LinkedIn Ads for Businesses
LinkedIn Advertising Strategy for B2B Companies in 2026
Why do you need a LinkedIn advertising strategy, and who is it for?
LinkedIn should be a central channel of a company’s Branding marketing strategy and correspondingly recruiting and recruiting.
With 4 out of 5 LinkedIn members driving business decisions for their companies, and 80% of B2B leads coming from LinkedIn.
Unsurprisingly, LinkedIn is known as the premier social media platform for professionals.
If they aren’t already, here’s why your company should consider building a LinkedIn advertising strategy in 2026 and how to make it successful.
What Is LinkedIn Advertising and How It Works
LinkedIn Campaign Manager Explained
What is LinkedIn advertising?
LinkedIn Advertising works through LinkedIn’s All-in-One advertising platform, Campaign Manager.
With the dynamic and efficient setting of ad accounts, objectives, audience, format, budget, and timing of the advertising campaign.
Choosing your ad objective is the first step in creating a LinkedIn ad.
Your purpose defines the strategies and tactics needed to achieve your business goals, whether it’s awareness, consideration, or conversions.
These include brand awareness, website visits, engagement, video views, lead generation, website conversions, and job applicants.
Next, you’ll select an ad format.
These ad formats vary based on the target chosen, but can include video, single-image, carousel (various images), and in-mail (internal LinkedIn email).
Target the right audience for your business.
LinkedIn has over 600 million members.
And 40% of them visit the professional social network every day.
It’s an opportunity to reach your target audience when they’re most engaged.
For B2B companies, LinkedIn is the most effective platform for delivering content and ensuring audience engagement.
Marketers can collaborate with a community of professionals, including influencers, decision-makers, and executives, driving adequate and relevant actions for your business.
You can target an audience through LinkedIn’s targeting capabilities based on location, company, industry, age, gender, education, work experience, job title, and more.
Target audience for viewing the ad
Targeting who can see your ad is the next step in building an ad and meeting your campaign goal.
The more specific and relevant the content is to your audience, the better it will perform.
Make B2B what it can be: a goal, an effective service for your business.
Rethink what B2B marketing can mean for your business with tools built for you.
Read more about advertising solutions with the support of digital marketing and design at the end of this article.
Choosing the Right Advertising Objective
LinkedIn Ad Formats and Campaign Goals
Choose your LinkedIn ad format based on your goal and customer journey.
Find the link below about the customer journey.
Choose the goal that best suits your purpose.
Advertisers can create full-funnel marketing campaigns by choosing the objective that best meets their advertising needs—awareness, consideration, or conversion.
They are designed to grow media campaigns and audience appreciation.
They are perfect for increasing engagement, driving website traffic, and getting video views.
Learn how to cultivate and engage your target audience in our B2B Playbook, or scroll down and select your target below to see which LinkedIn ad formats we recommend for driving your review.
Targeting the Right Audience on LinkedIn
Advanced LinkedIn Targeting Options (2026 Update)
1. Website Traffic.
Get more people to visit your website.
2. commitment.
Followers, social actions, and company pages increase the brand awareness of your business.
3. Video Views.
Why LinkedIn Ads Are Critical for B2B Marketing
LinkedIn advertising has higher engagement rates, conversion rates, and a 13.5% lower cost per acquisition when you use LinkedIn’s conversion tracker.
Measuring LinkedIn Ads Performance
Better results and lower costs are precisely why LinkedIn advertising should be part of your overall marketing strategy.
Promote your business
Promote your organization’s advertising to targeted audiences on desktop, mobile, and tablet.
Once you’ve chosen your target and created your audience, you must select an ad format for your campaign.
Depending on the goal of your campaign, you’ll choose from sponsored content formats, message ads, or text ads.
Sponsored content ads promote LinkedIn posts and can be in an image, video, or carousel format.
These campaigns can run as native news feed ads and are appropriate if your goals include engagement.
Leveraging sponsored content ads is a great way to ensure your ideal customer consumes your content.
Message ads or LinkedIn Inmail are highly targeted messages delivered directly to incoming LinkedIn members.
These ads offer an open rate of over 50%, and LinkedIn mentions are more successful at driving conversions than emails.
Text ads are available as a pay-per-click (PPC) advertising option. These ads appear in the right rail and top banner on the desktop and include a short title, blurb, and a small square image.
After choosing the right creative, assigning a budget, and launching your ad, the fundamental part of your marketing strategy can begin: tracking your progress and analytics.
Measure the performance of your ads through key performance indicators (KPIs), such as clicks, spending, and conversions, across your campaign manager dashboard.
As of 2026, LinkedIn remains the most reliable platform for B2B lead generation.
LinkedIn Ads FAQ (2026 Updates)
Quick answers you can place at the end of your LinkedIn Ads page. Built for clarity, performance, and compliant tracking.
What’s the best LinkedIn Ads goal to start with in 2026?
- Website Visits / Traffic for warm-up and top-of-funnel testing.
- Lead Generation if you want in-platform leads (forms) with lower friction.
- Website Conversions only after tracking is verified (Insight Tag / Conversions API) so the algorithm learns from real outcomes.
What are Predictive Audiences and when should I use them?
What is BrandLink and why does it matter for B2B?
What changed in targeting and privacy for LinkedIn Ads in Europe?
- High-quality first-party audiences (site visitors, engaged users)
- Context + job function relevance (where available)
- Clean measurement (so optimization doesn’t depend on risky targeting shortcuts)
How do I track real conversions (not just clicks) in 2026?
- LinkedIn Insight Tag (base tracking) and event configuration
- Conversions API to improve measurement when browsers block cookies and to send server-side events (recommended for serious lead-gen and sales funnels)
Which ad formats usually perform best for modern LinkedIn campaigns?
- Single Image for fast testing + clear offer
- Video for authority, trust, and “explainer” storytelling
- Document-style value assets (guides/checklists) when the goal is lead quality
- Message-style experiences only when targeting is tight and the offer is strong