How do LinkedIn ads work and what options are available?

LinkedIn ads allow companies to reach professional audiences with targeted advertising. Different campaign objectives and ad formats support various marketing goals and business requirements. Learn what LinkedIn ads are, explore available targeting options and discover how AI can help with campaign creation.

What are LinkedIn ads?

LinkedIn ads are paid adverts and a form of social media advertising that help companies reach specific audiences on the professional network LinkedIn. The platform is particularly relevant for B2B marketing, as it enables precise targeting based on professional criteria such as industry, company, job title or work experience.

Campaigns are created using the LinkedIn Campaign Manager and are tailored to a specific marketing objective. Depending on the campaign goal, different ad formats are available, including text ads, video ads and event ads.

LinkedIn ad campaign objectives and how objective-based advertising works

On LinkedIn, the campaign objective is the starting point for creating LinkedIn ads. In Campaign Manager, you first choose which outcome you want to achieve with your advertising on LinkedIn. The objectives cover different phases of the marketing funnel, ranging from brand awareness and website visits to interactions, lead generation and website conversions.

Your selection directly affects the rest of the campaign setup: LinkedIn then suggests ad formats, bidding strategies and optimisation options that align with the chosen objective. You can then define your target audience, select an available ad format and set details such as the budget and campaign duration.

Which LinkedIn ad formats are available?

LinkedIn provides different ad formats depending on the selected campaign objective:

• Single Image Ads: Ads with a single image that appear directly in the LinkedIn feed
• Video Ads: Video ads for brand messages, product presentations or offers that require explanation
• Carousel Image Ads: Ads with multiple cards that users can swipe through one after another
• Document Ads: Documents such as presentations or guides that users can view directly in the LinkedIn feed
• Event Ads: Ads for promoting events on LinkedIn
• Thought Leader Ads: Posts from LinkedIn members that can, with their consent, be promoted as ads to increase their reach
• Message Ads: Promotional messages sent through LinkedIn Messaging with a single primary call to action
• Conversation Ads: Interactive promotional messages with multiple options and calls to action
• Text Ads: Compact ads with a headline, description and optional image
• Dynamic Ads: Personalised ads that include Follower Ads, Spotlight Ads and Jobs Ads
• Article and Newsletter Ads: Ads used to promote articles and newsletters published on LinkedIn

How do you define target audiences for LinkedIn ads?

One key benefit of LinkedIn ads is the ability to define target audiences based on professional characteristics. In Campaign Manager, you can combine criteria such as location, industry, company, work experience, job function or seniority level to reach people who are relevant to your campaign objective.

In addition to these audience attributes, LinkedIn offers Matched Audiences, which allow you to use your own data for targeting. These include contact and company lists as well as retargeting audiences. This helps you reconnect with people who have already interacted with your company or content.

With Predictive Audiences, LinkedIn adds AI-supported targeting options. LinkedIn uses an existing data source together with its own AI models to identify people who are likely to take similar actions to those in the original target audience. Possible data sources include Lead Gen Forms, contact or company lists, conversions and retargeting audiences.

How to create LinkedIn ads in Campaign Manager

After defining your campaign objective and target audience, you configure the remaining Campaign Manager settings. These include the ad format, placement, budget and bidding strategy.

You then create the ad itself. The required content depends on the selected ad format. For example, a Single Image Ad combines an image, ad text and destination URL, while a Document Ad provides a document directly through the ad.

Before publishing, check that your campaign objective, target audience, ad format and creative are aligned. After launch, you can monitor performance in Campaign Manager and optimise your campaign based on the results achieved.

How much do LinkedIn ads cost?

How much LinkedIn ads cost cannot be determined universally. LinkedIn ads are delivered through an auction system, meaning the actual costs depend on factors such as the campaign objective, target audience, competition and chosen bidding strategy. In Campaign Manager, you set the budget available for your campaign. Rather than relying on general average CPC or CPM values, you should evaluate costs based on the actual performance of your campaigns.

How does AI support LinkedIn advertising and ad creation?

AI features now support both audience selection and LinkedIn ad creation. There are two main areas of use, which are AI features integrated directly into LinkedIn and external AI tools used to prepare advertising content.

AI features in the LinkedIn Campaign Manager

LinkedIn uses AI, for example, with Predictive Audiences. Existing data is combined with LinkedIn’s AI models to create a new target audience consisting of people who are expected to take similar actions to those in the original data. AI can also support ad creation. In Campaign Manager, AI features can generate drafts for Single Image Ads, Video Ads and Document Ads.

Some of these features were originally available through Accelerate. Since August 2026, Accelerate has no longer been offered as a standalone campaign type for new campaigns. Instead, its core features have been integrated into standard LinkedIn ad campaigns.

Preparing LinkedIn ads with external AI tools

External AI tools can be used before the actual campaign creation process. With the IONOS AI Acquisition Manager, for example, you can prepare text and visual content for social media. This allows you to develop different ideas for sponsored content creatives, adapt them for LinkedIn, use them in Campaign Manager and compare their performance.

AI-generated content should always be reviewed before publication and adapted to your target audience, brand communication and specific campaign objective.

How can you improve marketing and monitor success?

In Campaign Manager, you can monitor the performance of your LinkedIn ads using various metrics. Which metrics are most relevant depends on your chosen campaign objective. Important metrics include:

• Impressions: How often was the ad shown?
• Click-through rate (CTR): What percentage of impressions resulted in clicks?
• CPC: What are the average costs per click?
• Conversions: How often was a desired action completed?
• Cost per result: What is the average cost of an outcome that is relevant to the campaign objective?

To optimise ads in a targeted way, Campaign Manager also offers A/B tests. These allow you to compare two ad groups that differ, for example, in their creative, target audience or placement. This helps you use data to determine which version best supports your campaign objective.