LinkedIn advertising can be a powerful way to reach your target audience, but high cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) can quickly eat into your budget. Here are some proven tips to help lower your LinkedIn ad costs while still getting results.
Optimize Your Targeting
One of the best ways to lower CPM is to target your ads more precisely. Using LinkedIn’s detailed targeting options, you can zero in on exactly who you want to reach based on criteria like:
- Job title
- Company
- Industry
- Seniority
- Groups and interests
- Skills
- Location
The more specific you can be, the lower your CPM is likely to go. Avoid broad targeting based only on age and gender.
Leverage LinkedIn’s Matched Audiences
Matched Audiences lets you retarget people who have already engaged with your brand. For example, you can create an audience of people who have visited your website, watched a video, or downloaded content. Retargeting past interested parties typically has below-average CPM.
Analyze Your Audience Insights
Dig into LinkedIn’s Audience Insights to see audience characteristics like top industries, seniorities, and company sizes. Use this to optimize your targeting and creative.
Test Different Bid Strategies
LinkedIn offers several bid strategies for your ads:
- Cost Per Click (CPC): You’re charged each time someone clicks your ad. Minimum bid is $2.
- Cost Per Impression (CPM): You’re charged each time your ad is shown. Minimum is $10 per 1000 impressions.
- Target CPA: You set a target Cost Per Acquisition you’re willing to pay. LinkedIn automatically adjusts bids to try and maintain that average.
- Maximize Clicks: LinkedIn will automatically bid to maximize clicks within your budget.
- Maximize Conversions: LinkedIn will automatically bid to maximize conversions within your budget.
Generally, CPC and CPM campaigns give you more control over your costs, while automated bidding strategies like Target CPA allow LinkedIn AI to optimize bids to keep your costs as low as possible while meeting your KPIs.
Set Realistic Minimum Bids
The minimum bid for CPC is $2 and CPM is $10. However, in competitive ad auctions, the actual average CPC/CPM is often much higher. Set your minimum bids based on current auction prices to ensure your ads are competitive enough to be shown but have room to optimize downward.
Use TCPA and Conversion Tracking
Target CPA and conversion tracking help LinkedIn make micro-adjustments to your bids to maintain your target CPA. This often results in lower CPM over time compared to fixed CPC/CPM bids. Just be sure to accurately track conversions on your site.
Test Creative Variations
Different versions of your ads and creative can produce different levels of engagement. Test different headlines, images, copy, call-to-action and more to discover which options resonate most with your audience at the lowest cost.
Manage Frequency Capping
Frequency capping limits how often a specific user sees your ads within a given period. More frequent exposure often leads to lower engagement over time. Here are some frequency capping best practices:
- Limit users to 2-4 impressions per day, and 10-20 per week
- Watch for diminishing returns with increased frequency
- Use A/B testing to find your ideal frequency caps
- Adjust caps based on audience and creative fatigue
Avoid Overexposing Your Audience
Showing an ad too many times can frustrate users and lead to lower CTR/CPM. Monitor your audience for signs of ad fatigue and adjust frequency caps accordingly.
Customize Caps by Audience
Certain audiences may tolerate higher frequency than others. For example, existing engaged customers may not mind more repeat exposure than cold prospects who are new to your brand.
Measure Results & Continuously Optimize
To keep lowering your LinkedIn CPM, you need to regularly analyze performance and tweak targeting, bids, creative, and other elements.
Watch Key Metrics
Keep a close eye on stats like CPM, CPC, CTR, conversions, relevance score, and engagement rate. Variances can signal opportunities to further optimize.
A/B Test Your Ads
Set up A/B ad tests to experiment with different targeting options, bid strategies, creative, offers, and more. Measure which variations perform best to discover the tactics that lower your CPM.
Stay On Top of Your Campaigns
Check your LinkedIn Ads Manager regularly to monitor KPIs and make ongoing adjustments. Don’t “set and forget” your campaigns if you want to maintain low costs.
Conclusion
Lowering your LinkedIn CPM takes work, but is very achievable if you leverage targeting options, bid strategies, frequency capping, and ongoing optimization. Mastering these best practices will help you turn LinkedIn advertising into an efficient customer acquisition channel with a healthy return on ad spend.
