Which LinkedIn Ads Campaign Types Should I Use?
Which LinkedIn Ads Campaign Types Should I Use?
LinkedIn offers six campaign objectives: Brand Awareness, Website Visits, Engagement, Video Views, Lead Generation, and Website Conversions. For B2B lead generation, Lead Generation campaigns with native Lead Gen Forms produce the lowest CPL. For pipeline building, Website Conversions with CRM integration tracks actual business impact.
What Are the Six LinkedIn Campaign Objectives?
| Objective | Optimizes For | Best Ad Formats | Typical Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brand Awareness | Maximum impressions | Sponsored Content, Video | New market entry, brand building |
| Website Visits | Clicks to website | Sponsored Content, Text Ads | Driving traffic to content |
| Engagement | Likes, comments, shares | Sponsored Content, Document Ads | Community building, social proof |
| Video Views | Video completions | Video Ads | Product demos, thought leadership |
| Lead Generation | Form submissions | Lead Gen Forms + any Sponsored Content | Gated content, demo requests |
| Website Conversions | On-site conversion actions | Sponsored Content + Insight Tag | Demo signups, free trials |
The most common B2B objectives are Lead Generation and Website Conversions. The key difference: Lead Generation uses LinkedIn’s native Lead Gen Forms (users fill out forms without leaving LinkedIn, with fields auto-populated from their profile). Website Conversions drive users to your website where they convert on your own forms. Each approach has trade-offs.
When Should You Use Lead Gen Forms vs Website Conversions?
Lead Gen Forms produce higher conversion rates (10-15% of clickers convert, vs 2-5% for website landing pages) because they eliminate friction — users never leave LinkedIn, and their name, email, job title, and company auto-populate from their profile. This results in 50-70% lower CPL. However, lead quality can be lower because the ease of submission attracts casual interest alongside genuine intent. The auto-populated data is accurate (pulled from the user’s profile) but the intent signal is weaker than someone who takes time to fill out a website form.
Website Conversions produce fewer but higher-intent leads because users must click through to your website and actively fill out a form — a stronger commitment signal. This approach also gives you full control over the conversion experience (your landing page, your messaging, your form fields) and enables retargeting via the LinkedIn Insight Tag. Website Conversions produce 30-50% fewer leads than Lead Gen Forms at the same budget but typically convert to pipeline at 2-3x the rate.
Recommended approach: use Lead Gen Forms for top-of-funnel offers (ebooks, guides, webinars) where volume matters, and Website Conversions for bottom-of-funnel offers (demo requests, free trials) where intent quality matters.
How Should You Structure a Full-Funnel LinkedIn Campaign?
A full-funnel LinkedIn strategy uses multiple campaign types in sequence:
Top of Funnel — Awareness (10-20% of budget): Brand Awareness or Video Views campaigns targeting your broad ICP. Use engaging video content, industry insights, or company thought leadership. Goal: build recognition and familiarity. These campaigns seed the retargeting audiences for middle and bottom funnel.
Middle of Funnel — Consideration (30-40% of budget): Lead Generation or Engagement campaigns targeting users who engaged with top-of-funnel content (video viewers, ad engagers) plus fresh ICP audiences. Offer valuable gated content (whitepapers, industry reports, templates) via Lead Gen Forms. Goal: capture contact information and demonstrate expertise.
Bottom of Funnel — Conversion (40-50% of budget): Website Conversions campaigns targeting warm audiences (lead gen form submitters who didn’t request demo, website visitors, email list retargeting). Offer direct conversion actions (demo request, free trial, consultation). Goal: generate sales-qualified leads and pipeline.
What Campaign Settings Matter Most?
Three settings significantly impact LinkedIn campaign performance. Audience Expansion: off by default — keep it off. Audience Expansion broadens targeting beyond your defined audience, often including irrelevant professionals. Like Meta’s Advantage+ Audience, this can work well with sufficient conversion data, but for most B2B campaigns with specific ICP requirements, it introduces waste. LinkedIn Audience Network: extends your ads to third-party websites and apps. Turn it off for Lead Generation campaigns (lead quality drops significantly) and test it cautiously for Brand Awareness (can lower CPM by 30-40% with acceptable brand safety). Bidding strategy: start with Manual CPC for cost control, then test Target Cost once you have baseline performance data.
How Do New Ad Formats Change Campaign Strategy?
Two newer LinkedIn ad formats are changing B2B campaign strategy in 2026. Document Ads allow users to preview and swipe through PDF content (case studies, reports, decks) natively in the feed. They achieve 2-3x higher engagement than standard Sponsored Content because users interact with the content without leaving LinkedIn. Use Document Ads for thought leadership campaigns that build credibility before a conversion ask. Thought Leader Ads boost organic posts from individual employee profiles rather than the company page. They appear as personal content in the feed, generating significantly higher engagement and trust than brand-page ads. Use Thought Leader Ads to amplify your executives’ or SMEs’ best-performing organic posts — combining authentic personal branding with paid distribution.
How Does Leo Manage LinkedIn Campaign Types?
Leo determines the optimal campaign type mix based on your business objectives, target audience, and conversion data. For B2B lead generation, Leo typically creates a full-funnel structure automatically: awareness campaigns to build recognition, Lead Gen Form campaigns for contact capture, and Website Conversion campaigns for high-intent demo requests. Leo manages the budget allocation between funnel stages dynamically — if bottom-of-funnel campaigns have excess retargeting audience, Leo shifts more budget there. If the retargeting pool is small, Leo invests more in top-of-funnel awareness to grow the pool. This dynamic funnel management, coordinated across LinkedIn, Meta, and Google simultaneously, produces more efficient pipeline generation than static campaign budgets managed independently on each platform.