Solved: LinkedIn Ads in Munich Failing? (The Real Reason)

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out! Happy to give you some initial thoughts on your LinkedIn ads strategy for Munich.

Tbh, the fact that you're focusing so heavily on the location is probably the root of the problem. It feels intuitive, but for most B2B services on a platform like LinkedIn, it's a trap that leads to wasted ad spend and a lot of frustration. The real challenge isn't finding people in Munich; it's finding the handful of people within Munich (and likely elsewhere in Germany) who have a very specific, expensive problem that you are uniquely positioned to solve.

Let's unpack how we'd reframe this away from a geographic problem and towards a customer problem, which is where you'll find your ROI.

We'll need to look at your ICP, not your city...

Forget Munich for a second. Forget Germany. Let's talk about pain. The single biggest mistake I see companies make is defining their Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) with sterile demographics. Something like "We sell to Head of Sales in tech companies with 50-200 employees in the DACH region."

This tells you absolutely nothing useful. It's a description, not a diagnosis. A Head of Sales is not an ICP. A Head of Sales who is terrified of missing their quarterly target because their team's pipeline is drying up, who is getting pressure from the CEO, and who knows their current CRM is a mess of bad data—that is an ICP. Your ICP isn't a person; it's a problem state. It's a nightmare.

Why does this matter? Because people don't buy "consulting" or "software". They buy a solution to a problem that's keeping them up at night. They buy a way out of their specific nightmare. When you define your customer by their pain, your entire advertising strategy changes. Your targeting becomes sharper, your copy becomes more resonant, and your offer becomes irresistible.

So, the first step is to get brutally honest about the nightmare you solve. Ask yourself these questions:

• -> What is the specific, urgent problem that makes someone start searching for a solution like yours? Not a "nice to have," but a "we need to fix this now" problem.
• -> What are the negative consequences of them not solving this problem? (e.g., losing revenue, missing deadlines, team frustration, personal career risk).
• -> What does the "after" state look like? What is the tangible, emotional relief or business outcome they experience after working with you?

Once you have this, you're not just looking for "people in Munich." You're looking for people anywhere who are living that nightmare. Munich just becomes a filter you apply at the very end, if it's even necessary. For many B2B services, a remote delivery model means your true market is defined by language and industry, not city limits.

I'd say you need to nail your targeting options...

Once you've defined your ICP's nightmare, translating that into LinkedIn's targeting interface becomes much more straightforward. You can move beyond basic job titles and locations and start building a highly relevant audience. Here's how I'd approach it, moving from broad to hyper-specific.

Think of it as layers. You start with the foundational attributes of the companies that experience the pain you solve, then you layer on the specific people within those companies who feel that pain most acutely.

Layer 1: Company Attributes

This is where you define the organisations you want to work with. Don't just guess. Look at your best existing customers. What do they have in common?

• -> Industries: Are they all in 'Financial Services' or 'Computer Software'? Be specific.
• -> Company Size: This is a huge one. A 50-person startup has vastly different problems than a 5,000-person enterprise. Use the size brackets (e.g., 51-200 employees) to narrow your focus.
• -> Company Growth Rate: A fast-growing company is more likely to experience "growing pains" and be open to new solutions. You can target companies with a positive headcount growth.

Layer 2: Job Attributes of the Decision-Makers

Now, who inside these companies makes the buying decision? Who feels the nightmare?

• -> Job Titles: Go beyond the obvious. Yes, target "Chief Technology Officer," but also consider "Head of Engineering," "VP of Technology," and "IT Director." Think about who owns the problem and the budget.
• -> Job Function: This is often more reliable than titles. Targeting the 'Engineering' or 'Information Technology' function can catch people with non-standard titles.
• -> Seniority: Target 'Director', 'VP', 'C-Suite' levels to ensure you're reaching people with decision-making power.

Advanced Strategy: Company List Targeting

This is one of the most powerful but underutilised tools on LinkedIn. Instead of letting LinkedIn's algorithm find the companies for you, you give it a precise list. You can use tools like Apollo.io or ZoomInfo to build a list of, say, the top 200 software companies in Germany that fit your exact criteria. You then upload this list to LinkedIn and tell it: "Only show my ads to the 'Heads of Sales' at these specific companies."

This is as close to a surgical strike as you can get in B2B advertising. Your ad spend is incredibly efficient because you've pre-qualified the entire audience at the account level. One campaign we worked on for a B2B software client achieved lead costs as low as $22 per lead for B2B decision-makers, because the message was so damn relevant.

And only after all this do you add the final layer: Location -> Munich. See how it's now the last, and least important, part of the equation? The reality is you might find your initial campaigns perform better by targeting all of Germany, or all German-speaking countries, and then you can analyse the results to see if Munich is actually a hotspot for you. Let the data guide your geographic focus, don't let geography limit your potential audience.

You probably should rethink your offer...

Now we get to the part where most B2B campaigns fall apart: the offer. You can have the best targeting in the world, but if your call to action is "Request a Demo," you are setting yourself up for failure.

Let's be brutally honest. A demo is a sales pitch. Nobody wakes up in the morning excited to be sold to. A demo is a high-friction, low-value ask. It demands a prospect's time (a valuable asset) in exchange for an unknown outcome. It immediately positions you as a vendor, not a partner. For a busy decision-maker in Munich, or anywhere else, that's an easy 'no'.

Your offer's only job is to provide a moment of undeniable value. It needs to solve a small, tangible piece of their nightmare for free, right now. This builds trust and makes them want to talk to you. It gets them to sell themselves on your expertise.

So, what does a good offer look like? You have to bottle up a piece of your expertise and give it away. Here are some ideas:

• -> For a Marketing Agency: A free, automated "LinkedIn Ad Audit" that analyzes their current campaigns and identifies the top 3 biggest areas of wasted spend.
• -> For a Cybersecurity Firm: A "Data Breach Risk Calculator" where they can answer 5 questions and get an instant score and a checklist of immediate actions.
• -> For a Financial Consultant: A free template for a "Cash Flow Projection Dashboard" that they can download and use immediately.
• -> For a SaaS Company: The gold standard is a free trial or a freemium plan. No credit card required. Let the product do the selling. The goal is to create Product Qualified Leads (PQLs) who are already convinced of the value.

Notice the pattern? All these offers deliver instant value and solve a real, albeit small, problem. They are low-friction. They don't require a 30-minute meeting. They establish your authority and make the next step (a deeper conversation) feel natural and logical, rather than forced. We often build entire campaigns around these value-led offers, directing ad traffic to a simple landing page where they can access the tool or resource in exchange for their email. The lead quality is phenomenal because they've already recieved value from you. This simple shift from "Request a Demo" to "Get Your Free [Valuable Thing]" can be the difference between a campaign that struggles and one that generates a steady stream of qualified leads.

You'll need a message they can't ignore...

Okay, so you've identified your ICP's nightmare, built a surgical targeting plan, and crafted a high-value offer. Now you need to write the actual ad. This is where 99% of B2B ads fail. They are boring, they are full of jargon, and they talk about features instead of outcomes.

Your ad copy has one job: to stop the scroll and make your ideal customer think, "That's me. They understand my problem."

To do this, you need to use a proven copywriting framework. The most effective one for high-touch services or complex B2B products is Problem-Agitate-Solve (PAS).

1. Problem: State their nightmare directly and immediately. Use the exact language they would use.
2. Agitate: Pour salt in the wound. Remind them of the frustration, the cost, the risk of not solving the problem. Make the pain feel real and urgent.
3. Solve: Introduce your offer as the clear, simple, and logical way out of that pain.

Let's look at an example. Imagine you're selling fractional CFO services. A bad, feature-led ad would say:

"We offer expert fractional CFO services for startups. Our services include financial modeling, cash flow management, and board reporting. Contact us for a quote."

Nobody cares. It's boring and self-absorbed. Now let's rewrite it using PAS:

Problem: "Are your cash flow projections just a shot in the dark?"
Agitate: "Are you one bad month away from a payroll crisis while your competitors are confidently raising their next round?"
Solve: "Get expert financial strategy for a fraction of a full-time hire. Download our free 'Startup Burn Rate Calculator' to find your true runway in under 5 minutes."

See the difference? The second ad speaks directly to the founder's fear and anxiety. It agitates the problem and then offers a simple, valuable first step as the solution. It doesn't ask for a meeting; it offers immediate help. This is the kind of message that gets clicks from the right people.

When you're writing your ads, always run them through this filter: Am I talking about my service, or am I talking about their problem? If you're listing features, delete it and start again. Lead with their pain, and you'll earn their attention.

Let's talk about what's realistic...

This is the question everyone asks: "What will my ROI be?" The honest answer is it depends. But we can build a model to understand what's possible and, more importantly, how to think about your ad spend as an investment, not a cost. This is where we need to calculate your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV).

The whole game isn't about getting the cheapest lead possible. It's about understanding how much you can afford to spend to acquire a great customer. Once you know that number, you're free from the tyranny of worrying about a £50 CPL.

Here's the basic maths:

1. Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): What's the average monthly or annual revenue from a single client?
2. Gross Margin %: What's your profit margin on that revenue?
3. Monthly Churn Rate %: What percentage of clients do you lose each month?

The formula is: LTV = (ARPA * Gross Margin %) / Monthly Churn Rate

Let's say you run a B2B SaaS company. ARPA is €200/month, Gross Margin is 80%, and you lose 5% of your customers each month.

LTV = (€200 * 0.80) / 0.05 = €160 / 0.05 = €3,200.

Each customer you acquire is worth €3,200 in gross margin over their lifetime. A healthy LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) ratio is at least 3:1. This means you can afford to spend up to €3,200 / 3 = ~€1,066 to acquire a single customer and still have a very profitable business.

If your sales team closes 1 in 10 qualified leads, you can therefore afford to pay up to €106 per lead. Suddenly that lead from a LinkedIn ad that costs €75 doesn't seem so expensive, does it? It looks like a bargain. This is the maths that unlocks aggressive, intelligent scaling.

Use the calculator below to figure out your own numbers. This will be the most important part of your advertising strategy.

This is the main advice I have for you:

Bringing it all together, here's a structured plan of action. This moves away from the vague goal of "generating leads in Munich" to a precise, repeatable system for acquiring high-value customers on LinkedIn.

Executing a strategy like this requires a very different skillset than just knowing how to set up a LinkedIn campaign. It requires a deep understanding of customer psychology, direct response copywriting, and financial modeling. It's a lot to handle, and small mistakes in the early stages can lead to a lot of wasted time and money.

If you'd like to walk through this in more detail and apply it specifically to your business, we offer a free, no-obligation strategy session where we can audit your current approach and build out a more concrete plan. It's often helpful to have an expert eye on it.

Hope this helps you get started on the right foot.

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh