Solved: LinkedIn Ad Campaign with No Location Specified

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

I can definitely see why you'd be worried about that. There is nothing scarier in paid ads than the thought of your hard-earned budget being blasted out to the entire world instead of the specific people you actually want to do business with. LinkedIn CPMS (cost per mille/thousand impressions) are already sky high compared to Meta or Google, so wasting spend on the wrong geo is basically setting money on fire.

Happy to give you some initial thoughts and guidance on this. The good news is, it's usually a simple UI quirk or a default setting that just needs a quick toggle. But since you are setting this up, I want to take a bit of time to walk you through not just the location fix, but how to ensure the rest of your targeting is actually going to work, because honestly, location is just the first hurdle.

I've detailed exactly how to fix the location bug and, more importantly, how to layer your targeting so you aren't paying £15 a click for people who will never buy from you.

First: Let's fix that Location Glitch

Right, let's get the immediate panic out of the way. If Campaign Manager isn't showing a location, or it looks blank, here is what is likely happening.

When you create a new campaign or a saved audience, LinkedIn sometimes defaults to a "global" view until you explicitly tell it otherwise. Or, you might have selected a saved audience that was created without a geo attached (which is rare but happens).

Here is what you need to check immediately:

1. Go to the Audience section of your campaign setup.
2. Look for the Locations header. If it says "No location selected" or is blank, click the "Edit" pencil or the search box.
3. CRITICAL STEP: Do not just type "United Kingdom" or "USA". Click the little dropdown that says "Recent or permanent location". Change this to "Permanent location".

Why? Because "Recent or permanent" includes people who were in London for a weekend holiday three weeks ago but actually live and work in a completely different country. You don't want to pay to show B2B software ads to a tourist. You want people who live and work there.

If you have done this and it still shows "No location specified" in the summary on the right-hand side, try refreshing the page (save as draft first!). LinkedIn's UI is famous for being a bit laggy. If it persists, remove the location, save, and re-add it. It's clunky, I know.

The "Nightmare" of Bad Targeting

Now that the location is sorted, we need to talk about the rest of your setup. You mentioned being worried about spending budget on the wrong people. Location is one part of that, but honestly, the biggest waste on LinkedIn comes from lazy demographic targeting.

Most people go in and target "Job Title: CEO" and "Industry: Finance" and think they're done. That is a recipe for disaster.

You need to define your customer by their pain, not just a generic title. "Companies in the finance sector" tells you nothing. But "Companies with 50-200 employees using HubSpot who just raised Series A funding"? That is a target.

When I audit accounts, I usually see targeting that is way too broad. You need to narrow it down. We call this the "Layering Method".

Why "Job Functions" beat "Job Titles"

Here is a common mistake I see all the time. You want to target Marketing Managers, so you type "Marketing Manager" into the Job Titles box.

The problem? People get creative with their titles. "Growth Hacker," "Brand Evangelist," "Head of Storytelling." If you only target "Marketing Manager," you miss all these people.

Instead, I'd say you use Job Function and Seniority.
Target: Function = Marketing AND Seniority = Manager, Director, VP, CXO.

This catches everyone who does marketing at a senior level, regardless of whether they call themselves a "Guru" or a "Ninja" on their profile. It's much safer and gives you a broader, yet still accurate, reach.

The Devil is in the "Audience Expansion"

While you are looking at your location settings, look a little bit lower down the page. There is a checkbox called "Enable Audience Expansion".

Uncheck it. Immediately.

LinkedIn describes this as helping you reach "people similar to your target audience." In my experience, what it actually does is show your ads to people who are cheaper to reach but have nothing to do with your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile). It effectively breaks your targeting rules to spend your budget faster. If you want to scale later, you can test it, but for a new campaign where you are already worried about targeting accuracy? Turn it off.

Let's Talk Money: What to Expect

Since you're worried about budget, we need to be realistic about LinkedIn costs. It is not cheap. In the UK, for a decent B2B audience, you are looking at CPMs (cost per 1,000 impressions) of anywhere between £20 and £80 depending on how senior the audience is.

A click (CPC) can easily cost £5 to £15.
A lead (CPL) via a Lead Gen Form? Probably £20 to £100+ depending on your offer.

I've built a little calculator below to help you estimate what your campaign might actually yield. It's better to know these numbers now than to be shocked when the bill arrives.

A Note on "Matched Audiences"

If you really want to sleep well at night knowing you aren't wasting budget, you should look into Matched Audiences.

This is where you upload a list of companies or contacts directly to LinkedIn. You can export this from your CRM, or buy a list from a data provider like Apollo.io or ZoomInfo.
E.g. You upload a list of 5,000 specific companies you want to sell to. LinkedIn matches them. You then run ads ONLY to the decision makers at those specific companies.

This is the holy grail of B2B targeting because there is zero waste. You aren't hoping the algorithm finds the right companies; you are handing them the list on a silver platter. I remember a B2B software campaign we ran on LinkedIn where we focused on targeting specific decision makers. By refining the audience to the exact right people, we achieved a cost per lead of $22.

What Ad Format Should You Use?

You'll see a lot of options: Single Image, Carousel, Video, Text, Conversation ads.
If you are just starting out:

• Single Image: Safest bet. Hard to mess up. Good for driving traffic.
• Video: Great if you have a really strong message, but production quality matters. If it looks like a Zoom recording recorded on a potato, don't use it.
• Carousel: Good for telling a story or showing multiple features.
• Message Ads / Conversation Ads: These go into the inbox. They can be expensive and annoying if the copy isn't perfect. I'd avoid these until you have more experience.

Checklist for Launch

Before you hit that "Launch" button, double check these things. I've made this mistake before where I left a setting on default and regretted it 24 hours later.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:

LinkedIn is a minefield if you aren't careful, but it's also the best B2B database on the planet. If you get that location setting fixed and ensure you aren't falling for the "Audience Expansion" trap, you'll be miles ahead of most advertisers.

If you find that your costs are spiraling or the leads just aren't good quality despite the targeting fixes, it might be worth having a second pair of eyes on the account. We offer a free consultation where we can look at the setup together and I can point out any other hidden settings that might be draining your budget. Sometimes just tweaking the bid strategy can save 20-30% of your spend.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh