LinkedIn ads can be a very effective way to generate leads and traffic for your business. With over 722 million users, LinkedIn is the largest professional social network and offers a huge potential audience for B2B marketers. However, as with any paid advertising, it’s important to optimize your LinkedIn ads for efficiency. One key metric to track is cost per result (CPR) – this tells you how much you are spending to acquire each conversion. The lower your CPR, the more efficiently your ads are running. This article will provide tips and best practices for lowering your LinkedIn ads cost per result.
What is Cost Per Result (CPR)?
Cost per result (CPR) is calculated by dividing the total amount you’ve spent on advertising by the number of conversions generated. For example, if you spent $1,000 on LinkedIn ads last month and generated 50 leads from those ads, your CPR would be $20 ($1000/50). The lower your CPR, the more efficiently your ads are running.
Some key things to know about CPR:
– CPR will vary widely based on factors like your target CPA, industry, and campaign objective. There is no universal “good” CPR.
– You’ll want to optimize campaigns to decrease CPR over time. Compare CPR month-over-month as you test and refine targeting.
– Only count conversions that are valuable to your business. Don’t optimise purely for vanity metrics like clicks or impressions.
What is a “Good” LinkedIn CPR?
As mentioned, there is no one-size-fits-all CPR goal for LinkedIn ads. The optimal CPR depends on your industry, offer, profit margins and more. Here are some benchmarks to keep in mind:
– Lead generation: $50-$100+ per lead is often reasonable for B2B. Business services can often achieve $30-60 CPR.
– Traffic campaigns: These usually have lower CPR, like $0.10 to $1.00 per click.
– Job ads and talent acquisition: $100-$200+ per applicant can be effective based on role seniority.
– SaaS and mid-market B2B: $100-$150+ CPR for free trials or demos can work well.
– Enterprise B2B with long sales cycles: $200-$500+ for high value demos and trials is often sustainable.
As a rule of thumb, aim for CPR at or below your customer lifetime value. If you profit $1,000 per customer on average, $150 CPR is very reasonable. If your CLV is $5,000, you can justify higher CPR.
How to Lower Your LinkedIn Ads CPR
Here are some proven strategies to decrease cost per result over time for LinkedIn campaigns:
1. Focus on the Most Relevant Audiences
Targeting the right audiences is key to maximizing conversion rates and lowering CPR. Avoid targeting broadly. Instead, zero in on the job titles, companies, groups, and interests most likely to convert. For example, instead of targeting all “IT managers”, target specific roles like “Chief Information Security Officer”.
Leverage LinkedIn’s extensive demographic, firmographic, and interest targeting to fine-tune campaigns. Your ideal audience may be small but you can still reach it efficiently on LinkedIn.
2. Personalize Ad Creative
Personalized ad copy and creative perform much better than generic, one-size-fits-all messaging. Personalization shows prospects you understand their pain points and motivations. Some tips:
– Mention their company name and industry in ad copy
– Reference challenges specific to their role
– Include a relevant image like someone in their profession
Dynamic creative and A/B testing of different messaging and offers is key to optimizing CPR.
3. Retarget Engaged Visitors
Retargeting website visitors who have already engaged with your content or brand is very effective. Create customized remarketing campaigns for:
– Recent website visitors
– People who watched a video
– Visitors from target companies
– Prospects who clicked a previous ad
These warm audiences convert at a much higher rate, lowering CPR.
4. Promote Relevant, Valuable Content
Don’t make ads that simply say “Buy from us”. Instead, promote content like blogs, guides, and videos that provide value to your audience. This content marketing helps nurture prospects, establish your brand as a thought leader, and drive conversions over time.
Some proven content offers that convert on LinkedIn include:
– Industry reports and guides
– Analyst research reports
– Product demos
– Free trials
– Webinars
– Case studies and customer stories
5. Optimize Landing Pages
Every ad should send users to a customized landing page designed specifically for that campaign. Avoid sending traffic to your general home page. Instead, create dedicated landing pages that match the messaging and offer in your ads.
Your landing pages should:
– Have a clear call-to-action matching the ad copy
– Reduce friction in the conversion process
– Load quickly on mobile devices
Continuously improve page copy, layouts, and forms to increase conversion rates from your ads. This improves the return on ad spend and lowers CPR.
6. Take Advantage of LinkedIn’s Targeting Features
Leverage LinkedIn Campaign Manager options that allow more advanced targeting and optimization:
– Placement targeting: Show ads only to users browsing relevant sections like Jobs, News, or Groups.
– Audience Expansion: Expand the reach of narrowly targeted campaigns while maintaining relevance.
– Interest targeting: Target over 15K interest categories like “Cloud Computing” and “Artificial Intelligence”
– Matched Audiences: Create lookalike audiences based on your ideal existing customers.
7. Set Up Conversions Tracking
Accurately tracking conversions like sign-ups, contact form submissions, downloads, purchases, and phone calls is essential to calculating CPR and optimizing campaigns.
Make sure to implement LinkedIn Insights tags, UTM campaign tracking, and integrations with marketing automation and CRM platforms. This enables you to accurately measure results and attribute conversions to specific campaigns.
8. A/B Test Ad Elements
Continuously test different combinations of ad elements like imagery, ad copy, call-to-action, and landing page. This reveals what messaging and visuals resonate most with your target audience to improve CTR and conversion rates over time.
9. Analyze and Refine Targeting
Closely monitor performance by audience segment. Double down on the targeting that delivers conversions at the lowest cost.
For example, you may find enterprise companies or senior titles outperform, allowing you to tighten targeting further. Shut off unproductive segments that are driving up CPR.
10. Optimize Bids and Budget
Actively manage bids to find the optimal balance of volume and conversion cost. Don’t just set-and-forget.
Increase bids on high performing campaigns where you have budget headroom. Lower bids on segments producing conversions at a higher CPR.
Continually optimize spend across campaigns and audiences while staying within your budget.
Conclusion
There is no universal “good” LinkedIn CPR to target. With careful audience segmentation, creative testing, landing page optimization and bid management, top-performing LinkedIn advertisers can achieve CPRs as low as $30 to $50 for lead generation. For physical products and services, CPR in the $80 to $150 range is often reasonable. Enterprise B2B offerings can justify CPR of $200 or more.
The keys are accurately tracking conversions, monitoring performance by audience and ad element, and relentless testing and optimization to decrease CPR over time. With the right targeting and creative approach, LinkedIn ads can deliver conversions very efficiently compared to other paid channels. By following the tips above, you can maximize the return on ad spend from your LinkedIn campaigns.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are some typical LinkedIn CPR benchmarks?
Some average LinkedIn CPR benchmarks by objective:
– Lead generation: $50 – $100+
– Job ads: $100 – $250+
– B2B content offers: $80 – $150
– SaaS free trials: $100 – $200+
– Enterprise deals: $200 – $500+
How do I calculate cost per result for LinkedIn ads?
Cost per result is calculated by taking the total amount spent on LinkedIn ads for a period and dividing it by the number of conversions generated from those ads.
CPR = Ad Spend / Conversions
Be sure to accurately track form fills, purchases, sign-ups, leads etc. to measure CPR.
What is a good CPR for LinkedIn ads by industry?
Here are some rough CPR benchmarks by industry:
– SaaS: $80 – $150
– B2B Services: $50 – $100
– eCommerce: $20 – $60
– Enterprise Software: $150 – $300
– Financial Services: $60 – $150
– Education: $30 – $80
– Healthcare: $100 – $250
How can I decrease my LinkedIn ads cost per result?
Tips to decrease LinkedIn CPR:
– Target more niche audiences
– Personalize messaging to each audience
– Promote content offers instead of pure sales
– Retarget engaged visitors
– Improve landing page conversion rate
– Continuously test ad variations
– Actively manage bids and budget
What is a good LinkedIn CPC benchmark?
LinkedIn CPCs can vary from around $1 – $8+ depending on your targeting and industry. For lead generation, $3 – $6 CPC is fairly typical. CPCs under $3 are very low. For smaller niches CPCs up to $10+ can be justified.