LinkedIn Ads in the UK: The 2024 Complete Strategy

I see this question all the time. People get lost in the sea of LinkedIn ad options, burning through their budget testing everything and getting nowhere. The truth is, most businesses in the UK only need to master two or three of these formats. The rest is largely noise.

The biggest mistake is thinking the ad format is the magic bullet. It's not. It's just the delivery van. If what's inside the package—your offer, your message—is rubbish, it doesn't matter how fancy the van is. Your campaign will fail. This guide is about picking the right van for the right journey, and making sure the package is actually something your ideal UK customer wants.

Before You Pick a Format, What Are You Actually Trying to Achieve?

Stop. Before you even look at the ad formats in Campaign Manager, you need to answer one question with brutal honesty: what is the single most important action you want someone to take after seeing your ad? Don't say "build brand awareness." That's a lazy answer and, frankly, a great way to pay LinkedIn to find you an audience of people who will never buy from you. You can read more about why you need a conversion objective to find actual customers.

Your goal needs to be specific and measurable. For most B2B businesses in the UK, it boils down to one of these:

• Generate qualified sales leads: Getting the contact details of people who are actively interested in your service or product. This is the most common and usually the most valuable objective.
• Start conversations with specific decision-makers: Targeting a handful of high-value individuals (e.g., CFOs at FTSE 100 companies) to open a dialogue.
• Drive traffic to a high-value piece of content: Sending people to a pillar blog post, a case study, or a tool on your website.
• Get signups for a webinar or event: Building an audience for a live or virtual event.
• Distribute a downloadable asset: Getting your latest whitepaper or industry report into the hands of your target market to build your email list and authority.

Once you'vepicked your *one* primary objective, choosing a format becomes much, much simpler. In fact, you can map it out.

Which Ad Formats Actually Generate Leads in the UK?

Let's be clear, when most UK businesses talk about LinkedIn Ads, they mean lead generation. They want names, emails, and phone numbers of people who might buy their stuff. For this, the Sponsored Content formats are your bread and butter. These are the ads that appear natively in the LinkedIn feed.

Single Image Ads: The classic. A strong image, a headline, and some text. Don't underestimate its power. For a clear, simple offer, this is often the best way to get your message across quickly. For some of our B2B software clients, we've found that a simple, punchy image ad targeting the right decision-makers can be highly effective at generating leads. The key is the message. Don't just show your product. Show the outcome. Your copy needs to grab a busy exec scrolling on the train between Reading and Paddington. It has to speak directly to a pain they're feeling right now.

Video Ads: These are brilliant for telling a more complex story or building a deeper connection. If you're selling a high-trust service or a complicated SaaS product, video is your friend. A few things to remember for the UK market: keep it short (under 60 seconds, ideally under 30), and it absolutely *must* have subtitles. Most people watch with the sound off. We have seen some great results with simple, user-generated-style videos for SaaS clients. It feels more authentic than a slick corporate production and can really cut through the noise. It builds trust, and trust leads to better, more qualified leads.

Carousel Ads: These give you multiple cards to play with in a single ad. They are fantastic for showcasing different features of a product, telling a step-by-step story, or highlighting various services you offer. For example, a London-based marketing agency could use a carousel to showcase results from three different client case studies. Each card is a chance to prove your value. Just make sure the first card is compelling enough to make them want to swipe.

No matter which of these you choose, your success depends less on the format and more on how well you've understood your audience's problems. If you're struggling to even define your ideal customer, you might find our B2B Founder's Guide to LinkedIn Ads a useful starting point.

Should I Use a LinkedIn Lead Gen Form or a Landing Page?

This is the next big question once you've picked a Sponsored Content format. When someone clicks your ad, where do they go? You have two main options, and the choice has a massive impact on your costs and lead quality.

LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms (LGFs) are pop-ups that open directly within LinkedIn. They come pre-filled with the user's profile information (name, email, job title, etc.). This makes them incredibly easy and fast to complete.

• Pros: Massively reduced friction. Higher conversion rates. Lower Cost Per Lead (CPL), especially on mobile. It's the path of least resistance.
• Cons: Can lead to lower quality leads. Because it's so easy, you'll get people submitting who are only casually interested. You absolutely need a rapid follow-up process to qualify them.

A dedicated Landing Page on your website. The user clicks the ad and leaves LinkedIn to go to a page you've built specifically for this campaign.

• Pros: Much higher quality leads. Anyone who takes the time to leave LinkedIn, wait for your page to load, and manually type in their details is seriously interested. You also have more space to sell them with persuasive copy, testimonials, and video.
• Cons: Much higher friction. Your conversion rates will be lower, and therefore your CPL will be higher. Your website also has to be perfectly optimised and load quickly, or you'll lose them.

So what's the verdict? For most campaigns starting out in the UK, I'd recomend starting with Lead Gen Forms. The goal is to get data and conversations flowing quickly. You can validate your offer and targeting much faster. If you find the lead quality is dreadful after a couple of weeks, you can then switch to a landing page or add more custom qualifying questions to your LGF to weed people out. It's a trade-off between volume and quality, and it's easier to tighten the filter later than it is to get a trickle of expensive leads from a landing page from day one. Many businesses get stuck on this point; we've put together a complete lead generation guide that covers this and other common issues in more detail.

Are There Any 'Secret Weapon' Ad Formats I'm Missing?

While Sponsored Content is the workhorse, there are a couple of other formats that can be incredibly effective in the right situation. Most agencies don't talk about these as much, but they can be game-changers.

Document Ads: This is probably the most underrated format on the platform. It allows you to promote a document (like a PDF, PowerPoint, or Word doc) directly in the feed. Users can preview it and, if they want to download the full thing, they submit their details via an auto-filled Lead Gen Form. It's genius.

Why is it so good? It offers genuine value upfront. You're not asking for a demo; you're giving them a free, valuable resource. This positions you as an expert and builds trust. It's perfect for promoting things like:

• A detailed report on the state of the UK's FinTech industry.
• A comprehensive guide to GDPR compliance for small businesses.
• A case study portfolio for a creative agency.

The leads you get from Document Ads are often very high quality because they've self-qualified by showing interest in a specific, in-depth topic. If you're struggling to decide on a format, our guide on choosing the best LinkedIn ad format can provide a step-by-step fix.

Conversation Ads: This is a tricky one. These ads appear in a user's LinkedIn Messaging inbox and allow for a 'choose-your-own-adventure' style interaction with multiple call-to-action buttons. It's essentially a paid, automated cold message.

When should you use them? Only when you have a very high-ticket offer and are targeting a very senior, very specific audience. Think trying to sell a £100k software package to the top 20 CIOs in the UK banking sector. For that, a Conversation Ad can be a powerful way to start a direct dialogue. But for 95% of businesses, they are too expensive and can easily come across as spammy if the offer isn't perfect. If you're selling a £99/month SaaS tool, stay away from these. You'll just annoy people and burn your cash.

What Sort of Costs and Results Are Realistic for the UK Market?

This is the million-dollar question—or rather, the "how many pounds per lead" question. LinkedIn is not a cheap platform. You're paying a premium to access its incredible B2B targeting data. Don't expect Facebook-level CPLs.

Costs in the UK are some of the highest in Europe due to the sheer amount of competition, especially in sectors like finance, tech, and professional services concentrated around London, Manchester, and Edinburgh. Based on campaigns we've run for UK clients, here are some very rough ballpark figures:

• For SaaS/Tech: Expect to pay anywhere from £25 to £80 per lead (a trial signup or demo request). I remember one campaign we ran for a B2B software client targeting UK decision-makers where we achieved a CPL of around $22 (about £18), which was a fantastic result.
• For Professional Services (e.g., consultancies, agencies): This can be wider, from £40 to over £150 per qualified lead, depending on how senior your target audience is.
• For high-value content downloads (via Document Ads): You might see CPLs in the £10 - £25 range.

These are just estimates. Your actual costs will be affected by your industry, your targeting, your ad creative, and your offer. To get a better idea, try our interactive calculator below. Adjust the sliders to see how different variables might impact your potential costs.

Remember, a high CPL isn't necessarily a bad thing if your customer lifetime value (LTV) is high enough to support it. A £100 lead that turns into a £10,000 client is a brilliant investment. Understanding the numbers specific to the UK market is key, which is why we've explored this in our guide to unlocking LinkedIn Ads ROI in the UK.

How Should I Structure My Campaigns to Test These Formats?

You should never just guess which format will work. You need to test them methodically. A good structure is the foundation of any successful campaign. Here’s a simple, effective way to structure your tests:

Create one campaign per objective. For example, a "UK - Lead Generation" campaign.

Inside that campaign, create different ad sets for your key audiences. For example:

• Ad Set 1: Core ICP - e.g., Marketing Directors at UK software companies (50-200 employees).
• Ad Set 2: Retargeting - e.g., People who visited your website in the last 90 days.

Then, within each ad set, you test your different ad formats against each other. So, in Ad Set 1, you might have:

• Ad 1: Single Image Ad -> Lead Gen Form
• Ad 2: Video Ad -> Lead Gen Form
• Ad 3: Document Ad

This structure ensures you're testing the formats on a level playing field, within the same audience. After a week or two (depending on your budget), you'll have clear data on which format is performing best for that specific audience. You can then turn off the losers and reallocate budget to the winner. This methodical approach is the only way to truely optimise your account. Of course, this all relies on having your targeting correct in the first place; we often find that when people are having trouble with LinkedIn, it's because they're feeling a bit lost with the targeting options, something we've created a guide to help you unlock more precise targeting for.

What if I Pick the Right Format and My Ads Still Fail?

I'll let you in on a secret. If your campaigns are failing, it's almost certainly not because you chose a Carousel Ad instead of a Single Image Ad. That's just optimising the deck chairs on the Titanic.

The real reasons campaigns fail are almost always one of two things:

1. Your Audience is Wrong: You're talking to the wrong people. You haven't gone deep enough into who your Ideal Customer is—not their job title, but their deepest, most urgent business pain. If your message isn't hitting a raw nerve, it doesn't matter what format you use. It'll be ignored.
2. Your Offer is Weak: This is the number one killer of campaigns. You're asking for too much, too soon, while offering too little value in return. The classic example is the dreaded "Request a Demo" button. It's an arrogant call to action that offers zero immediate value to your prospect. Why should a busy UK director give you 30 minutes of their time to be sold to? Your offer needs to solve a small part of their problem for free, right now. A free audit, a valuable report, a useful checklist, a free trial. Give before you ask.

If you get the audience and the offer right, you could probably scribble your ad on a napkin, take a photo of it, and it would still generate leads. Get them wrong, and the most beautifully produced video ad in the world won't save you. So many people blame the platform, saying "LinkedIn ads are useless," but the real problem is almost always a weak strategic foundation. We've written extensively about this, detailing the real reason LinkedIn ads fail and how to fix it.

This is the main advice I have for you:

As you can see, choosing the right ad format is a strategic decision, not a creative one. It flows directly from your commercial objectives and your understanding of the customer. While this guide gives you the blueprint for making that decision in the competitive UK market, the real challenge lies in the execution—the relentless testing, the nuanced copywriting that resonates with a British audience, and the deep data analysis required to turn a good campaign into a great one.

Getting this right requires experience, especially when dealing with the high costs and sophisticated buyers in the UK. If you're finding that your campaigns aren't delivering the results you need, or if you'd simply rather have an expert team handle this for you, it might be worth a conversation. We offer a completely free, no-obligation strategy session where we can look at your current setup and provide some actionable advice. Feel free to get in touch if you'd like to book one.