Targeting the right audience is crucial for running successful LinkedIn ad campaigns. With over 722 million users worldwide, LinkedIn offers marketers access to a massive professional audience. However, spreading your message to the most relevant subset of this audience requires strategic targeting.
In this guide, we’ll walk through the key targeting options on LinkedIn to help you hone in on your ideal customers. We’ll cover targeting by location, company, job title, interests, and more. With the right targeting, you can drive conversions, boost engagement, and get the highest return on your LinkedIn ad spend.
Target by Location
Location is often the broadest starting point for targeting your LinkedIn ads. LinkedIn allows you to target by country, state/province, city, or down to the postal code.
Start off by considering your service areas or territories. Are there specific regions you want to focus your LinkedIn ads on? For example, if you’re running a campaign to promote an upcoming industry conference in Chicago, you’d want to target LinkedIn users located in the Chicago area.
In addition to geographic targets, think about areas where your products or services will resonate most. If you’re promoting B2B software, targeting major metropolitan cities may help you reach more of your customer base.
Here are some tips for location targeting:
- Use city targeting for regional ad campaigns focused on driving in-person engagement.
- Target by state/province when conducting region-specific campaigns across larger areas.
- Leverage country-level targeting for national brand awareness campaigns.
Location targeting allows you to geo-fence your ads to users in your ideal territories. However, additional targeting criteria can help refine your audience further.
Target by Company
One of LinkedIn’s greatest assets is its extensive database of company information. You can directly target LinkedIn ads by company to reach users who work at your ideal customer organizations.
Start by making a list of your existing customers or client organizations. Look for common traits across these companies:
- Industry
- Company size
- Technology used
Then build a target list of companies that match these attributes. For example, if your product is HR software aimed at mid-market retailers, build a target list of retail companies in that employee size range.
Company targeting works well for:
- Driving account-based marketing campaigns
- Promoting brand awareness among customer organizations
- Reaching decision-makers across targeted companies
You can input specific companies manually or through a CSV upload. LinkedIn also provides helpful filters for industry, size, and other attributes when building your company target list.
Target by Job Title
Beyond company, LinkedIn enables advertisers to target ads by job title and seniority. This allows you to reach users who have influence over budget and purchasing decisions.
Start by identifying the key roles involved in purchasing decisions for your product or service. For example, if you are selling HR software, you may want to target HR Managers, Directors, and VP’s.
Some tips for job title targeting:
- Go granular – Vice President level roles often have more targeted titles like VP of Sales or VP of Marketing.
- Focus more budget on senior roles higher in the decision making process.
- Target both the final decision makers and key influencers.
Job title targeting works hand-in-hand with company targeting. You can combine the two to reach executives at your targeted companies.
Job Seniority Targeting
In addition to job title, LinkedIn ads allow you to target by seniority levels such as manager, director, VP, CXO, and more. Similar to job titles, prioritize higher seniority bands that have authority over budgets and decisions.
Target by Group Membership
LinkedIn users join Groups to connect with professionals in their industry. Targeting by Group membership enables you to reach users based on their professional interests and affiliations.
Start by searching for Groups directly related to your products, services, or industry. For example, if you sellaccounting software, target Groups like “Accounting Professionals” or “CPA Exam Study Group”.
Some tips for Group targeting:
- Search for both niche Groups and larger Groups related to your offerings.
- Focus on Groups with high member engagement for the most relevant audiences.
- Consider location-based Groups to combine with geographic targeting.
Group targeting is ideal for laser targeted lead generation and driving engagement with influencers around topics important to your business.
Target by Skills and Interests
Beyond professional attributes like job and company, LinkedIn allows you to target by members’ self-selected skills and interests. Skills targeting enables you reach audiences knowledgeable about topics important to your products.
For example, if you have a cybersecurity SaaS product, you could target members with skills like:
- Cyber Security
- Network Security
- Data Security
- Computer Network Defense
Meanwhile, interest targeting allows you to focus on users passionate about hobbies, organizations, and social causes.
Some ways to apply interest targeting:
- Sports equipment brand targeting sports fans
- Sustainability nonprofit targeting environmentalism enthusiasts
- Movie studio targeting film buffs
You can research relevant skills and interests through LinkedIn’s ad targeting tool or look for common themes across your existing customer base.
Combined Targeting for Precision
While the above targeting options can operate independently, you can combine multiple options for greater precision.
For example, you may target:
- CPAs who work at accounting firms in Chicago
- VPs of sales at tech companies with 500-1000 employees
- C-level execs in the retail industry who are members of relevant LinkedIn Groups
Layering on multiple targeting factors allows you to hone in on just that tiny sliver of audience matching your ideal customer profile. This focused approach can drive better qualified traffic, boost conversion rates, and maximize ROI.
Targeting Best Practices
Here are some high level best practices to follow when targeting your LinkedIn campaigns:
- Align targeting with your ICPs based on attributes like industry, role, and company size
- Prioritize titles with budget authority and influence over decisions
- Layer on multiple targeting factors for greater precision
- Optimize over time by removing targets with low performance
- Test expanding your targeting to uncover new opportunities
- Use LinkedIn’s audience insights tools to research targeting options
Measuring Performance
Dialing in your LinkedIn targeting is an iterative process. To refine your approach, you need to closely monitor campaign performance by audience segment.
Analyze metrics such as clickthrough rate, conversion rate, cost per lead, and ROI by target. Look for:
- High performing targets worth additional budget
- Underperforming targets to eliminate or reduce spend on
Continuously refine your targeting strategy based on the data to drive better results over time.
You can also leverage LinkedIn’s audience templates to build on proven performant targeting. Audience templates analyze billions of member interactions to uncover your best customer profiles.
Conclusion
With a massive audience of over 722 million professionals, targeting is essential to LinkedIn ad success. Start with your ideal customer profile based on attributes like geography, company, job role, interests, and skills. Combine multiple targeting factors for greater precision.
Measure performance by audience segment and continuously refine your targeting over time. LinkedIn’s powerful targeting options let you engage just those audience members most likely to convert into valuable customers. By targeting the right people, you can drive massive ROI from your LinkedIn ad campaigns.