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LinkedIn targeting

Five tips for even better results with LinkedIn targeting

LinkedIn is the No. 1 social media platform for B2B content distribution – and therefore indispensable for B2B advertising. Adverts in social networks are most effective when they address target persons where they frequently spend time anyway. For over 660 million users, this is the LinkedIn platform.

1. Profile search

Start with a LinkedIn profile search in the target group you want to reach. Find out which profile characteristics users in this target group have in common. Do they have similarities in skills, job titles or career level? Profile searches can provide important insights for relevant targeting criteria.

2. Target audience

Pay attention to the size of your potential target group: 60,000 users or more are ideal for ads. Of course, these figures may vary depending on the region and industry you are targeting; a highly specialised industry in Switzerland is smaller than a broad target group in the DACH region. Nevertheless, try to keep your target group above 20,000 users.

3. Targeting criteria

Choose the targeting criteria carefully. This will save you unnecessary work and ensure that you really reach your target group without divergence loss.

If you want to filter by job title, you have to select all relevant titles from a list of 28,000 titles. Our tip: Use the field of activity as a criterion instead. This reduces the list to 26 options. Also be careful with age as a criterion: LinkedIn members do not have to specify their age, so this information is usually calculated from their year of graduation. You will get better results with the career level (seniority) or years of professional experience.

4. Look-alikes

Look-alike modelling analyses the characteristics of your target group's users and looks for patterns to find similar users who could also be relevant to you. This process usually involves deep, complex data analysis. LinkedIn is different: here you can use this method as a targeting criterion by clicking on ‘Audience Expansion’. The rest is then done by LinkedIn algorithms that automatically expand your target group.

5. Matched Audiences

With the option “LinkedIn Matched Audiences”, you can use your own data for targeting on LinkedIn. To do this, upload a list of email addresses of existing contacts who should be included or excluded from your LinkedIn campaigns. Use your website retargeting function to follow up with prospects who have visited certain pages on your website. Or use account targeting to reach decision-makers in specific companies.