Solved: Using LinkedIn Ads in Reading? (The Real Reason)

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

That's a really common question. It's easy to look at all the different ad platforms and feel a bit lost, especially when you're trying to home in on a specific area like Reading. Lots of people default to the big names like Facebook or Google without really thinking about the *context* of where they're showing their ads.

I'm happy to give you some initial thoughts on this. The short answer is that LinkedIn's power isn't really about its ability to target a postcode; it's about its unique ability to target a specific *professional profile and mindset* within that postcode. It's a completely different ball game to other platforms, and understanding that difference is where you stop wasting money and start finding proper customers.

Your ICP is a Nightmare, Not a Demographic

Right, let's get one thing straight. The idea of an "Ideal Customer Profile" (ICP) that reads like "a professional in Reading" is the reason most B2B advertising fails. It's utterly useless. It tells you nothing of value and leads to generic, boring ads that get ignored. You might as well be throwing your money into a bonfire.

To stop burning cash, you have to define your customer by their pain. By their specific, urgent, expensive, career-threatening nightmare. Your customer isn't a job title or a location; they're a person staring at a problem that's keeping them up at night. Your job is to become the world's leading expert on that single nightmare.

For example, you're not selling to a "Head of Engineering in Reading." You're selling to a leader who is terrified that her best developers are about to quit because their workflow is a complete mess and they're bogged down in technical debt. She isn't searching for 'IT solutions'; she's desperate for a way to improve retention and ship products faster. See the difference? One is a demographic, the other is a raw, emotional problem.

Another example: a law firm partner in the Thames Valley. Their nightmare isn't 'needing better document management'. It's the cold sweat of realising a junior associate might miss a critical filing deadline, exposing the entire firm to a multi-million-pound malpractice suit. They don't want a software demo; they want certainty and risk removal.

Once you've isolated that nightmare, you can find them. Forget broad targeting. Find the niche podcasts they listen to on their commute down the M4, like 'Acquired' or 'The Diary of a CEO'. Find the industry newsletters they actually read, like 'Stratechery'. Figure out the SaaS tools they already pay for – HubSpot, Salesforce, Xero. Are they in the 'SaaS Growth Hacks' Facebook group? Do they follow people like Jason Lemkin or Scott Galloway? This isn't just data; it's the blueprint for your entire advertising strategy. You have to do this work first. If you don't, you have no business spending a single pound on ads, on LinkedIn or anywhere else.

Why Other Platforms Are Built to Find Non-Customers

This brings me to your question about "other platforms". Here’s an uncomfortable truth about running ads on places like Facebook or Instagram for a B2B audience. When you set your campaign objective to "Reach" or "Brand Awareness," you are giving the algorithm a very specific command: "Find me the largest number of people for the lowest possible price."

The algorithm, being a ruthlessly efficient machine, does exactly what you asked. It scours your target audience (e.g., people aged 30-55 in Reading) and finds the users who are least likely to click, least likely to engage, and absolutely, positively least likely to ever make a business purchase. Why? Because these users are not in demand. Their attention is cheap. Other advertisers aren't bidding for them because they don't convert. You are actively paying the world's most powerful advertising machine to find you the worst, most unqualified audience for your professional service or product.

People are on Facebook to see pictures of their grandkids, argue about politics, and look at dog videos. They are not in a 'procure a new accounting system' mindset. Your ad is an unwelcome interruption to their leisure time. While you can get some B2B targeting to work on Meta (I remember one campaign for a B2B software where we got registrations for $2.38 each), it's often a case of finding a needle in a haystack because the platform's context is all wrong.

Real brand awareness for a B2B company is a competitor's customer switching to your service and raving about you. That only happens through conversion. Awareness is a *byproduct* of having a great product that solves a real problem, not a prerequisite for making a sale. You need to put your message in a place where people are receptive to it. That place is LinkedIn.

We'll need to look at LinkedIn's Real Power: Precision, Not Just Postcode

This is where LinkedIn is completely different. It's not just another social network; it's a professional database that you can pay to access. People are on LinkedIn with their 'work hat' on. They're updating their profile, connecting with peers, reading industry news, and thinking about their career and business challenges. Your ad isn't an interruption here; it's potentially a solution they've been looking for. The context is perfect.

But the real magic is in the targeting. Forget broad strokes. This is about surgical precision. You can layer targeting options to build an audience that is impossibly specific and, therefore, incredibly valuable. This is how you combine the 'what' (their professional profile) with the 'where' (Reading).

You don't target "professionals in Reading." You can do this:

• Geography: People who live in or were recently in 'Reading, England'. (That's the easy part).
• Industry: Now, layer on 'Information Technology and Services', 'Financial Services', or 'Legal Services'.
• Company Size: Now, narrow it down to companies with '51-200 employees' because you know that's your sweet spot.
• Job Seniority & Function: And here's the killer blow. Layer on 'Job Seniorities: Director, VP, CXO' AND 'Job Functions: Finance, Operations, Engineering'.

Suddenly, you're not shouting into the void in Reading. You are whispering directly into the ear of Finance Directors at mid-sized tech companies in the Thames Valley. Every single penny of your ad spend is going towards someone who can actually make a buying decision. This is something you simply cannot replicate with any reliability on other platforms. I remember one campaign for a B2B software client where we used this exact method to target decision-makers, and we got their cost per lead down to just $22. For B2B software, that was an absolute bargain.

I'd say you need to know what a good lead is actually worth...

The next question people usually have is, "But isn't LinkedIn expensive?" Yes, a click or a lead on LinkedIn will almost always cost more than on Facebook. And this is where most people make a massive mistake. They compare the Cost Per Lead (CPL) from different platforms without understanding the *value* of that lead.

The real question isn't "How low can my CPL go?" but "How high a CPL can I afford to acquire a truly great customer?" The answer to this changes everything. It lies in calculating your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV).

This isn't complicated financial wizardy. It's simple maths that every business owner must know. You need three numbers:

• Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): What's a typical customer worth to you each month?
• Gross Margin %: After your cost of goods/service, what's your profit margin on that revenue?
• Monthly Churn Rate: What percentage of your customers do you lose each month?

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

Let's run a quick example. Say you run a B2B service where the average client pays you £1,000 per month (ARPA). Your gross margin is a healthy 75%. And you have a pretty good retention rate, with only 2% of clients leaving each month (Churn).

LTV = (£1,000 * 0.75) / 0.02

LTV = £750 / 0.02 = £37,500

In this scenerio, each customer you sign is worth £37,500 in gross margin over their lifetime. A healthy business model aims for at least a 3:1 LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) ratio. This means you can afford to spend up to £12,500 to acquire a single new customer.

Now, if your sales team converts 1 in 10 qualified leads into a customer, you can afford to pay up to £1,250 for a single, qualified lead. Suddenly, that £150 lead from a perfectly targeted LinkedIn campaign doesn't look expensive at all. It looks like an incredible bargain. The £5 lead from Facebook that never replies to your emails looks like what it is: a complete waste of money. This is the maths that unlocks intelligent, agressive growth.

You'll need an offer that doesn't suck...

Now we get to the most common point of failure in all of B2B advertising: the offer. I've seen countless campaigns with perfect targeting fail miserably because of what happens after the click. The "Request a Demo" button is probably the most arrogant, self-serving Call to Action ever invented. It presumes that your prospect, a busy and important person, has nothing better to do with their time than block out 30 minutes to be sold to by you. It's high-friction, it offers zero upfront value, and it instantly positions you as just another commodity vendor clamoring for their attention.

Your offer has one job and one job only: to deliver a moment of undeniable value. An "aha!" moment that is so powerful it makes the prospect sell themselves on your solution. You must solve a small, real problem for them for free to earn the right to talk about solving their big problems for money.

If you have a SaaS product, this is your unfair advantage. A free trial (with no credit card required) or a freemium plan is the gold standard. Let them use the actual product. Let them experience the transformation themselves. When the product itself proves its own value, the sale becomes a simple formality. You're not generating 'Marketing Qualified Leads' for a salesperson to chase; you're creating 'Product Qualified Leads' who are already convinced.

If you sell a service, you are not exempt from this rule. You must find a way to bottle your expertise into a tool, an asset, or a piece of content that provides instant value. For an agency like us, it's a free 20-minute strategy session where we audit a company's failing ad campaigns. For a fractional CFO, it could be a 'Cash Flow Health Check' spreadsheet. For a corporate training company, a free 15-minute interactive video module on 'Handling Difficult Conversations' for new managers. Whatever it is, it must be valuable in its own right and directly related to the nightmare you identified earlier. You must give value before you can ever hope to get it back.

So, to bring it all together, the reason to use LinkedIn ads in Reading isn't just about the location filter. It's about a fundamental shift in strategy from shouting at uninterested crowds to having a precise, valuable conversation with the exact people who can buy from you, in a place where they are ready to listen.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you in a table below to make it clearer:

This is a lot to take in, I know. Getting this stuff right isn't just about flicking a few switches in an ad account; it's a strategic process. It involves deep customer research, financial modeling, and a contrarian approach to what most people think of as 'marketing'. It can feel like a bit of a minefield, but the difference between getting it right and getting it wrong is huge.

If you'd like to go through how this could apply specifically to your business, we offer a free, no-obligation initial consultation where we can look at your situation and give you some concrete advice. It might be helpful to have a second pair of expert eyes on it.

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh