Determining the target audience size for LinkedIn ads is an important step in creating an effective LinkedIn ad campaign. With over 722 million members worldwide, LinkedIn offers advertisers access to a massive professional audience. However, not every member will be a good fit for your ad. Defining your target audience allows you to hone in on the LinkedIn users most likely to engage with your ad and become customers.
Defining Your Target Audience
The first step is identifying the specific audience you want to reach with your LinkedIn ad campaign. This involves looking at demographic factors like:
- Job title
- Industry
- Company size
- Seniority level
- Age range
- Gender
- Location
You’ll want to think about who your ideal customers are and what traits they have in common. For example, if you sell HR software, your target audience might be HR managers at mid-size companies in the United States. The more narrowly you can define your target audience, the better.
Estimating Audience Size
Once you’ve determined who you want to target, the next step is estimating the size of that audience on LinkedIn. Here are some tips for calculating your target audience size:
- Use LinkedIn’s audience insights – LinkedIn provides demographic data on its member base that can help inform your audience size estimates. In campaign manager, you can enter your target criteria and see the estimated audience size.
- Look at audience overlaps – Identify companies/groups related to your target audience and look at the member size to help gauge your audience scale.
- Consider member penetration – Estimate what percentage of your target demographic is likely to be on LinkedIn.
- Review your customer base – Look at any existing customer data to assess how many of your customers are on LinkedIn.
- Analyze competitors’ followers – Look at related brands and influencers to evaluate audience size.
While estimates will vary based on your particular target audience and industry, some typical LinkedIn audience sizes for major occupations in the US include:
| Job Title | LinkedIn Members |
|---|---|
| Software Engineers | 9M |
| Sales Professionals | 18M |
| Marketing Specialists | 7M |
| HR Managers | 1M |
| Financial Analysts | 2M |
Refining Your Targeting
As a best practice, you want your target audience size to be between 300,000-500,000 members for Sponsored Content campaigns. Very narrow targeting under 100,000 may limit your reach and results. Here are some tips for adjusting your targeting to hit the ideal audience size range:
- Broaden location targeting – Start with a single country, then expand to region/continent.
- Expand job title specificity – Move from precise titles to job categories and functions.
- Increase company size range – Include both mid-market and enterprise if targeting was limited before.
- Lengthen seniority range – Expand target experience level from years in role to career level.
- Extend age range – Widen age brackets to include both younger and older demographics.
- Increase industry scope – Target multiple related industries instead of just one specific vertical.
Managing Frequency
In addition to audience size, you also need to consider the frequency at which you want to reach your target audience when running LinkedIn ads. Low frequency caps (1-2 times per week) help keep your ad messaging fresh. Higher frequency caps (4-5x per week) increase brand exposure but may cause ad fatigue.
A good rule of thumb is to take your target audience size and divide by your weekly ad budget to calculate frequency. For example, if your target audience size is 400,000 and your budget is $5,000 per week, that comes out to 80 impressions per target member (400,000 / 5,000). In this case, you’d want to set your frequency cap at around 2-3 times per week.
Make sure your audience size can support your desired reach and frequency. You may need to further refine your targeting criteria to sustain your intended ad exposure over the full duration of your LinkedIn campaign.
Audience Expansion
If you’re still struggling to meet the ideal 300,000-500,000 target audience size after broadening your targeting, LinkedIn does offer an audience expansion feature. This allows your ads to reach beyond your defined target parameters to additional LinkedIn members with similar characteristics and high propensity to engage.
However, results typically diminish with aggressive audience expansion compared to more precise targeting alignment. Only use audience expansion to supplement your core targeted members. Start with a conservative +10-30% expanded reach and monitor performance before pushing expansion levels higher.
Measuring Audience Engagement
When analyzing your LinkedIn ad results, look beyond vanity metrics like reach and impressions to evaluate actual audience engagement. Key performance indicators to assess include:
- Click-through rate – Clicks / Impressions, aim for >0.5%
- Cost per click – Ad spend / Clicks, aim for < $5 CPC
- Reactions – Likes, shares, comments
- Follows – New followers driven by ad
- Leads – Form fills, contact requests
- Conversions – Free trials, purchases, registrations
Strong engagement metrics indicate you’ve targeted the right audience. Weak engagement signals your targeting may be off and you need to revisit your audience size and definition.
| Engagement Rate | Audience Targeting Assessment |
|---|---|
| High engagement | Ideal target audience |
| Moderate engagement | Refine targeting to improve fit |
| Low engagement | Wrong target audience, revisit criteria |
Conclusion
Estimating your target audience size is crucial to setting up an effective LinkedIn ad campaign. Aim for 300,000-500,000 target members based on your specific customer persona. Analyze audience engagement metrics to optimize your targeting for maximum results. With the right audience size and composition, your LinkedIn ads will connect with higher quality professionals and drive more conversions.
