Solved: LinkedIn Ads Cost Inquiry

Hi there,

Thanks for getting in touch. That’s a really common question, and probably one of the first things people want to know before they dive into LinkedIn ads. The honest answer is a bit of a "how long is a piece of string?" situation, because the cost can vary massively. But I'm happy to give you some initial thoughts and guidance based on what we've seen running campaigns for our clients. It's definately not as straightforward as people hope.

Hopefully I can break it down a bit for you and give you a much clearer picture of what to expect and how to approach it.

So, how much do LinkedIn Ads *actually* cost...

Right, let's get straight to it. Unlike buying a product with a fixed price tag, LinkedIn Ads work on an auction system. You're bidding against other advertisers who want to reach the same audience you do. This is the main reason why there's no single answer to your question. The cost is dependant on a few big factors that all influence each other.

The biggest one is your target audience and industry. If you're trying to reach C-suite executives in the financial technology space, you can bet your bottom dollar you'll be paying a premium. There's huge compeition for their attention. On the flip side, if you're targeting junior-level staff in a less competitive industry, your costs will likely be much lower. We see this all the time. One campaign we ran for a B2B software client targeting decision makers saw a cost of $22 per lead. But we've also run campaigns for clients in hyper-competitive niches like legal or healthcare recruitment where the cost per click (CPC) alone could be well over £10-£15. It's a completely different ball game.

Your campaign objective also plays a massive part. Are you trying to get people to visit your website (Traffic)? Fill out a lead form (Lead Generation)? Or just see your brand name (Awareness)? Generally, actions that are higher value, like a lead, will cost more than a simple click or an impression. The platform optimises for what you tell it you want, and it knows that getting someone's contact details is a much bigger ask than just getting them to view a page.

Finally, the quality and relevance of your ad itself matters. LinkedIn has a "relevance score" which, simply put, is how much it thinks your audience will be interested in your ad. A higher relevance score can actually lower your costs because LinkedIn wants to show its users content they find valuable. A rubbish, irrelevant ad will cost you more to show. So good creative isn't just a 'nice to have', it directly impacts your budget.

We'll need to look at who you're trying to reach...

Before you even think about spending a single penny, the absolute first step is to get crystal clear on who you're trying to sell to. This is where LinkedIn's real power is, and it's what you're paying the premium for compared to other platforms like Meta. The targeting options are incredibly granular for B2B.

You need to build what we call an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). Don't just think "we sell to businesses". Get specifc.

-> What industries are they in? (e.g., Software, Manufacturing, Financial Services)
-> What's the company size? (e.g., 50-200 employees, 5000+ employees)
-> Who are the actual decision makers? You need to target by job title, function, or seniority. Think about who holds the budget and who feels the pain your product or service solves. Is it the Head of Sales, the CTO, the Marketing Manager? You can target them directly.
-> Where are these comapnies located? Country, region, or even city level.

A good exercise is to think of your top 10 best customers right now. What do they have in common? Build your targeting profile around them. You can even take a list of target companies you'd love to work with and upload it to LinkedIn to target the decision makers within just those organisations. It’s a powerful feature.

I usually recommend starting with a narrow, well-defined audience. It feels counter-intuitive, but going too broad on LinkedIn is a classic way to burn through your budget with very little to show for it. You want to be sure that almost every single person who sees your ad is a potential good fit for your business. Quality over quantity is the rule here.

I'd say you need the right objective for the job...

Once you know who you're targeting, you need to decide what you want them to *do*. This choice dictates the ad formats available to you and how the platform will charge you. It's not just about getting clicks; it's about getting the *right kind* of action that moves someone closer to becoming a customer.

Your main choices for a B2B campaign are usually:

Lead Generation: This is probably the most common one. You use a Sponsored Content ad (the ones that look like normal posts in the feed) and when someone clicks, a pre-filled Lead Gen Form pops up right inside LinkedIn. The beauty of this is that it's super low-friction for the user – their name, email, job title etc. are already filled in. This means you tend to get a lower Cost Per Lead (CPL). The downside? The quality can sometimes be lower because it was so easy to submit. People might fill it out on a whim without much real intent.

The alternative is to send traffic from your ad to a dedicated landing page on your website where they fill out a form. This is more effort for the user, so your CPL will almost certainly be higher. However, anyone who makes the effort to go to your site and fill out your form is usually a much more qualified and motivated lead. You need to test which approach works for your sales process.

Website Traffic/Conversions: If your goal is to get people to a blog post, a product page, or another part of your site, this is your objective. You're paying for clicks here. It can work well, but you need a really solid website experience to convert that traffic.

Conversation Ads: This is an interesting one. It's basically like a paid InMail message. You can create a message flow with multiple call-to-action buttons. It feels very personal and can be great for starting one-to-one conversations, but it can also feel a bit spammy if not done well. It's effectively paying for cold outreach at scale.

For the ads themselves, you have options like a single image, a carousel of images, or a video. Video often works really well for explaining a complex product or building trust, which can lead to more qualified leads, even if the initial views cost a bit more.

You'll need a proper strategy to make it work...

So you've got your audience and your objective. The final peice of the puzzle is pulling it into a coherent stratgey. Just running one ad at one audience and hoping for the best is rarely going to acheive the results you want, especially with high-ticket B2B services or software.

You need to think about the customer journey. Very few people will see one ad and be ready to sign a £10,000 contract. They need to be nurtured. This means you might run a campaign targeting a cold audience with a helpful piece of content (like a guide or a webinar), and then run a separate retargeting campaign to show a more direct, sales-focused ad (like a demo request) to the people who engaged with your first ad. It's a multi-step process.

Split testing is also non-negotiable. You should always be testing different things to see what works best and drives your costs down.

-> Test your audiences: Try Job Titles vs. Skills vs. Group Membership.
-> Test your creative: Try different ad copy (headlines, text), different images, or an image vs. a video.
-> Test your offers: Does a "Free Guide" work better than a "Free Consultation"? Does a Lead Gen Form beat a landing page?

By constantly testing and turning off the things that don't work, you systematically improve your performance and lower your costs over time. It's an ongoing process of optimisation. This is how we managed to reduce a client's cost per lead by 84% in one campaign – it wasn't a magic bullet, it was methodical testing and refinement.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you in a table below to give you a clear starting point:

As you can probably see, while the question "how much do ads cost" is simple, the process of getting a good return from them is anything but. It's a complex platform and getting it wrong can be a very expensive learning exercise. An experienced hand can help navigate these complexities, avoid the common expensive mistakes, and get you to a positive return on your ad spend much faster.

If you'd like to chat through your specific business goals and who you're trying to reach in more detail, we offer a free initial consultation. We can give you some more tailored advice and help you figure out if LinkedIn is the right fit for you. Feel free to get in touch if that sounds helpful.

Regards,
Team @ Lukas Holschuh