Solved: Improve LinkedIn Ad Copy for Barcelona Market

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

Happy to give you some initial thoughts on your LinkedIn ads. I get it, trying to find good advice that actually works, especially for a specific market like Barcelona, can be a real pain. Most of what you read online is just generic fluff that doesn't get you anywhere.

The thing is, your problem probably isn't just about 'ad copy best practices'. That's usually just a symptom of a deeper issue. Tbh, you can have the best copy in the world, but if you're talking to the wrong people with the wrong offer, you're just throwing money down the drain. We see this all the time.

So, instead of giving you a list of copywriting tips, I'm going to walk you through the framework we use to build B2B campaigns that actually work, from the ground up. It starts way before you write a single word of ad copy. Get this foundation right, and the copy almost writes itself.

We'll need to look at your ICP, but not how you think...

Right, let's get one thing straight. The way 99% of businesses define their Ideal Customer Profile is completely useless for advertising. You've probably got a document somewhere that says something like, "We target Managing Directors at tech companies with 50-200 employees in the Barcelona area."

That tells you nothing. Absolutely nothing of value.

It leads to generic, boring ads that say "We help tech companies grow!" which get completely ignored because every other agency is saying the exact same thing. It's a recipe for burning cash. To stop wasting money, you have to define your customer not by their demographics, but by their nightmare.

You need to become an obsessive expert in their specific, urgent, and expensive problem. The kind of problem that keeps them awake at 3 AM. The kind of problem that, if left unsolved, could get them fired or make their business fail.

• -> A Head of Sales isn't just a job title; she's a leader terrified of missing her quarterly target for the second time in a row, with her job on the line.
• -> A SaaS founder isn't just an entrepreneur; he's watching his cash burn rate accelerate while his competitors are announcing their Series A funding round.
• -> A law firm partner isn't just looking for 'efficiency'; she's haunted by the fear of a junior associate missing a critical filing deadline, exposing the firm to a massive malpractice lawsuit.

Your ICP isn't a person; it's a problem state. It's a moment of intense professional pain.

Once you've isolated that nightmare, everything changes. Your entire approach to targeting and messaging gets flipped on its head. You stop asking "Who are they?" and start asking:

• -> What specific language do they use to describe this pain to their colleagues?
• -> What podcasts do they listen to on their commute, hoping for a solution? (e.g., 'Acquired', 'The All-In Podcast')
• -> What industry newsletters do they actually open and read? (e.g., 'Stratechery', 'Morning Brew')
• -> What software tools do they already pay for? (e.g., HubSpot, Salesforce, Slack)
• -> Which influencers or thought leaders do they follow on LinkedIn? (e.g., Jason Lemkin, Dave Gerhardt)

This intelligence isn't just data; it's the blueprint for your entire advertising strategy. When you know their nightmare, you know exactly what to say in your ad copy and where to find them on LinkedIn. Do this work first, or you have no business spending a single pound on ads. It's the most important step and almost everyone skips it.

You probably should fix your offer before you write a single word of copy...

Okay, so you've defined the nightmare. The next most common point of failure in all of B2B advertising is the offer. Your prospect sees your ad, it resonates with their pain, they click through to your landing page... and what do they see?

Almost certainly, it's a "Request a Demo" or "Book a Consultation" button.

This is possibly the most arrogant Call to Action ever invented. It presumes that your prospect, a busy, stressed-out decision-maker, has nothing better to do than schedule a 30-minute slot in their calendar to be sold to by a stranger. It's a high-friction, low-value proposition that immediately positions you as just another commodity vendor clamouring for their time. It screams, "I want something FROM you," instead of, "I have something FOR you."

This is where campaigns die. You can have a perfect ICP and perfect ad copy, but a bad offer will kill your conversion rate stone dead. The only job of your offer is to deliver a moment of undeniable value—an "aha!" moment that makes the prospect sell themselves on your solution. You need to give them a taste of the win, for free, with as little friction as possible.

So, delete the "Request a Demo" button. Now. Here's what to replace it with:

• -> For a Service Business (like an agency or consultancy): You must bottle your expertise into a tool, content, or asset that provides instant value. Don't offer a "consultation"; offer a specific, tangible outcome.
  • Bad Offer: "Book a Free Consultation"
  • Good Offer: "Get a Free, 5-Point LinkedIn Ad Account Audit That Will Uncover Wasted Spend in 48 Hours"
  • Good Offer: "Download Our 10-Step Checklist for Launching a B2B Product in the Spanish Market"
  • Good Offer: "Use Our Free Calculator to Project Your Customer Lifetime Value"
• -> For a SaaS Product: This is your massive advantage. The gold standard is a free trial or a freemium plan. And for goodness sake, do not ask for credit card details upfront. Let them use the actual product. Let them experience the "before" and "after" for themselves. When the product itself proves its value, the sale becomes a formality. You're not generating Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) for a sales team to chase; you're creating Product Qualified Leads (PQLs) who are already convinced. We've seen this approach work wonders for our B2B SaaS clients, as the offer itself does most of the selling.

You must solve a small, real, painful problem for free to earn the right to solve their entire problem for money. A low-friction, high-value offer is the bridge between a prospect's interest and their willingness to engage with you further. Without it, you're asking for a marriage proposal on the first date. It just doesn't work.

I'd say you need to master one copywriting framework...

Right. NOW we can talk about copy. See how much work we had to do first? With a clear 'nightmare' ICP and a low-friction, high-value offer, writing compelling copy becomes ten times easier.

Forget about clever slogans, fancy words, or trying to be witty. B2B ad copy has one job: to enter the conversation already happening in your prospect's mind. You need to show them you understand their specific pain better than they do. The best way to do this is with a simple, powerful framework called Problem-Agitate-Solve (PAS).

It's brutally effective. Here's how it works:

1. Problem: You lead with a direct statement of their nightmare. You call it out immediately in the headline and first line. This acts as a pattern interrupt and grabs the attention of the right people, while repelling the wrong ones.
2. Agitate: You don't just state the problem; you twist the knife. You pour salt on the wound. You describe the negative consequences and emotional fallout of the problem. What happens if it's not solved? What are the frustrations, fears, and anxieties it creates? This is where you build empathy and show you truly 'get it'.
3. Solve: Now, and only now, do you introduce your service as the logical, clear, and easy solution to that specific pain. You present your low-friction offer as the first step out of their nightmare.

Let's make this real. Imagine you're a fractional CFO service in Barcelona, targeting early-stage tech startups. Your ICP's nightmare is running out of cash before their next funding round.

A terrible, generic ad would say: "Fractional CFO Services for Barcelona Startups. We help you manage your finances and achieve growth. Contact us today!" -- This is completely forgettable.

An ad using the PAS framework would look like this:

Headline: Is your startup's runway shrinking faster than you thought?

• -> Problem: Your cash flow projections are just a shot in the dark. You know you're burning money, but you're not 100% sure where it's all going.
• -> Agitate: Meanwhile, your competitors are confidently announcing their funding rounds. VCs are asking for metrics you can't provide, and every payroll run feels like a gamble. You're losing sleep worrying if you'll have to lay off good people.
• -> Solve: Get expert financial strategy for a fraction of a full-time hire. We build the investor-ready dashboards that turn uncertainty into predictable growth. Start with our free, no-obligation Cash Runway Audit today.

See the difference? The first one sells a service. The second one sells a solution to a nightmare. It speaks directly to the founder's fears and offers a clear, low-risk first step. This is the kind of copy that gets clicks from the right people. It pre-qualifies them based on their pain. This is how you make your ads effective in any market, Barcelona included, because professional pain is a universal language.

I'd also recommend testing out the 'Before-After-Bridge' framework. You paint a picture of their current frustrating reality (the 'Before' state), then a picture of their desired, happy future (the 'After' state), and finally present your product or service as the 'Bridge' that gets them from one to the other. It's another simple but very effective structure.

You'll need a way to calculate what a lead is actually worth...

This brings me to another massive mistake I see business owners make. They get completely obsessed with the Cost Per Lead (CPL). They'll say, "My CPL on LinkedIn is £150, it's too expensive!"

My first question is always the same: "Okay, so what's that customer worth to you?" And 9 times out of 10, they don't have a clue.

The real question isn't "How low can my CPL go?" but "How high a CPL can I afford to acquire a great customer?" The answer lies in its counterpart: Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). If you don't know this number, you're flying blind. You're making decisions based on feelings and gut instinct instead of hard maths. This is how you kill potentially profitable campaigns prematurely.

Let's break down how to calculate it. It's simpler than you think. You just need three numbers:

• Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): How much revenue does a typical customer bring in per month?
• Gross Margin %: What's your profit margin on that revenue after accounting for the cost of servicing them?
• Monthly Churn Rate %: What percentage of your customers do you lose each month, on average?

The calculation is:

LTV = (ARPA * Gross Margin %) / Monthly Churn Rate

Let's use an example. Say you run a B2B service where clients pay you £1,000 per month (ARPA). Your gross margin is 75%, and you lose about 5% of your clients each month (churn).

• LTV = (£1,000 * 0.75) / 0.05
• LTV = £750 / 0.05
• LTV = £15,000

In this example, each new customer is worth £15,000 in gross margin to your business over their lifetime.

Now things get interesting. A healthy, sustainable business model often aims for a 3:1 ratio of LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC). This means you can afford to spend up to a third of your LTV to acquire a customer.

Affordable CAC = LTV / 3 = £15,000 / 3 = £5,000

You can afford to spend up to £5,000 to acquire a single new customer and still have a very profitable business. Now, let's say your sales process converts 1 in every 20 qualified leads into a paying customer (a 5% lead-to-customer conversion rate).

Affordable CPL = Affordable CAC * Lead-to-Customer Rate = £5,000 * 0.05 = £250

Suddenly, that "expensive" £150 lead from LinkedIn doesn't seem so bad, does it? It looks like a bargain. This is the maths that unlocks aggressive, intelligent growth. It frees you from the tyranny of chasing cheap, low-quality leads and allows you to confidently invest in acquiring high-value customers. Use the calculator below to figure out your own numbers.

We'll need to get your targeting right on LinkedIn...

Finally, let's connect all this back to the LinkedIn platform itself. With your 'nightmare' ICP, your low-friction offer, your PAS copy, and your LTV numbers, you're now armed to use LinkedIn's targeting tools properly.

Again, this is where most people go wrong. They just plug in job titles and industries and hope for the best. You need to be more strategic. You need to use the platform to find the signals of pain.

Audience Targeting

Your goal is to build a narrow, highly relevant audience. Think layers. Don't just target "Marketing Directors." Instead, try:

• Job Title & Industry: Start with the basics, but keep it tight. E.g., "Director of Sales" in the "Computer Software" industry.
• + Company Size: Layer on company size to match your ideal client. E.g., 51-200 employees.
• + Group Membership: This is a powerful one. What LinkedIn groups would someone experiencing this nightmare join? E.g., Add "SaaS Growth Hacks" or "RevOps Leaders" group members. People in these groups are actively looking for solutions.
• + Company List Targeting: This is your sniper rifle. You can create a list of, say, 100 dream client companies in Barcelona and upload it to LinkedIn. Then, you target the relevant decision-makers (e.g., CTO, Head of HR) only at those specific companies. You can use tools like Apollo.io or ZoomInfo to build these lists. This is perfect for high-ticket offers.

The key is to combine these options to create a small, hyper-targeted audience that perfectly matches your nightmare ICP. A smaller, more engaged audience will always outperform a huge, generic one.

Campaign Objectives and Ad Formats

What you're trying to achieve should dictate the campaign type you choose. For B2B lead generation, you've got a few main options, and you should test them against each other.

• -> Sponsored Content (Image or Video) to a Landing Page: This is the classic approach. The ad shows up in the feed, they click, and they land on your website to claim your low-friction offer. This generally results in higher-quality, more qualified leads because they've had to make the effort to visit your site and read more. However, the cost per lead will be higher.
• -> Sponsored Content with a LinkedIn Lead Gen Form: This is a much lower-friction option. When someone clicks the ad, a form pops up directly within LinkedIn, pre-filled with their profile information (name, email, company, job title). All they have to do is click "Submit". This will almost always give you a lower Cost Per Lead than a landing page. We've seen CPLs as low as $22 for B2B decision-makers using this method for a software client. The trade-off? The lead quality can be lower because it's so easy to sign up. You'll need a solid follow-up process to qualify these leads.
• -> Conversation Ads: This is basically a paid InMail message. You can create automated chatbot-like conversations. This can work for starting conversations, but it can also feel a bit spammy if not done well. It's best for very specific, high-value offers where a personal touch is needed from the start.

I'd recommend starting by split-testing a Sponsored Content campaign, with one ad set driving traffic to your landing page and another ad set using a Lead Gen Form. Both ad sets would use the same audience and ad creative. After a week or two, you'll see which one gives you the best balance of lead cost and lead quality for your specific business.

This is the main advice I have for you:

I know this is a lot to take in, and it's a very different way of thinking about advertising than what most people will tell you. But this strategic, foundational approach is what separates campaigns that limp along from those that become reliable engines for business growth. Here's a summary of the action plan I've laid out.

As you can see, running effective B2B campaigns is a proper discipline. It requires a deep understanding of strategy, maths, and human psychology, all layered on top of the technical know-how of the ad platforms themselves. It's not something you can just 'figure out' in a few afternoons.

Getting this wrong means months of frustration, wasted budget, and missed opportunities while your competitors who do get it right are pulling ahead. Getting it right means building a predictable, scalable system for generating high-value leads for your business.

This is where expert help can make all the difference. We do this all day, every day. We've run thousands of campaigns and spent millions for our clients, and we've learned these lessons the hard way so you don't have to.

If you'd like to chat through your specific situation in more detail, we offer a completely free, no-obligation 20-minute strategy session. We can take a look at your business, your goals, and what you've tried so far, and give you a clear, actionable plan. There's no hard sell, just honest advice from professionals in the field.

Hope this has been helpful either way.

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh