LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 722 million members worldwide. This massive userbase presents a huge opportunity for businesses looking to laser-target their marketing efforts. One of the best ways to do this on LinkedIn is by creating custom audiences.
Custom audiences allow you to target your ads and content to specific groups of people based on criteria like location, job title, company, interests, and more. This results in higher engagement, lower cost per click, and increased conversions compared to more general targeting.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll walk through everything you need to know about building custom audiences on LinkedIn step-by-step.
Benefits of Using Custom Audiences on LinkedIn
Here are some of the key benefits of using custom audiences for your LinkedIn marketing campaigns:
- Increased relevancy – You can tightly define your target audience to ensure your messages resonate.
- Improved segmentation – Divide your audience into highly targeted groups based on their attributes.
- Better engagement – Custom audiences have been shown to increase click-through rates by up to 10x.
- Lower cost per click – You only pay for clicks from people in your target audience.
- Higher conversion rates – More relevant messaging leads to more conversions.
- Brand awareness – Get your brand and messaging in front of your ideal audiences.
- Lead generation – Turn LinkedIn members into sales leads by targeted promotion.
How to Create a Custom Audience on LinkedIn
Follow these steps to create and implement a custom audience for your LinkedIn ad campaigns or Sponsored Content:
Step 1: Access the Audiences Tool
First, you need access to the Audiences tool within LinkedIn Campaign Manager. Here’s how to get there:
- Log into your LinkedIn Campaign Manager account.
- Go to the ‘Assets’ tab.
- Click on ‘Audiences’ in the left sidebar.
- This will open the Audiences dashboard.
Step 2: Choose Your Audience Source
LinkedIn provides several options for sources you can use to build your custom audience:
- LinkedIn Audience Templates – Pre-built audience segments based on criteria like job title, industry, skills, interests, etc.
- Your LinkedIn Company Pages – Target followers of your LinkedIn Company Pages.
- Your LinkedIn Sponsored Content – Re-target people who’ve already engaged with your Sponsored Content.
- Website Retargeting – Target visitors to specific web pages.
- Matched Audiences – Match customer email lists to LinkedIn member data.
- Account Targeting – Target employees of specific companies.
Choose the source that best aligns with your campaign goals and target audience. You can use multiple sources to build a single custom audience.
Step 3: Define Your Audience Criteria
Now it’s time to configure the specific criteria that defines your target audience. This will vary depending on the source you chose.
For example, if you want to target people by job title, you would:
- Choose the ‘LinkedIn Audience Templates’ source.
- Select the ‘Job Title’ template.
- Enter the exact job titles you want to target.
Make sure to be as specific as possible with your criteria so your audience is hyper-targeted. You can include multiple sets of criteria for a single audience.
Step 4: Name Your Audience
Give your new audience a descriptive name so it’s easy to identify, such as:
- Marketing Managers – Chicago
- Software Engineers – Bay Area
- VPs of Sales – Healthcare
You’ll be able to reference this audience by name later when setting up campaigns.
Step 5: Review the Audience Size
LinkedIn will show you the estimated size of your audience based on the criteria you set. Make sure it’s large enough for your needs.
If it’s too small, tweak the criteria to expand your reach. If it’s too big, narrow your focus.
Step 6: Save the Audience
When you’re happy with your new custom audience, click ‘Save Audience’ to add it to your LinkedIn Campaign Manager.
The audience will now be available to select for ad targeting and other options.
How to Use Custom Audiences for LinkedIn Ads
Once you’ve built custom audiences, it’s easy to implement them in your LinkedIn ad campaigns. Here are the steps:
Step 1: Create a Campaign
If you don’t already have an active LinkedIn ad campaign, create one from scratch. You can promote content, your Company Page, or an external website.
Step 2: Select Your Ad Format
Choose the ad format you want to use – Sponsored Content, Message Ads, Dynamic Ads, Text Ads, etc.
Step 3: Set Up Ad Targeting
When defining your campaign targeting, select ‘Audiences’ under Demographics. Then choose the custom audience you want to target from the list you’ve already created.
You can also layer on additional targeting on top of your custom audience to further hone your focus.
Step 4: Place Your Ad Order
Finish setting up the rest of your campaign – budget, schedule, bidding, creatives, etc. Then place your ad order!
Your custom audience will be added once your order is processed. Now your ads will only be shown to the audience you defined.
Step 5: Monitor and Refine Performance
Analyze the performance of your campaign targeting your custom audience. Look at metrics like CTR, conversion rate, cost per lead, etc.
Make any necessary optimizations – tweaking your audience, changing your creatives, adjusting bids – to improve results.
Top Custom Audience Strategies for LinkedIn
Here are some proven strategies and ideas for building high-performing custom audiences on LinkedIn:
Job Role and Seniority Level
Target people with specific job titles and seniority levels, like “Directors of Engineering” or “Entry-Level Accountants”.
Skills and Expertise
Go after members with in-demand skills, such as “Data Analytics” or “Digital Marketing”.
By Company
Target employees at key client companies or within your own industry.
Interests and Groups
Focus on people who are members of relevant LinkedIn Groups and share common interests.
Content Engagers
Re-target people who have already engaged with your LinkedIn Company Page or Sponsored Content.
Website Visitors
Upload lists of contacts who have visited key pages on your website.
Matche Audiences
Target your existing customer lists by uploading email addresses to match to LinkedIn profiles.
Location
Zero in on members in specific cities, regions, or countries.
Industry
Focus your ads on professionals who work in your target industries.
Custom Audience Size Best Practices
Here are some tips for optimizing the size of your LinkedIn custom audiences:
- Minimum of 500 – Make sure your audience has at least 500 people for effective targeting.
- 1,000 – 5,000 is ideal – This provides enough reach while still being targeted.
- Test audiences of different sizes – Evaluate performance to find the ideal range.
- Layer criteria for larger accounts – Combine multiple types of criteria to refine larger audiences.
- Expand narrow audiences – If your audience is under 500, loosen your targeting to increase size.
- Cap broad audiences – Limit very large audiences over 1 million people for relevancy.
- Monitor size over time – An audience may shrink if members leave LinkedIn or change roles.
Finding the right balance between audience size and targeting takes testing and optimization. Check campaign analytics to see which custom audience sizes deliver the best results.
LinkedIn’s 3 Types of Audiences
LinkedIn categorizes custom audiences into three main types:
Core Audiences
- Built from LinkedIn member data using Audience Templates.
- Criteria includes job role, skills, company, etc.
- Don’t require uploading external data.
- Are the most targeted option.
Website Audiences
- Based on your website visitors.
- Created by installing LinkedIn Insight Tag and uploading audience lists.
- Allow retargeting of your site traffic.
Matched Audiences
- Your customer contact lists matched to LinkedIn members.
- Upload email addresses, company names, etc.
- Reach your existing contacts and lookalikes.
You can combine all three types together to create super-targeted audiences.
Custom vs. Saved Audiences
LinkedIn makes a distinction between “custom” and “saved” audiences:
- Custom Audiences: Newly created audiences you build and name.
- Saved Audiences: Previously created custom audiences you’ve used and saved for re-use.
Once you save a new custom audience, it becomes a saved audience you can easily select again for future ad campaigns.
Similar Audiences
Once you build a custom audience, LinkedIn can generate “similar audiences” based on that original group.
This allows you to extend your reach while still staying targeted to people with common attributes as your custom audience.
To generate similar audiences, access the Audiences dashboard, click on an existing audience, and select “Create Similar Audience”.
You can then adjust the criteria and see the new estimated audience size. Adding similar audiences is a powerful way to scale your LinkedIn campaigns.
Audience Reporting
LinkedIn Campaign Manager provides audience reporting tools to monitor the performance of your custom audiences over time.
You can see key metrics like audience size, reach, frequency, conversion rates, impressions, social actions, and more.
Analyze this data on a regular basis to identify your best and worst performing audiences. Double down on what’s working and re-evaluate what’s not.
Audience Performance by Size
Here’s an example audience performance report analyzing results by audience size:
| Audience | Size | Impressions | Clicks | CTR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Directors – Financial Services | 1,200 | 18,590 | 524 | 2.8% |
| VPs of Marketing – UK | 3,500 | 29,301 | 843 | 2.9% |
| Entry Level Software Engineers | 925 | 7,623 | 198 | 2.6% |
This shows the mid-sized audiences drove the most impressions and clicks. The smallest audience under 1,000 had poor reach. Use insights like this to keep refining your approach.
Audience Overlap
Pay attention to audience overlap, which occurs when the same members belong to multiple custom audiences you’ve created.
High overlap dilutes the value of custom audiences, since you’ll be repeatedly targeting the same people.
Monitor overlap in the Audiences reporting, and aim to keep it below 30% if possible. Avoid targeting the exact same combinations of audiences across multiple campaigns.
Audience Expansion
For Sponsored Content campaigns, LinkedIn offers an audience expansion feature.
This allows your content to be dynamically shown to additional members beyond your core audience who are similar to that target group.
Turning on expansion broadens your reach to related professionals likely to also be interested. Use this carefully to amplify custom audiences that are highly relevant.
Audience Analytics Filters
Apply filters when analyzing your LinkedIn Campaign Manager audience reports:
- Date range – Analyze performance over specific time periods.
- Campaigns – Isolate results for individual campaigns.
- Ad formats – Filter by Sponsored Content, Text Ads, etc.
- Paid vs. Organic – Compare paid vs. non-paid content delivery.
Segment your data for deeper insights by audience, campaign, format and more.
Frequently Asked Questions
What types of audiences can I target on LinkedIn?
You can target audiences by job title, industry, skills, company, interests, LinkedIn Group membership, content engagement, website traffic, customer lists, and more.
How large should my custom audience be?
Aim for custom audiences between 1,000 to 5,000 people. Audiences under 500 may have low reach, while those over 1 million may be too broad.
How do I retarget website visitors on LinkedIn?
Install the LinkedIn Insight Tag on your website. Then upload audiences of visitors to specific pages you want to re-target.
Can I target multiple audiences at once?
Yes, you can select multiple custom audiences at the same time within a LinkedIn ad campaign for greater targeting flexibility.
How often should I update my audiences?
Evaluate your audiences at least quarterly. Remove outdated or underperforming ones, and create new audiences based on your evolving goals.
Conclusion
Creating targeted custom audiences is one of the most effective ways to get results from LinkedIn advertising and content marketing. Take the time to really understand your customers, then match the right audiences to your campaigns.
Monitor performance closely using LinkedIn’s analytics tools, and keep optimizing your approach based on data and insights. Combined with compelling creative, custom audiences drive success on LinkedIn’s massive professional network.