Introduction
LinkedIn Ads provide businesses with powerful tools to engage a professional network, reach their ideal customer profile, and drive conversion rates. However, common mistakes in campaign execution can lead to budget drain and reduced effectiveness. Avoiding these advertising pitfalls ensures better audience targeting, improved engagement rates, and higher return on investment. This blog post explores five of the biggest mistakes advertisers make on LinkedIn and provides actionable solutions to fix them.
Mistake 1: Using Age as a Targeting Criterion
Why It’s a Problem
LinkedIn does not collect users’ birth dates when they create a profile. Instead, it estimates age based on graduation year, which often leads to inaccurate audience demographics. Many professionals follow unique education and career paths, making this a poor measure for targeting potential customers.
How to Fix It
A more effective strategy is to focus on audience attributes that reflect actual business influence and decision-making authority.
Better Targeting Strategies:
- Use years of experience instead of estimated age to define audience segments.
- Leverage Job Functions and Job Seniorities to refine audience count and ensure ads reach decision-makers.
- Apply company size filtering and custom company lists to align ads with business goals.
Focusing on seniority level rather than unreliable age estimates allows for better campaign performance and more informed decisions.
Mistake 2: Relying on LinkedIn Audience Expansion Without Adjustments
Why It’s a Problem
The Audience Expansion function broadens targeting beyond the defined core audience. While this might seem like a good approach to user data, it often results in audience fatigue, wasted ad spend, and lower engagement rates.
How to Fix It
Instead of relying on the audience expansion feature, consider these strategies:
- Custom company lists: Build targeted campaigns based on company websites and email contact lists.
- Retargeting campaigns: Engage previous website visitors or company page visitors using a 90-day retargeting campaign.
- Conversion Tracking: Use comprehensive conversion tracking to monitor conversion credit and valuable conversion insights.
By focusing on high-intent users rather than a broad audience, businesses can enhance conversion optimisation and improve overall campaign performance.
Mistake 3: Enabling the LinkedIn Audience Network Without Optimisation
Why It’s a Problem
The LinkedIn Audience Network (LAN) places ads on third-party sites outside of LinkedIn. Without proper exclusions, this can lead to ineffective advertising campaigns, misplaced ads, and reduced conversion values.
How to Fix It
To maintain a consistent brand message while ensuring optimal ad placements:
- Use site exclusions: Prevent ads from appearing on unsuitable websites.
- Review audience campaign reports: Track where ads are displayed to avoid advertising mistakes.
- Optimise placement settings: Work with programmatic specialists to fine-tune audience targeting based on business requirements.
Managing Audience Network placements correctly prevents costly mistakes and keeps advertising exploits focused on high-value prospects.
Mistake 4: Failing to Set Up Website Actions
Why It’s a Problem
Without Conversion Tracking, businesses miss out on valuable conversion data that informs advertising strategy. This lack of insights leads to lost opportunities in refining the advertising journey.
How to Fix It
Implementing website action tracking enables businesses to collect meaningful user interactions and conversion action insights.
Steps to Improve Tracking:
- Set up the LinkedIn Insight Tag to track conversion events.
- Define conversion windows for key conversion-oriented leads.
- Monitor website visitor actions like contact form submissions and content engagement.
Tracking audience interactions over time allows businesses to refine retargeting buckets and measure eventual conversion outcomes.
Mistake 5: Relying on Only One Ad Format
Why It’s a Problem
Running a single campaign with just one ad format restricts audience engagement. Different audience segments prefer diverse content styles, leading to lower ads performance when formats are not varied.
How to Fix It
To maintain audience interest and improve conversion rates, diversify ad formats:
- Document Ads: Share gated content like whitepapers and reports.
- Video Ads: Deliver compelling content through dynamic storytelling.
- Conversation Ads: Engage active users in personalised dialogue within the professional network.
- Lead Gen Forms: Simplify access to content and increase contact form submissions.
A diverse advertising strategy increases audience engagement and ensures higher advertising success rates.
The Key to Improving LinkedIn Ads Performance
By avoiding these common pitfalls, businesses can ensure their advertising efforts align with marketing goals, reaching the right audience at the right conversion stage.
Key Takeaways:
- Replace age-based targeting with Job Functions and Job Seniorities to refine audience sizes.
- Avoid Audience Expansion by using contact lists and custom audience targeting.
- Manage LinkedIn Audience Network placements to safeguard advertising platform integrity.
- Track conversion actions to gain insights into the buyer journey and conversion rates.
- Utilise a mix of ad formats to drive consistent messaging and content engagement.
LinkedIn remains an arena for businesses to connect with B2B buyers, but a refined approach is required for advertising success. Actionable solutions such as improved audience targeting, better conversion tracking, and refined budget allocation will lead to better ROI and campaign effectiveness.
About Search Engine Ascend
Search Engine Ascend is a leader in digital marketing, helping businesses navigate the LinkedIn advertising landscape with expert insights and data-driven strategies. From content strategy to budgeting tools, we equip businesses with the resources needed to thrive in B2B advertising. Whether refining your sales funnel or optimising for 2-3x better conversion rates, our expertise ensures your advertising campaigns meet their full potential.
