LinkedIn performance marketing: The B2B playbook for pipeline
This playbook isn't about "being active on LinkedIn" or running ads to build awareness. It's about treating LinkedIn as a performance channel where success is measured in SQLs, pipeline generated, and closed revenue.
For B2B companies with a defined ICP, LinkedIn offers unmatched precision in reaching decision-makers. The tradeoff is cost. CPCs are higher than most social platforms. The only way LinkedIn works at scale is if your measurement goes beyond cost per lead and into lead quality and revenue contribution.
This guide covers how to set up LinkedIn campaigns that connect to pipeline, when to use Lead Gen Forms versus landing pages, which KPIs actually matter, and how to optimise without destroying your data signal.
What is LinkedIn performance marketing?
Speaking of LinkedIn marketing, running ads is just the beginning. Performance marketing on LinkedIn means you're using those ads with well-defined goals, accurate tracking and a seamless communication loop with your CRM, all so that you can concentrate on the things that move the needle for your business, not just pretty numbers in Campaign Manager.
The key ingredients:
- Defined conversions: What counts as success? A form fill? A qualified lead? A booked meeting? A created opportunity?
- Tracking that connects to revenue: LinkedIn Insight Tag, UTM parameters, CRM integration, and ideally offline conversion uploads so the platform learns what "good" looks like.
- Continuous optimisation: Adjusting audiences, creative, and budgets based on downstream performance, not just CTR or CPL.
When LinkedIn is (and isn't) the right performance channel
LinkedIn works best when your business model supports the economics.
LinkedIn is a strong fit when:
- Your average contract value is high enough to absorb higher CPCs (typically $15k+ ACV)
- You have a clearly defined ICP with targetable job titles, functions, and seniorities
- Your sales cycle is long and involves multiple stakeholders
- You're running account-based marketing and need to reach specific companies
- You have sales capacity to follow up on leads quickly
LinkedIn is harder when:
- Your ACV is low and can't support $40-100+ cost per lead
- Your offer is weak or unclear (no amount of targeting fixes a bad value proposition)
- Leads aren't followed up - marketing generates, sales ignores
- You have no way to track what happens after the form fill
Set expectations clearly: LinkedIn will cost more per click and per lead than Meta or Google Display. The question is whether it delivers higher quality leads that convert to pipeline at a better rate. If you can't answer that question with data, you're not doing performance marketing: you're doing hope marketing.
How to build the funnel structure for LinkedIn
When mapping out the strategy, it's essential to tie it to a clear funnel stage and conversion action, and the strategy should be adapted to your budget and company maturity, basically your financial situation and the age of your company.
How to Choose Between Enterprise and SMB Funnel Strategies
B2B Marketing Funnel Comparison
Compare Enterprise full-funnel nurturing versus SMB direct-response strategies. Click each stage to explore key metrics and budget allocation.
Understanding Marketing Funnels
TOFU (Top of Funnel): Awareness stage—attracting potential customers who may not know they have a problem your product solves.
MOFU (Middle of Funnel): Consideration stage—nurturing leads with educational content as they evaluate solutions.
BOFU (Bottom of Funnel): Decision stage—converting qualified leads into customers through demos, trials, and sales outreach.
Enterprise (Full Funnel)
Long sales cycles, complex buying committees
SMB (Simplified Funnel)
Faster decisions, fewer stakeholders
Key Insights
Enterprise Strategy
Budget split: 40% TOFU, 35% MOFU, 25% BOFU. Best for deals with 6-18 month sales cycles and 5+ stakeholders in the buying committee.
SMB Strategy
Budget split: 20% TOFU, 80% BOFU. Ideal for sales cycles under 3 months with 1-2 decision-makers.
When to Use Each Funnel Strategy
Choose Enterprise Full-Funnel when: Your average contract value exceeds £50,000, sales cycles span 6+ months, buying decisions involve multiple stakeholders, and your market benefits from thought leadership positioning. Industries like enterprise software, financial services, and manufacturing typically require this approach.
Choose SMB Simplified Funnel when: Your product has a clear, immediate value proposition, sales cycles are under 3 months, decisions are made by 1-2 people, and price points allow for faster purchasing decisions. SaaS tools, professional services, and e-commerce B2B often succeed with this model.
Hybrid Approach: Many companies blend both strategies—using full-funnel for enterprise accounts while running direct-response campaigns for SMB segments. The key is matching your funnel investment to each segment's buying behaviour.
Common Mistake: SMBs often over-invest in brand awareness (TOFU) before establishing product-market fit. Conversely, enterprise companies sometimes skip nurturing, leading to longer sales cycles and lower close rates. Match your funnel to your market.
B2B Marketing Funnel Comparison Summary
This interactive widget compares two B2B marketing funnel strategies. The Enterprise Full-Funnel approach allocates budget across three stages: 40% to Top of Funnel (brand awareness), 35% to Middle of Funnel (lead nurturing), and 25% to Bottom of Funnel (conversion). This suits complex sales with long cycles. The SMB Simplified Funnel skips the middle stage, allocating 20% to Top of Funnel and 80% to Bottom of Funnel for faster, more direct conversions.
1. Full-funnel approach (for established enterprises with larger budgets)
This three-stage approach works best when you have $50,000+ monthly budget and can sustain campaigns across all stages.
Top of funnel: Building retargetable audiences & brand recall
The goal isn't "awareness" in the abstract. It's building pools of engaged and aware prospects you can retarget with higher-intent offers.
- Content: Educational posts, industry insights, video content
- Objective: Engagement or video views
- Success metric: Audience size and engagement rate (as inputs to mid-funnel)
- Common mistake: Measuring TOFU by leads generated (it's not designed for that)
Middle of funnel: Capturing demand
This is where most B2B LinkedIn spend should concentrate. You're offering value in exchange for contact information from prospects who've shown some intent.
- Content: Webinars, benchmark reports, comparison guides, templates, assessments
- Objective: Lead generation (Lead Gen Forms) or website conversions
- Success metric: Cost per lead, form fill rate, and critically, lead-to-SQL conversion rate
- Common mistake: Gating content that isn't valuable enough to warrant the exchange
Bottom of funnel: Driving action
Retarget engaged & aware prospects and known accounts with direct conversion offers.
- Content: Demo requests, free trials, consultations, case studies, ROI calculators
- Objective: Conversions
- Success metric: Cost per opportunity, pipeline generated, pipeline ROAS
- Common mistake: Serving BOFU offers to cold audiences (they're not ready)
Map your LinkedIn campaign objectives accordingly: use Engagement for TOFU, Lead Generation for MOFU, and Website Conversions for BOFU.
2. Simplified two-stage approach (for smaller companies with limited budgets)
When budget is constrained (under $50,000/month), skip the middle funnel and focus resources on TOFU and BOFU only. This approach maximizes efficiency by eliminating the intermediary step.
Top of funnel: Building audience and awareness
Focus on low-cost engagement to build retargeting pools without expensive lead generation.
- Content: Educational posts, thought leadership, industry insights, short-form video
- Objective: Engagement or video views
- Budget allocation: 20% of total spend
- Success metric: Cost per engagement, retargeting audience growth
- Why it works: Builds awareness cheaply, creates audiences for retargeting
Bottom of funnel: Direct conversion
Skip gated content entirely. Drive engaged audiences directly to high-intent conversion actions.
- Content: Free tool/calculator, demo requests, free consultation, trial signup
- Objective: Website conversions/Leads
- Budget allocation: 80% of total spend
- Targeting: Retargeting audiences from TOFU + high-intent cold audiences (job title + seniority+TAM)
- Success metric: Cost per opportunity, meetings booked, trials started
- Why it works: Lower per-lead costs by avoiding paid lead magnets, faster path to revenue conversations
Key difference: The two-stage approach trades nurture capacity for speed and cost efficiency. You're asking prospects to make a bigger commitment sooner, but you're not paying for middle-funnel content distribution and lead nurturing.
Campaign setup: A step-by-step framework
Step 1: Define your conversion
How to Map Your B2B Conversion Path
B2B Conversion Path Flowchart
Visualise typical conversion rates at each stage of the B2B marketing and sales funnel. Click any stage to learn more, or animate to see the customer journey flow.
Understanding the B2B Conversion Funnel
The Journey: Ad Click → Form Fill → MQL → SQL → Opportunity → Closed Won
Each stage represents a qualification step. Conversion rates compound—a 3.5% click-to-form rate followed by 35% form-to-MQL means only 1.2% of clicks become MQLs. Understanding these rates helps optimise marketing spend and forecast revenue.
Conversion Funnel Stages
Conversion Funnel Stages
Funnel Performance Summary
What These Numbers Mean
From 10,000 ad clicks, only 4 deals close—an overall conversion rate of 0.04%. This means each closed deal requires approximately 2,500 clicks. Understanding where leads drop off helps prioritise optimisation efforts: improving MQL-to-SQL conversion by just 5% could add 2-3 more deals from the same ad spend.
Optimising Your Conversion Funnel
Stage-by-Stage Optimisation:
- Ad Click → Form Fill (3.5%): Improve landing page relevance, reduce form fields, add social proof, and ensure mobile optimisation.
- Form Fill → MQL (35%): Refine targeting to attract better-fit leads, use progressive profiling, and implement lead scoring.
- MQL → SQL (40%): Align marketing and sales on qualification criteria, improve SDR training, and reduce handoff delays.
- SQL → Opportunity (30%): Better discovery calls, faster follow-up, and improved sales enablement content.
- Opportunity → Closed Won (25%): Competitive positioning, stakeholder mapping, and value-based selling.
Benchmarking Note: These rates are B2B averages and vary significantly by industry, deal size, and sales motion. Enterprise sales often see lower form-fill rates but higher close rates, while self-serve models show the opposite pattern.
Calculate Your Cost Per Acquisition: If your average cost per click is £5, and you need 2,500 clicks per deal, your cost per acquisition from paid media is approximately £12,500—before factoring in sales costs. This metric is crucial for evaluating channel profitability and setting realistic CAC targets.
B2B Conversion Funnel Stages and Rates Summary
This interactive flowchart shows the typical B2B conversion path from ad click to closed deal.
- Stage 1: Ad Click. The entry point of your funnel. Users who click on search ads, display ads, or social ads land on your website. Quality of targeting directly impacts downstream conversion rates. Typical conversion rate to next stage: 3.5%. Volume from 10,000 clicks: 10,000.
- Stage 2: Form Fill. Visitors provide contact information in exchange for content, demos, or consultations. Form length, page design, and offer relevance all affect this conversion rate. Typical conversion rate to next stage: 35%. Volume from 10,000 clicks: 350.
- Stage 3: MQL. Leads that meet your ideal customer profile criteria: right company size, industry, job title, and engagement level. Marketing scores and qualifies these leads before passing to sales. Typical conversion rate to next stage: 40%. Volume from 10,000 clicks: 122.
- Stage 4: SQL. Leads accepted by sales after initial qualification. They've confirmed budget, authority, need, and timeline (BANT). Sales development reps (SDRs) typically handle this qualification. Typical conversion rate to next stage: 30%. Volume from 10,000 clicks: 49.
- Stage 5: Opportunity. Formally created pipeline opportunities with estimated deal value and close date. Account executives work these opportunities through discovery, demos, proposals, and negotiations. Typical conversion rate to next stage: 25%. Volume from 10,000 clicks: 15.
- Stage 6: Closed Won. The ultimate goal: a signed contract and new customer. Post-sale, focus shifts to onboarding, adoption, and retention to maximise customer lifetime value. Volume from 10,000 clicks: 4.
Overall funnel conversion from Ad Click to Closed Won: 0.04%. This means approximately 4 deals are closed for every 10,000 ad clicks, requiring about 2,500 clicks per closed deal.
Before you build anything, answer: what does "success" mean for this campaign?
- MQL: A lead that meets basic criteria (job title, company size)
- SQL: A lead sales has qualified as a genuine opportunity
- Meeting booked: A scheduled conversation with a decision-maker
- Opportunity created: A deal in your CRM with an estimated value
Most B2B companies should optimise toward SQL or opportunity, not MQL. MQLs can be gamed. Pipeline can't.
Step 2: Set up tracking and attribution
How to Choose the Right Attribution Model
Multi-Touch Attribution Model
Visualise how credit is distributed across touchpoints in the B2B buyer journey. See LinkedIn's impact at each stage under different attribution models.
What is Multi-Touch Attribution?
Multi-touch attribution distributes conversion credit across all touchpoints in the buyer journey, rather than giving 100% to a single interaction. This reveals which channels truly drive pipeline and revenue.
LinkedIn's B2B advantage: LinkedIn reaches decision-makers at multiple journey stages—from awareness (sponsored content) to consideration (thought leadership, InMail) to decision (retargeting)—making it a key player in multi-touch attribution analysis.
Select Attribution Model
40% to first, 40% to last, 20% split among middle. Best for valuing both awareness and conversion.
Buyer Journey Touchpoints
Attribution Summary
Key Insights
Under the Position-Based (U-Shaped) model, LinkedIn receives 49% of total conversion credit across 4 touchpoints. LinkedIn's presence at awareness (sponsored content), consideration (articles, InMail), and decision (retargeting) stages makes it a full-funnel B2B channel. Position-based attribution values LinkedIn's first-touch awareness and bottom-funnel retargeting equally.
Choosing the Right Attribution Model
First-Touch Attribution: Best for understanding which channels drive initial awareness. Use this if your goal is top-of-funnel growth and brand building. LinkedIn Sponsored Content often scores well here.
Last-Touch Attribution: Best for identifying conversion drivers. Use this for short sales cycles or when optimising for immediate conversions. LinkedIn retargeting and InMail often score well here.
Linear Attribution: Best for understanding full-journey impact when all touchpoints contribute equally. Use this as a baseline for channel comparison.
Time-Decay Attribution: Best for long B2B sales cycles (6+ months) where recent touchpoints are more influential. Weights increase as prospects near conversion.
Position-Based (U-Shaped): Best for B2B marketers who value both awareness and conversion. The 40-20-40 split acknowledges that introducing and closing customers are critical moments, while nurturing also matters.
LinkedIn's Multi-Touch Advantage: Unlike single-purpose channels, LinkedIn serves the entire B2B funnel—from reaching new audiences with sponsored content, to nurturing with thought leadership, to direct outreach via InMail, to retargeting warm prospects. This makes LinkedIn particularly valuable in multi-touch attribution.
Multi-Touch Attribution Summary
This interactive widget demonstrates how different attribution models distribute credit across 8 touchpoints in the B2B buyer journey.
Touchpoints in order:
- LinkedIn Sponsored Content (awareness stage) - LinkedIn touchpoint.Initial brand exposure via sponsored content in the LinkedIn feed
- Organic Search (awareness stage).Prospect searches for solutions and finds your content via Google
- LinkedIn Article (consideration stage) - LinkedIn touchpoint.Prospect reads thought leadership article on LinkedIn
- Webinar Registration (consideration stage).Prospect registers for educational webinar
- LinkedIn InMail (consideration stage) - LinkedIn touchpoint.SDR sends personalised InMail to engaged prospect
- Email Nurture (decision stage).Automated email sequence with case studies and ROI content
- LinkedIn Retargeting (decision stage) - LinkedIn touchpoint.Retargeting ads to website visitors on LinkedIn
- Demo Request (purchase stage).Prospect requests product demonstration
LinkedIn appears at 4 touchpoints across the journey, receiving 49% of conversion credit under the Position-Based (U-Shaped) model.
Your tracking infrastructure determines whether you can actually do performance marketing or just performance theatre.
Required:
- LinkedIn Insight Tag installed across your site
- UTM parameters on all ad destination URLs
- CRM integration (Salesforce, HubSpot) to track lead progression
- Lead source and campaign tracking in your CRM
Ideal:
- Offline conversion uploads to feed pipeline data back to LinkedIn
- Multi-touch attribution to understand LinkedIn's role in longer sales cycles
Without CRM feedback, you're optimising blind. You'll hit your CPL target while pipeline stays flat.
Step 3: Structure your account
How to Structure Your B2B Ad Account Hierarchy
B2B Campaign Account Structure
Interactive hierarchy showing Campaign Groups → Campaigns → Ads
Campaign Structure Best Practices
Campaign Groups
Organise by funnel stage or objective. Typical B2B accounts use 3-5 groups covering awareness, consideration, conversion, and retention.
Campaigns
Each campaign should have a single theme or audience. Set budgets at campaign level to control spend across related ads.
Ad Variations
Run 2-4 ad variations per campaign to test messaging. Mix formats (image, video, carousel) to find what resonates.
Performance Monitoring
Review metrics weekly. Pause ads with CTR below 0.5% and reallocate budget to top performers.
Keep your account structure simple enough to maintain signal density.
- Campaign groups: Organise by funnel stage or major initiative
- Campaigns: One per audience hypothesis (not one per creative variant)
- Ads: Multiple creatives per campaign to enable testing
Over-fragmentation is one of the most common mistakes. If you have 15 campaigns each spending $600/month, none of them have enough data to optimise properly.
Step 4: Build your audience strategy
LinkedIn's targeting is its primary advantage. Use it precisely.
How to Build a B2B Audience Targeting Matrix
Audience Targeting Matrix
ICP fit scores for B2B targeting combinations
Understanding ICP Scoring
ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) scoring helps prioritise targeting combinations that best match your ideal buyer. Higher scores indicate segments more likely to convert and deliver higher lifetime value.
Scores factor in seniority (decision-making authority), company size (budget and complexity), and job function (relevance to your solution).
Understanding B2B Audience Targeting
What is ICP-based targeting? ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) targeting focuses your advertising spend on prospects most likely to become valuable customers. Rather than broad targeting, you prioritise specific combinations of company attributes and job characteristics.
Key targeting dimensions:
- Seniority: Decision-making authority and budget control. C-Suite and VP-level have highest authority but smaller audience pools.
- Company Size: Enterprise (high ACV, long cycles), Mid-Market (balanced), SMB (faster decisions, lower ACV).
- Job Function: Relevance to your solution—target the buyers and influencers in your sales process.
The reach vs. quality trade-off: Higher seniority and larger companies mean smaller audiences but better-qualified leads. Lower seniority offers more reach but may require more touchpoints before purchase decisions.
Core targeting dimensions:
- Job function and job title
- Seniority level
- Company size
- Industry
- Geography
For ABM, upload your target account list and layer job function/seniority on top. This is LinkedIn's sweet spot.
Step 5: Develop your creative system
Creative fatigue is real on LinkedIn. Plan for rotation from the start.
Creative angles to test:
- Pain point agitation ("Still reporting on MQLs that never convert?")
- Outcome promise ("Pipeline visibility in 30 days")
- Social proof ("How [Company] increased SQLs by 47%")
- Contrarian take ("Your CPL obsession is costing you pipeline")
Formats to rotate:
- Single image (fastest to produce, solid baseline)
- Video (higher engagement, requires more production)
- Document/carousel (good for educational content)
- Conversation ads (for high-intent BOFU offers)
Build a creative backlog so you're never scrambling when performance dips.
Step 6: Landing page vs. lead gen form
How to Choose Between Lead Gen Forms and Landing Pages
Lead Capture Decision Tree
Lead Gen Form vs Landing Page — find the right approach
How This Decision Tree Works
Two key questions determine the right lead capture method: (1) Do you need custom qualification fields? (2) Is your offer self-explanatory?
LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms offer pre-filled data and 2-3x higher conversion rates for simple offers. Landing pages provide more context and custom field flexibility.
Which lead capture method is right for you?
Answer 2 quick questions to find out
Understanding Lead Capture Methods
LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms are native forms that auto-populate with the user's LinkedIn profile data. They offer 2-3x higher conversion rates because users don't leave the platform, and most fields are pre-filled.
Landing Pages provide more control over messaging, design, and qualification. They're essential when you need custom fields (budget, timeline, specific pain points) or when your offer requires explanation.
When to use Lead Gen Forms: Webinar registrations, content downloads, newsletter signups, simple demo requests—any offer where the value is immediately clear and you don't need extensive qualification.
When to use Landing Pages: Enterprise solutions, custom services, complex products, offers requiring case studies or social proof, and any campaign where you need qualifying questions beyond standard LinkedIn fields.
Pro tip: Test both methods with the same audience. Some offers perform better with landing pages despite the friction—particularly when the landing page content significantly improves lead quality.
This decision has real impact on both conversion rate and lead quality.
Use Lead Gen Forms when:
- You want maximum form fill rate (pre-populated fields reduce friction)
- Your offer is clear and doesn't need much explanation
- You have fast lead routing and sales follow-up
- You're optimising for volume at the top of a qualification funnel
Use landing pages when:
- Your offer needs explanation or context
- You want to pre-qualify with custom form fields
- You need tracking pixels for retargeting
- You're driving to a demo request or trial signup
Lead Gen Forms have no additional cost beyond your ad spend - LinkedIn doesn't charge extra for using them.
Lead gen forms: Quick checklist
If you're using Lead Gen Forms, follow these principles:
- Keep fields lean: 3-4 fields typically. Every additional field reduces completion rate.
- Match ad to form: The form headline should echo the ad promise exactly.
- Route leads fast: Leads from Lead Gen Forms should hit your CRM and sales team within minutes, not days.
- Use hidden fields: Pass UTM data and campaign info to your CRM for attribution.
- Test confirmation CTAs: The thank-you screen can drive a secondary action (website visit, content download, LinkedIn follow).
KPIs that define "performance" on LinkedIn
The metrics you track determine the decisions you make. Track the wrong things and you'll optimise toward the wrong outcomes.
How to Set Up a B2B Marketing KPI Dashboard
KPI Dashboard
Color-coded performance indicators for B2B campaigns
Understanding KPI Status Indicators
Traffic light system: Green (on track) means the metric meets or exceeds targets. Amber (monitor) indicates performance trending toward thresholds. Red (action needed) flags metrics requiring immediate attention.
Focus on red metrics first, then investigate amber trends before they become critical.
Understanding B2B Marketing KPIs
Key metrics explained:
- CTR (Click-Through Rate): Percentage of impressions that result in clicks. Benchmark: 0.5-1.0% for LinkedIn, 2-5% for Google Search.
- CPC (Cost Per Click): Average cost for each ad click. LinkedIn B2B typically ranges $5-15 depending on targeting.
- CVR (Conversion Rate): Percentage of clicks that become leads. Benchmark: 2-5% for landing pages, 5-15% for Lead Gen Forms.
- CPL (Cost Per Lead): Total spend divided by leads generated. Varies widely by industry: $50-500+ for B2B SaaS.
- MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads): Leads meeting minimum qualification criteria for sales follow-up.
- ROAS (Return on Ad Spend): Revenue generated per pound spent. 3x+ is typically considered profitable for B2B.
Setting thresholds: Benchmarks vary by industry, ACV (average contract value), and sales cycle length. Set your thresholds based on historical data and business objectives, not industry averages alone.
Trend analysis: Individual snapshots can mislead. Track trends over 4-8 weeks to identify genuine performance patterns versus normal fluctuations.
Platform KPIs (Campaign Manager)
| Metric | What it measures | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| CTR | Ad relevance and creative effectiveness | High CTR with low conversion = wrong audience or weak offer |
| CPC | Cost efficiency of clicks | Means nothing without conversion context |
| CPM | Cost to reach 1,000 people | Useful for awareness, irrelevant for performance |
| Form fill rate | Lead Gen Form conversion | Low rate = too many fields or misaligned offer |
Funnel KPIs (CRM)
| Metric | What it measures | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| CPL | Cost per lead (any lead) | Optimising to CPL alone destroys lead quality |
| CPQL | Cost per qualified lead | Better, but still a leading indicator |
| Lead-to-SQL rate | Quality of leads generated | If this is below 10%, your targeting or offer needs |
| SQL velocity | Time from lead to qualification | Slow velocity = sales follow-up or lead quality |
Revenue KPIs (Pipeline)
| Metric | What it measures | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per opportunity | Cost to generate a sales-ready deal | The metric your CFO actually cares about |
| Pipeline generated | Total value of opportunities created | Absolute number matters for forecasting |
| Pipeline ROAS | Pipeline value ÷ ad spend | Your north star for LinkedIn performance |
Your north star: Cost per qualified pipeline dollar (or pipeline ROAS). If you spend $10,000 and generate $150,000 in pipeline, your pipeline ROAS is 15x. That's the number that justifies continued investment.
Optimisation playbook: How to improve pipeline efficiency
Budget and bidding
- Give campaigns time to learn: LinkedIn needs 15+ conversions per campaign before optimisation algorithms stabilise. Don't kill campaigns after 3 days.
- Consolidate sparse data: If you have multiple low-spend campaigns, combine them to improve signal density.
- Avoid maximum delivery bidding: It often leads to higher costs. Start with manual CPC bidding for control.
Audience refinement
- Tighten exclusions: Exclude existing customers, open opportunities, competitors, and people who've already converted.
- Adjust seniority: If leads aren't converting, you may be reaching too junior. Shift toward Director+ or VP+.
- Refresh ABM lists: Target account lists go stale. Update quarterly based on ICP fit and intent signals.
- Expand retargeting windows: 90-180 day windows often outperform 30-day windows for B2B consideration cycles.
Creative optimisation
How to Plan Your Ad Creative Rotation Schedule
Creative Rotation Calendar
4-6 week refresh cycle • Frequency > 3-4x triggers rotation
Understanding Creative Rotation
The 4-6 week rule: Ad creatives typically lose effectiveness after 4-6 weeks as audiences become fatigued. Monitor frequency to catch fatigue early.
Frequency thresholds: Below 3x is optimal. Above 3.5x signals declining engagement. Above 4x usually requires immediate creative refresh.
Understanding Creative Fatigue & Rotation
What is creative fatigue? Creative fatigue occurs when your target audience sees the same ad too many times, leading to declining engagement rates (CTR, engagement) and eventually "banner blindness" where they ignore your ads entirely.
Key signals of fatigue:
- Frequency rising above 3-4x per user
- Declining CTR over consecutive weeks
- Increasing CPC as the algorithm struggles to find engaged users
- Negative feedback or ad hide rates increasing
Rotation best practices: Don't refresh all creatives at once—stagger launches so you always have proven performers running. Keep 2-3 variations active per campaign to let the algorithm optimise delivery.
Refresh strategies: Update visuals while keeping proven messaging. Test new hooks or angles. Introduce new formats (video, carousel) to break pattern recognition. Archive top performers for reuse after a 4-6 week cooling-off period.
- Rotate before fatigue: Refresh creative every 4-6 weeks, or when frequency exceeds 3-4x.
- Test one variable at a time: Headline vs. headline, image vs. image. Multivariate tests require huge budgets.
- Lead with proof: Case studies, specific numbers, and customer logos outperform generic benefit statements.
- Match creative to funnel stage: Educational content for TOFU, proof and urgency for BOFU.
Sales alignment
Marketing can generate perfect leads. If sales doesn't follow up, pipeline dies.
- Establish lead response SLAs: Leads should be contacted within 4 hours, not 4 days.
- Implement lead scoring: Prioritise high-fit, high-engagement leads for immediate outreach.
- Audit the handoff: Where are leads dropping off between form fill and meeting? Fix the leakage.
- Create feedback loops: Sales should tell marketing which leads were good and why. Use that data to refine targeting.
Common mistakes that kill LinkedIn performance
Optimising to CPL instead of CPQL or SQL
How to Evaluate CPL vs Cost per SQL
CPL vs Cost per SQL
Why higher CPL can deliver better ROI
How This Comparison Works
The Formula: Cost per SQL = CPL ÷ SQL Rate
This comparison demonstrates why optimising for lower CPL alone can be misleading. Lead quality (measured by SQL conversion rate) often matters more than lead volume for B2B pipeline efficiency.
Understanding CPL vs Cost per SQL
What is CPL (Cost Per Lead)? CPL measures how much you pay to generate a single lead through your marketing campaigns. While it's the most common metric for evaluating lead generation efficiency, it can be misleading when used in isolation.
What is Cost per SQL? Cost per SQL (Sales Qualified Lead) measures the true cost of generating a lead that's actually ready for sales engagement. It accounts for lead quality by factoring in the conversion rate from lead to SQL.
The Formula: Cost per SQL = CPL ÷ SQL Conversion Rate. A $50 CPL with a 5% SQL rate equals $1,000 per SQL. A $80 CPL with a 15% SQL rate equals just $533 per SQL—nearly half the cost.
Why this matters: Many B2B marketers optimise for lower CPL without considering lead quality. This often results in flooding sales teams with unqualified leads, wasting SDR time and reducing close rates. Focus on Cost per SQL (or Cost per Opportunity) to measure true campaign efficiency.
When to use each metric: CPL is useful for top-of-funnel comparisons between channels. Cost per SQL is essential for evaluating actual ROI and making budget allocation decisions between campaigns with different audience qualities.
This is the most common and most damaging mistake. You hit your $50 CPL target. Marketing celebrates. Sales complains the leads are rubbish. Pipeline is flat.
CPL measures quantity. CPQL and SQL rate measure quality. Optimise to the latter.
Over-fragmented account structure
You have 20 campaigns, each targeting a slightly different audience variant. None of them have enough conversion data to optimise. LinkedIn's algorithm can't learn. You can't draw conclusions.
Consolidate. Fewer campaigns with more budget each will outperform fragmented structures.
No CRM feedback loop
If you can't see what happens after the form fill, you're optimising in the dark. You need to know which campaigns generate SQLs, which generate pipeline, and which generate revenue.
Connect your CRM. Upload offline conversions. Close the loop.
Offer misalignment
Serving a demo request ad to a cold audience. Promoting an awareness-stage ebook to retargeting audiences who've already engaged. Misalignment wastes spend and confuses prospects.
Match your offer to the audience's stage. TOFU audiences get educational content. BOFU audiences get conversion offers.
How we approach LinkedIn (from a performance marketing perspective)
At Scalewell, we treat LinkedIn as a pipeline channel, not a lead channel. That means every campaign we build connects back to your CRM and revenue data, so we're optimising toward qualified demand and closed revenue, not impressions and form fills.
Our approach follows three principles:
- ICP-first targeting: We start by defining your Total Addressable List, the specific accounts and personas that represent your best-fit customers. Every targeting decision flows from that foundation.
- Full-funnel measurement: We build reporting frameworks that track performance from first touch to closed revenue. You see exactly how LinkedIn contributes to pipeline at every stage.
- Continuous optimisation based on revenue data: We don't just react to platform metrics. We use CRM feedback to refine audiences, creative, and offers based on what actually converts to pipeline.
The result: paid media that delivers qualified demand, not vanity metrics.
Ready to connect your LinkedIn spend to pipeline?
Frequently Asked Questions
Written by
Dragos MaricaFounder & Growth Strategist
Based in London, and rooted in performance, Dragos blends sharp strategy with hands-on execution to help B2B, SaaS, and tech brands turn paid media into real pipeline. His work sits at the intersection of data, creativity, and commercial impact.
Turn LinkedIn spend into measurable pipeline
If you're running LinkedIn campaigns and can't connect the spend to pipeline, we should talk.
