How to run your first ABM LinkedIn ads

Running your first LinkedIn ad can be an exciting step towards expanding your business reach and generating valuable leads. 

This guide will walk you through the process of setting up and launching your first LinkedIn ad campaign, from account creation to analyzing results, helping you maximize your return on investment.

Getting started with ABM LinkedIn ads

ABM (Account-Based Marketing) is all about focusing your marketing efforts on specific high-value accounts rather than casting a wide net. When combined with LinkedIn's robust targeting capabilities, ABM allows you to engage directly with decision-makers and influencers in your target companies. Here's how to set up your first LinkedIn ABM campaign:

Step 1: Create your ad accounts

If you don’t already have a LinkedIn account, sign up for one. Ensure your profile is complete, up-to-date, and professional. A strong personal brand can complement your ad campaigns by building credibility. Next, navigate to LinkedIn Campaign Manager and create a new account. This will be your central hub for managing all your LinkedIn ads. It should look something like this: 

Pro Tip: Ensure your LinkedIn company page is also fully optimized. Potential clients may visit it after seeing your ads, so it's essential that it represents your brand well.

Step 2: Set up your payment method

Navigate to the billing section in Campaign Manager and add your credit card or another payment method to fund your ad campaigns. Setting up payment ahead of time ensures a smooth launch process and avoids unnecessary delays.

Step 3: Create and connect your pixel

The LinkedIn Insight Tag is a piece of code you add to your website to track conversions and gather data. Go to the Insight Tag section in Campaign Manager, copy the tag, and add it to your website's header. It should look something like this: 

Pro Tip: If you're not comfortable adding the tag yourself, involve your web developer to ensure it's done correctly. Proper tracking is essential for measuring ROI. 

Step 4: Upload your ABM list and create a conversion form

Your ABM list is your secret weapon. Upload it in the Matched Audiences section of LinkedIn Campaign Manager. Ensure the list is correctly formatted and contains the right accounts you want to target. 

Go to the Lead Gen Forms section, create a new form, and customize it with the information you need. This lead form will be useful when we start creating Conversion campaigns.

Pro Tip: Keep your forms short and relevant. Only ask for essential information to reduce friction and increase conversion rates. Typically, name, email, and company name are sufficient.

Practical tips to launch your first awareness campaign group

Your first campaign will be an awareness campaign. The main goal for an awareness campaign will be to:

• Test different messaging to see what resonates with your target audience
• Create a tagged audience for retargeting later in the sales funnel
• Increase brand familiarity among your target accounts

Let’s get started. 

1. Prep your campaign

Follow the tips above to make sure you have everything set up prior to launch. Start by choosing your campaign objective, create a campaign group, and choose “Brand Awareness” to increase visibility. 

Next, name your campaign group and set the budget and schedule. Decide on a daily or total budget and the duration of the campaign. We recommend starting with $50 to $100 dollars per day.

2. Bidding strategies

Choosing the right bidding strategy is crucial. 

• Automatic bidding: Let LinkedIn manage your bids to get the most clicks for your budget. You DO NOT want to do this. Later on you will be allowed to input daily and lifetime budget limits on each individual campaign. Turning on this feature will not allow you to do this later.
• Manual bidding: Set your bid for how much you’re willing to pay per click or impression. This gives you more control over your ad spend. 

While LinkedIn offers automatic bidding, it’s often better to use manual bidding for greater control. Set a lifetime budget around 20x your daily budget, and monitor your campaign weekly to adjust the end date and budget as needed. This hands-on approach allows you to fine-tune based on real-time data.

3. Create the best audience ever

• Audience targeting: Use LinkedIn’s targeting options to define your audience. You can target by location, company, industry, job title, and more. The main filters we recommend to look into include:
• Company size: Specify the size of companies you want to target and exclude others.
• Job titles vs. functions: For roles in sales, marketing, HR, or finance, targeting by function often works well. For more specific roles, such as operations, support, or IT, targeting by job title provides better precision.
• Industry and skills: Filter by industry to ensure relevance, and use skills to target individuals with specific expertise or certifications.
• Tenure and traits: Focus on individuals with substantial job experience (typically 8+ years) to reach decision-makers. Exclude job seekers and career changers to maintain relevance.
• Matched audiences: Utilize your uploaded list to create a matched audience. This ensures your ads are seen by people already familiar with your business.

Learn how to create your first target account list for ABM.

4. Set up your ads

A well-rounded campaign should ideally have 5 ads. All ads within a campaign will have their budget automatically distributed by Linkedin. Linkedin will prioritize budget towards ads with better performance automatically. An ad has 3 components:

• Creative: Choose high-quality images that resonate with your target audience. Ensure they are relevant to your message and brand. Include your logo and brand colors to ensure consistency and recognizability.
• Headline: Write a headline that clearly conveys the value proposition of your ad. It should be attention-grabbing and to the point. Make sure your headline is relevant to the audience you are targeting and the message of your ad.
• Body copy: Craft compelling ad copy that expands on your headline, highlights key benefits, and includes a clear call to action (CTA). Keep it concise yet informative. Aim to provide enough information to intrigue without overwhelming. In some cases, longer bodies that need to be expanded have worked well, provided you have something of quality to share.

Create your first conversion ad group 

Conversion groups is where the fun starts, LinkedIn conversion campaigns have 3x higher conversion rate than Landing pages, and are also 3x more expensive. It is important to optimize these campaigns as much as possible. Most of the steps are similar for awareness and conversion, so I will only highlight the ones that differ.

Tips to start generating leads

• Conversion campaign objective: Create a new campaign group focused on conversions. Choose “Lead Generation” to drive leads using LinkedIn’s Lead Gen Forms.
• Ad format: Select an ad format that best suits your campaign goals, such as sponsored content, message ads, or dynamic ads. We recommend starting with Single Image.
• Bidding strategy: At this point you may choose to go for a daily maximum or for a lead cost cap. We would recommend always doing a lead cost cap until you feel that your campaign has good conversion metrics, otherwise you run the risk of exhausting your budget without any results.

Metrics to keep an eye on after you launch

• Click-Through Rate (CTR): Measures how many people clicked on your ad after seeing it. A higher CTR indicates that your ad is relevant and engaging. Aim for a CTR of at least 0.55% during awareness campaigns and 0.75% for conversion campaigns. A lower CTR indicates a need to refine your messaging.
• Form fill rate: Tracks how many clicks resulted in a completed conversion form. This shows how effective your ad is at driving desired actions. A good benchmark is a 1-2% fill rate. A low rate suggests a disconnect between your ad copy and form text.
• Cost Per Lead (CPL): Calculates the average cost of each lead generated by your campaign. This helps determine the efficiency of your ad spend. The CPL is the outcome of your CPM (cost per thousand impressions) and your conversion rate. LinkedIn leads go from $100 to $300 on average, which is a total acceptable number as long as those leads are within your ICP.
• Frequency:Frequency refers to the number of times people have seen your ad. Regardless of performance, we recommend pausing ads after frequency of 5 has been achieved as the ad will no longer be as effective then.
• Cost Per Impression (CPM): Pay each time your ad is shown 1,000 times.  CPM usually reflects how competitive the audience you are targeting. If you are getting leads that are too junior or in the wrong region, you most likely need to pay a higher CPM. CPM is something that you can control by increasing the total lead cost cap.
• Work Email vs. personal email: Getting a meeting or a reply from a work email is 3x more likely than from the general email. However, the general email is auto filled by LinkedIn and presents way less friction. At the start of campaigns having general Email enabled will get you leads faster which is useful to at least confirm targeting accuracy.

Maximize results with LinkedIn ABM

Running a LinkedIn ad can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. It is ultimately a labor of love and time, however, time spent on your campaign will ultimately reflect on gains from a lead perspective.

Weekly reiteration and adjustments are mandatory.

Learn more about ABM on our blog or reach out to us.