Conclusion on LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn launched goals like Facebook, but the goal you choose for your campaign may not be as straightforward as you think. This article focuses on five of these goals so you can get the most out of your ad spend.

You may be wondering about the two goals I didn't cover: brand awareness and job applicants. Brand awareness is no different from engagement; LinkedIn simply removes the option to pay with a click. And the goal of job seekers is specific to hiring.

What do you think of LinkedIn ads? What LinkedIn advertising targets do you regularly use? Share your thoughts in the comments.

R Marketing Digital