TLDR;
- LinkedIn is not for cheap courses: If your course costs less than £500, the high CPCs on LinkedIn will likely eat your margins alive. Stick to Meta for low-ticket B2C.
- The "B2B Budget" Factor: It works best when selling to companies paying for their employees' training, or high-level executives investing in career progression.
- Funnel is non-negotiable: Direct-to-purchase ads rarely work here. You need a lead magnet, a webinar, or a syllabus download to capture intent first.
- Video helps trust: High-ticket sales require high trust. We've included a breakdown of ad formats later on.
- Check the Math: Use the interactive ROI calculator included below to see if your course price can support LinkedIn advertising costs.
I get asked this question probably three times a week. Usually, it’s by a course creator who has exhausted their organic reach on Instagram or LinkedIn and thinks, "Well, my audience is on LinkedIn, so I should run ads there, right?"
The short answer is: It depends entirely on your price point.
If you are selling a £49 course on "How to Use Excel," LinkedIn Ads will likely bankrupt you. I’m not being dramatic; I’m looking at the math. However, if you are selling a £2,500 certification for Project Managers or a £5,000 executive leadership retreat, LinkedIn Ads can be an absolute goldmine. The difference in results between these price points is night and day.
The platform is expensive. In the UK, you are often looking at £5 to £12 just for a single click. That’s a far cry from the pennies you might pay on TikTok or the pound-ish range on Meta. But the quality of that click? It’s unmatched if—and only if—you are targeting a B2B buyer with a corporate budget.
The Economics of Selling Courses on LinkedIn
Let’s look at the raw numbers. Most people fail here because they treat LinkedIn like Facebook. They think they can throw up a "Buy Now" ad and watch the sales roll in. But the user intent is different, and the costs are significantly higher.
In my experience, to make LinkedIn effective for online course sales, you need a high Lifetime Value (LTV). If you're wondering how this compares to other platforms, you might want to look at our comparison of Google Ads vs LinkedIn Ads for UK online courses. But essentially, on LinkedIn, you are paying a premium to filter out the time-wasters.
I’ve put together a visual comparison of the costs I typically see across platforms for education clients.
Average Cost Per Click (CPC) for Education Ads (UK)
As you can see, you can't afford to be sloppy on LinkedIn. If you pay £8 for a click and your conversion rate on your landing page is 2% (which is decent), your Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) is £400. If your course is £297, you are losing over £100 on every single sale. And that’s before you count agency fees or your own time.
However, if you are selling executive education, the story changes. We have a detailed guide on LinkedIn ads strategy for executive education in the UK, but the gist is: if your Customer Lifetime Value is £5k, spending £400 to acquire a customer is a brilliant deal.
Who is the "Right" Audience?
The targeting on LinkedIn is its only redeeming quality for the price. You aren't guessing interests; you are targeting job titles, industries, and company sizes. This is critical for B2B courses.
For instance, imagine you are selling a specialised training course for pharmaceutical compliance officers. On Facebook, you would likely be targeting generic interests like "Science" or "Pharma," and getting a load of students or random retail pharmacy workers. On LinkedIn, you could target "Compliance Manager" at "Pharmaceutical Manufacturing" companies with "500+ employees."
The CPC might be £11. But the conversion rate would likely be much higher than on Facebook because every single person clicking is qualified. They have the budget (or their boss does).
If you are trying to figure out if your niche fits, consider reading our complete guide to paid ads for online course creators, which breaks down different personas. But generally, if your student pays out of their own pocket for a hobby (e.g., photography, creative writing), avoid LinkedIn. If they pay to get a promotion, a better job, or if their company pays, LinkedIn is where you want to be.
The "Nightmare" Targeting Strategy
I mentioned earlier that generic targeting kills budgets. You need to get specific. But "specific" doesn't just mean demographics; it means psychographics.
Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) isn't just "HR Manager in London." It's an HR Manager who is terrified of an employment tribunal because they don't understand the latest legislation. That is the nightmare you need to speak to.
When we run campaigns, we don't just list the course modules in the ad copy. That's boring. We highlight the pain of not having the knowledge. "Stop losing top talent because your onboarding process is broken" hits harder than "Certificate in Employee Onboarding."
Ad Formats That Actually Convert Students
A lot of people ask me, "Should I use video or image?"
For courses, trust is the currency. People are skeptical of online courses these days; there are too many grifters out there. Video ads generally outperform images for cold traffic because they allow you to demonstrate expertise before asking for the click. It's like a mini-lecture.
If you're comfortable on camera, creating ad creatives that convert online course students usually involves you speaking directly to the camera, addressing a specific misconception in your industry, and then pivoting to your course as the deep-dive solution.
However, don't sleep on "Text Ads" or "Spotlight Ads" for retargeting. These are the little ads on the right-hand rail on desktop. They are cheap. We often use them to remind people who visited the course page but didn't buy. It keeps your brand top-of-mind without costing a fortune.
If you want to go deeper into video specifically, check out our piece on LinkedIn video ads for course creators.
The Funnel: Why Direct-to-Purchase Fails
Here is where I see 90% of budgets wasted. You cannot run a LinkedIn Ad to a cold audience asking them to buy a £1,000 course immediately. It just doesn't happen often enough to be profitable.
You need a bridge.
The strategy that works consistently is: Ad -> Lead Magnet -> Nurture -> Sale.
On LinkedIn, Lead Gen Forms are fantastic for this. These are forms that pop up inside LinkedIn and auto-fill with the user's profile data. We often recommend using these to offer a "Course Syllabus PDF" or a "Free Industry Report." The friction is low, so your Cost Per Lead (CPL) stays reasonable (maybe £20-£40).
Once you have their email, you put them into an email sequence that builds authority and eventually sells the course. If you try to skip this step, you are asking someone to marry you on the first date.
For a specific breakdown of how to generate these leads in the capital, have a look at our London course lead generation guide.
Interactive Calculator: Can You Afford LinkedIn Ads?
I built this little tool because I got tired of doing this math on napkins during client meetings. Use this to see if your course economics actually make sense for LinkedIn.
Common Pitfalls to Avoid
I've audited enough accounts to spot the patterns of failure a mile off. The biggest one is impatience. LinkedIn's algorithm is slower to optimise than Facebook's. It needs time and data.
Another classic mistake is using the "Audience Network." This is a setting that shows your ads on third-party apps and websites, not on LinkedIn itself. While it lowers your CPC, I find the quality of traffic often tanks. You want your ad in the LinkedIn feed, right in front of the decision-maker while they are in "work mode," not while they are playing Candy Crush. For more on these errors, see our article on why LinkedIn ads for UK online courses fail.
Should You Hire an Agency?
Honestly, if you are spending less than £1,500 a month, you should probably learn to do it yourself first. Agencies (good ones, anyway) have minimum fees. If the fee is more than your ad spend, the economics don't work.
But if you are scaling and ready to invest serious budget, an expert can save you thousands in wasted spend. We have a guide to LinkedIn ads agencies for course creators that explains what to look for. Spoiler: If they don't ask about your unit economics and LTV in the first call, run away.
My Recommended Action Plan
So, you've looked at the calculator, you have a high-ticket course, and you're ready to test the waters. Here is exactly what I would do:
| Phase | Action Item | Goal |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1: Audit | Review your course LTV and define your "Nightmare" avatar. | Ensure math works before spending. |
| Week 2: The Asset | Create a high-value Lead Magnet (e.g., Whitepaper, Syllabus, Mini-Course). | Bridge the gap between cold click and sale. |
| Week 3: Setup | Set up LinkedIn Insight Tag and Lead Gen Forms. Build audiences. | Technical foundation. |
| Week 4: Launch | Launch "Cold Layer" campaigns targeting job titles. Use Video/Single Image. | Generate leads (CPL Focus). |
| Ongoing | Retarget leads with "Social Proof" ads (testimonials/case studies). | Drive course sales (ROAS Focus). |
This is the main advice I have for you: start slow, focus on the lead magnet, and know your numbers. LinkedIn is unforgiving to those who guess, but incredibly rewarding to those who plan.
If you've looked at this and thought, "This sounds great, but I'd rather someone else handle the headache," that's where we come in. We can look at your specific course, your margins, and tell you straight up if LinkedIn is a viable channel for you or if you should stick to other platforms. Why not book a free consultation to review your strategy?
Hope this helps!
