Using LinkedIn Ads
Just give me the stats: In summary my campaign got 20 clicks from 23,473 impressions, which is a CTR of 0.085 %, a CPC $2.47 and total spend of $49.43. I was targeting senior executives in tech companies in Boston / Cambridge.

The breakdown of who viewed by ad
A few weeks ago I was given a $50 voucher from LinkedIn to try their ad system. With the voucher you have to pay an activation fee of $5 from a credit card, but once you’ve done that it’s easy to get going. I wanted to see if the ads could get me an interview or a contact in Boston at the companies I was targeting.
LinkedIn Ad Targeting
There are four main ways to target views of your ad.
- Location: City, or multiple cities
- Company: Specific company names
- Seniority: Specific job titles
- Audience Expansion : to show your ads to similar people you are targeting in the first 3 options, but are slightly different.
Once you choose your target audience you’ll be able to see roughly about how many people could see your advert. In my case I was targeting 2,624 individuals.
Creating your ads
Per campaign you can add 15 variations of your advert. Ads variations that worked best for me were ones that had a clear call to action asking the viewer to do something. Ads that get a higher click as the campaign goes on can be shown more often via a setting.
Points of notice
Impressions over the weekend are about 1/10th of the level during the week. I was surprised that the fall off was so high. I didn’t get any clicks on Saturday / Sunday and it’s difficult to say if it’s due to the fact that there was a lower inventory of impressions, or if people browser LinkedIn differently at the weekends.
If you are running ads that are time sensitive, LinkedIn can take 4-6 hours to approve ads. So do plan in advance!
ROI of LinkedIn Ads
I was surprised at the relatively high cost of the ads on LinkedIn which meant that $50 didn’t go so far. Perhaps if you had a recruitment budget of a few 100 it could be a way of highlighting your job positions. Having only 20 clicks really isn’t enough data to say if my campaign was a flop or not, as the number isn’t statistically significant.
I wish this was a great story where I could write something like, “How $50 in LinkedIn ads landed my dream job”, but so far that’s not the case 😉
If you’d like to learn more about marketing on LinkedIn you should download their Sophisticated Marketer’s Guide to LinkedIn.
P.S. Thanks to @pistachio for some tips on the ad copy !