Are LinkedIn ads cheaper than facebook?

When it comes to digital advertising, two of the biggest players are Facebook and LinkedIn. Both platforms offer powerful targeting capabilities, large audiences, and proven results. However, there is an ongoing debate about which platform offers more bang for your buck – Facebook or LinkedIn?

In this article, we’ll compare the costs of Facebook and LinkedIn ads to help you determine which platform is more budget-friendly for your business. We’ll look at factors like CPM and CPC rates, audience size, targeting capabilities, and typical campaign costs across both networks. Read on to find out if LinkedIn ads are cheaper than Facebook ads!

CPM and CPC Rates

One of the best ways to compare Facebook and LinkedIn advertising costs is to look at the average cost per thousand impressions (CPM) and average cost per click (CPC). Here’s how the two platforms stack up:

As you can see, LinkedIn has a significantly higher CPM and CPC than Facebook on average. This suggests that Facebook offers more affordable impressions and clicks overall.

CPM Rates

Facebook’s average CPM across all industries is $7.19, while LinkedIn’s is nearly $11.39. For individual industries, Facebook also consistently sees lower rates:

The main reason for LinkedIn’s higher CPM costs is its smaller but highly professional audience. Reaching this niche audience comes at a premium. Facebook, on the other hand, offers CPMs at a fraction of the cost due to its massive user base.

CPC Rates

A similar trend appears when looking at average cost per click rates. Facebook’s overall CPC is just $0.97 compared to LinkedIn’s $2.51. And Facebook beats out LinkedIn’s CPC in every major industry:

As a high-intent platform, LinkedIn users are more likely to take action from ads. But the significantly lower competition on Facebook allows advertisers to get clicks at bargain prices.

Audience Size

One major factor impacting CPM and CPC rates on these platforms is the size of the audience. Facebook has a much larger active user base than LinkedIn:

• Facebook: 2.96 billion monthly active users
• LinkedIn: 260 million monthly active users

With over 10X as many active users as LinkedIn, Facebook can drive tons of volume for advertisers. And with so many users competing for impressions, prices stay low.

LinkedIn, while much smaller, offers access to a very valuable professional audience. But its niche focus allows it to charge higher prices for this in-demand group.

Targeting Capabilities

Both Facebook and LinkedIn allow advertisers to target users by location, demographics, interests, behaviors, and more. However, there are some key differences in their targeting features:

Facebook Targeting

• Interests – Target users based on interests, hobbies, and pages they’ve liked
• Behaviors – Reach people based on purchase history, website activity, mobile apps used, and more
• Custom audiences – Target existing customers via email lists, phone numbers, and other offline data
• Detailed demographics – Target by age, gender, relationship status, education level, and more
• Advanced location targeting – Target users by city, state, zip code, within a custom radius, and more

LinkedIn Targeting

• Job title and industry – Target specific professional titles and industries
• Company – Reach employees of certain businesses
• Skills – Target users with specific skills listed on their profile
• Interests – Target by group membership, economic graph, and other interests
• Lead gen forms – Collect leads with questionnaires before showing full ads

As you can see, Facebook offers expansive targeting capabilities for reaching people by demographics, interests, and past behaviors. LinkedIn prioritizes targeting by professional attributes like job title, company, and skills.

Typical Campaign Costs

Given the factors we’ve covered so far, LinkedIn ads typically end up costing more than Facebook for most advertisers. Here is a breakdown of average costs across some common campaign types:

Brand Awareness Campaign

Brand awareness campaigns are designed to expose your brand to a wide audience through impression-based tactics. On Facebook, this can be achieved relatively affordably due to low CPMs. But LinkedIn’s higher CPM makes brand awareness initiatives much pricier.

Lead Generation Campaign

Lead gen campaigns use tactics like lead ads and landing pages to generate qualified leads. On Facebook, the low CPCs allow you to get leads for under $30 each on average. But LinkedIn’s high CPC leads to typical lead costs between $50-$100.

Traffic Campaign

Traffic campaigns aim to drive users to your website as cost efficiently as possible. Thanks again to Facebook’s ultra-low CPC rates, clicks can often be obtained for $0.40 to $0.75 each. LinkedIn traffic tends to cost around $1.50 to $3.00 per click.

Potential Reach

One final comparison point between Facebook and LinkedIn ads is potential audience reach – that is, approximately how many users you can target with each platform.

On Facebook, advertisers can potentially reach over 2 billion users around the globe. Even for targeting niches, it is possible to reach large audiences in the millions.

The most users LinkedIn ads could potentially reach is around 260 million – LinkedIn’s total member base. However, effective targeting may bring realistic audiences down to the thousands or hundreds of thousands.

For cost-efficient awareness campaigns, Facebook’s massive potential reach gives it a clear advantage over the smaller LinkedIn.

Conclusion

So are LinkedIn ads cheaper than Facebook ads? In most cases, the answer is no. Facebook offers lower average CPM and CPC rates, allows for targeting huge audiences, and delivers average campaign costs much lower than LinkedIn.

That said, LinkedIn advertising does have benefits for reaching professional demographics and generating leads from high-intent users. But overall, Facebook appears to provide more ad value for your budget.

Some key takeaways from this comparison:

• Facebook has an average CPM of $7.19 vs. LinkedIn’s $11.39 CPM
• Facebook’s average CPC is $0.97 vs. $2.51 for LinkedIn
• Facebook has 10X more monthly active users than LinkedIn
• Typical brand awareness, lead gen, and traffic campaigns cost less on Facebook

So in most situations, LinkedIn’s targeted – but pricey – audience and lower reach make Facebook the more budget friendly paid advertising option for businesses.