LinkedIn remains the powerhouse platform for B2B tech marketers, offering unparalleled access to decision-makers and niche audiences. Yet many campaigns fail to hit their stride due to unclear objectives, weak targeting, or under-leveraged LinkedIn features. In this post, we’ll walk through a step-by-step framework to set up and optimise your LinkedIn campaigns—drawing on anonymised tech-sector examples to illustrate best practice and position Archetype as your paid-media social expert.
1. Define Clear Objectives and Audience Segments
Begin by aligning campaign goals with business outcomes; whether that’s lead generation, event sign-ups or content downloads. For example, when a global HR platform aimed to recruit talent across Asia-Pacific, they set a lead-gen KPI of 500 quality form fills in six weeks. By choosing “Lead Gen Forms” as their objective in Campaign Manager and allocating budget accordingly, they hit their target ahead of schedule.
Action Steps:
- Select the campaign objective matching your priority (e.g. Brand Awareness, Lead Gen, Website Visits).
- Build audience segments using firmographics (company size, industry, seniority) that mirror your ideal customer profile.
- Use LinkedIn’s Matched Audiences to retarget website visitors or known contacts.
2. Craft Compelling Creative and Messaging
Your ad creative must resonate with a professional audience. Keep copy concise, value-led and paired with clean visuals or short videos.
Tech Example: A leading audio-tech provider showcased its latest headset in a 10-second demo video, highlighting noise-cancelling in an open-plan office, and used the headline “Focus without distractions.” This approach delivered a 35% higher click-through rate compared to their standard image ads.
Action Steps:
- Lead with the benefit (“Increase team productivity”) rather than the feature.
- Use short videos (15–30 seconds) showcasing real-world use cases.
- A/B test headlines and images—experiment with layouts, brand colours and customer testimonials.
3. Leverage Advanced Targeting Options
LinkedIn’s strength is its granular targeting by job title, function, company name and even skills. To reach senior engineers at growing SaaS firms, you might layer criteria like:
- Job function: Engineering
- Seniority: Senior, Director, VP
- Company size: 51–200 employees
- Skills: “Cloud architecture” or “Kubernetes”
Refine further with exclusions (e.g. current customers) to ensure efficient spend.
4. Implement Conversion Tracking and Analytics
Accurate measurement underpins optimisation. Install the LinkedIn Insight Tag on your website to capture conversions; form fills, whitepaper downloads or demo requests. Then:
- Map each conversion event in Campaign Manager.
- Monitor cost per lead (CPL) and cost per conversion closely.
- Use UTM parameters to cross-check LinkedIn data in your web analytics.
Tech Example: An enterprise software provider promoted a thought-leadership report and tracked “Report Download” as a custom conversion. Weekly reviews showed that targeting “Finance Director” delivered a 20% lower CPL than “CFO,” leading to a reallocation of budget toward the more cost-effective segment.
5. Continuous Optimisation and Testing
Ongoing testing is key to squeezing maximum ROI. Adopt a test-and-learn approach:
- Audience Tests: Compare performance across different seniority bands or industries.
- Creative Tests: Swap headlines, images or call-to-action buttons.
- Bid Strategy Tests: Experiment with automated bidding vs. target CPC.
Review performance fortnightly, pause underperforming ads and scale winners. Incorporate AI-driven personalisation to deliver dynamic creatives tailored to each viewer’s sector or role.
By following this structured approach, setting clear objectives, crafting value-led creative, harnessing LinkedIn’s granular targeting, measuring with precision and iterating continuously, you’ll elevate your LinkedIn campaigns from “just running ads” to driving tangible business growth. Archetype’s team specialises in integrating paid-media expertise with deep analytics and creative insight to ensure your social strategy delivers maximum impact.
Ready to unlock LinkedIn’s full potential? Contact Archetype today for a campaign audit and bespoke optimisation plan.