How to Post a LinkedIn Ad

Putting your first LinkedIn ad out into the world can feel a bit intimidating, but it's one of the most effective ways to reach a specific professional audience. This guide walks you through the entire process step by step, from a blank slate to a live campaign, ensuring you have the confidence to launch ads that get results.

Before You Begin: Setting the Stage for Success

Jumping straight into LinkedIn's Campaign Manager without a plan is a recipe for wasted ad spend. Before you create a single ad, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve, who you want to reach, and what you're going to show them. Nailing these three things beforehand makes the entire setup process much smoother and more effective.

1. Define Your Goal

What do you actually want people to do when they see your ad? LinkedIn's campaign creation process is built around objectives, so knowing yours from the start is essential. Common goals include:

• Driving traffic to a new blog post or landing page.
• Generating leads by having people download an ebook or sign up for a webinar.
• Increasing brand awareness to get your company in front of decision-makers in a new industry.
• Promoting a job opening to attract qualified applicants.

Be specific. "Get more leads" isn't a strategy, "Get 50 qualified leads for our new accounting software from finance managers at mid-sized tech companies" is a strategy.

2. Know Your Audience

This is where LinkedIn truly shines. Its professional targeting capabilities are second to none. Before you enter the ad platform, you should be able to create a detailed persona of the exact professional you're trying to reach. Think about:

• Job Title &amp, Seniority: Are you targeting "Marketing Managers" or "Chief Financial Officers"? The messaging will be very different.
• Industry &amp, Company Size: Do you serve startups in the SaaS industry or large enterprise companies in manufacturing?
• Location: Are you focused on a specific city, state, or country?
• Skills &amp, Interests: Could you target users with skills like "Project Management" or who are members of groups related to your industry?

Having these attributes defined makes building your target audience in the platform a breeze.

3. Prepare Your Creative and Copy

Finally, you need the ad itself. Trying to write copy and find an image while you're also navigating a new ad platform is stressful. Prepare your assets in advance:

• Visuals: A high-quality image or short, engaging video that stands out in a professional feed. Check LinkedIn for their latest spec recommendations (they change occasionally!), but a good starting point for a single image ad is 1200 x 627 pixels.
• Ad Copy:

Getting Started in LinkedIn Campaign Manager

With your strategy, audience, and creative ready to go, it's time to build the campaign.

Navigating to Campaign Manager

LinkedIn Campaign Manager is the all-in-one hub for creating, managing, and analyzing your ads. To access it:

1. Log into your LinkedIn profile.
2. Click the "For Business" or "Work" icon (a 3x3 grid) in the top-right corner of the navigation bar.
3. From the dropdown menu, select "Advertise." This will take you to your Campaign Manager account. If you don't have one, LinkedIn will prompt you to create a free one by associating it with your Company Page.

Creating a Campaign Group

Once you're in, the first thing LinkedIn suggests is creating a "Campaign Group." This is just an organizational folder. Think of it as the top-level container for related campaigns. For example, you could have a campaign group for "Q3 Lead Generation" or "New Product Launch." Click "Create" and select "Campaign Group" to give it a name and set a schedule if you'd like. This is optional but a great habit for staying organized.

Step-by-Step: Building Your LinkedIn Ad Campaign

Inside your Campaign Group, click the "Create" button again and this time select "Campaign." Now we get to the fun part. The campaign creation flow is broken down into a series of clear steps.

Step 1: Choose Your Objective

The first screen asks you to pick your objective, which corresponds directly to the goal you defined earlier. LinkedIn organizes these into three categories:

• Awareness: The goal here is simply to get eyes on your brand. Choose Brand awareness if you want to increase impressions.
• Consideration: This is for encouraging engagement. Options include Website visits, Engagement (for likes, comments, and shares on your posts), and Video views.
• Conversion: This is where you drive specific, trackable actions. This includes key objectives like Lead generation (using LinkedIn's built-in lead forms), Website conversions (tracking actions on your site), and Job applicants.

Select the one that best matches your goal. For this example, let's pretend we're trying to get sign-ups for a webinar, so we'll pick Website conversions.

Step 2: Define Your Target Audience

This is the most critical step. Here, you'll build the audience you mapped out earlier. Take your time and be deliberate.

• Locations: Start by specifying the geographical region you want to target.
• Audience Attributes: This is where you narrow down your audience based on their professional data. Under the "Narrow" button, you can select from categories like:

As you add targeting criteria, pay attention to the "Forecasted results" panel on the right. It gives you an estimate of your target audience size. If it's too broad (millions of people), add more filters. If it's too narrow (under a few thousand), you might need to broaden your criteria to give the algorithm enough room to work.

Step 3: Select Your Ad Format

Next, you'll choose how your ad will look in the feed. The options available will depend on your chosen objective, but the most common formats are:

• Single Image Ad: A classic format with one image, a headline, and descriptive text. Great for driving traffic and conversions.
• Carousel Ad: Features two or more swipeable images or videos. Perfect for showcasing multiple products or telling a story.
• Video Ad: Captures attention with motion and sound. Ideal for brand-building and demonstrations.
• Sponsored Messaging (formerly InMail): Delivers a personalized message directly to a user's LinkedIn inbox. Use this sparingly for high-value offers.

Step 4: Set Your Budget &amp, Schedule

Now, you tell LinkedIn how much you want to spend and when.

• Budget: You can choose either a Daily budget (the average amount you'll spend per day) or a Lifetime budget (the total amount you'll spend for the entire campaign duration). A daily budget is more flexible, while a lifetime budget ensures you won't overspend a fixed amount.
• Schedule: Set a start date and, optionally, an end date for your campaign.
• Bidding: For most beginners, the default Maximum Delivery (also known as automated bidding) is the best option. LinkedIn will try to get you the most results for your budget. As you become more advanced, you can explore options like Target Cost bidding to better control your cost per conversion.

Step 5: Build Your Ad Creative

This is where you'll upload the image or video you prepared and assemble your final ad. You will see a preview on the right side of the screen.

1. Name this ad: Give your ad a descriptive name (e.g., "Webinar Ad - Blue Graphic - V1"). This is for your internal use only.
2. Introductory text: Paste the body of your ad copy here.
3. Destination URL: Paste the link to your landing page. LinkedIn will automatically pull a preview of the page title and image.
4. Image or Video: Upload your visual asset.
5. Headline: Write your compelling headline.
6. Description: This is a short line of text that appears below the headline but isn't always shown on every device. Keep it brief.
7. Call-to-action (CTA): Select the most appropriate CTA button from the dropdown menu (e.g., "Register").

Step 6: Review and Launch

You're almost there! On the final screen, you'll see a complete summary of your campaign settings: objective, audience, budget, and ad creative. Review every single detail carefully. Check for spelling errors, ensure the destination URL is correct, and confirm your budget is what you intended.

Once everything looks perfect, click the "Launch Campaign" button.

Your ad will now go into a review process. LinkedIn's team will check it to ensure it meets their advertising policies. This typically takes anywhere from a few minutes to several hours. Once approved, your campaign will go live and start reaching professionals!

Final Thoughts

Creating a LinkedIn ad is a structured process that moves from defining a high-level goal all the way down to fine-tuning your ad copy and creative. By methodically working through your objective, audience, format, budget, and creative, you can build powerful campaigns that connect with the exact professionals you want to reach.

Once your ads are running, an entirely new challenge begins: understanding their true performance. Bringing all your marketing and sales data together lets you see how your LinkedIn Ads spend influences website traffic, leads in Salesforce, and ultimately, real Shopify sales. When you need that complete view, we built Graphed. It lets you skip the tedious spreadsheet work by using natural language to connect your data sources. You can just ask things like, "How does my cost per lead from LinkedIn compare to Facebook Ads this month?" and get an instant, real-time dashboard that answers your question in seconds.