Building brand awareness on LinkedIn is more complex than most B2B marketers expect. The platform offers multiple objectives, formats, and targeting options – and choosing the wrong combination can quickly drain your budget without results.
Through running our LinkedIn ads agency and managing campaigns for B2B SaaS companies, I’ve learned that brand awareness isn’t just about reaching more people. It’s about reaching the right people with the right message at a cost.
The challenge with LinkedIn brand awareness campaigns is that only 5% of your audience is in-market at any given time. The other 95% need to be nurtured differently. You can’t just run ads and hope for the best.
In this guide, I’ll share the specific strategies and tactics for building effective brand awareness campaigns on LinkedIn – from choosing the right objective to selecting formats that match your goals and budget.
Key Takeaways
1. Your Objective Choice Determines Your Costs: Don’t choose objectives based on their names. Brand Awareness objective works best for Thought Leader Ads, but for single images, use Website Visits objective to only pay for actual clicks, not impressions.
2. Video Builds Audiences Fastest and Cheapest: Video views cost $0.02-0.05 compared to $15-30 per click for single images. Use video with Brand Awareness objective to build large retargeting pools quickly, then follow up with single images for conversion.
3. Match Your Format to Your Audience Stage: Use video for cold audiences to build awareness cheaply, single images for rapid message testing and driving traffic, and Thought Leader Ads when you need to build trust and authority. Each format has its place in the funnel.
1 – Targeting Strategies for Brand Awareness Campaigns
There are two key targeting strategies a LinkedIn marketer can harness for brand awareness campaign success.
ABM vs General Awareness: Investigating the 2 Key LinkedIn Targeting Strategies
1.1 – Account-Based Marketing (ABM)
ABM involves figuring out and then targeting high-value perspectives on LinkedIn and homing your brand awareness campaign on them.
AMB is a popular strategy amongst B2B marketers because it is ideal for this area of business advertising, and also it focuses on building a deeper level of understanding and awareness than more “surface-level” marketing. It will also unite marketing and sales forces that have a joint focus.
With account-based marketing, it is highly likely you will need to liaise with the sales team of the organisation you’re building the campaign for (be it for your own company, or a third-party organisation). This is because sales teams are experienced in gaining knowledge, speaking the (metaphorical) language of, and building rapports with potential buyers, which of course, results in conversions.
Building an Accounts List
A key part of ABM is compiling a list of high-value accounts. And again – liaising with the sales team is vital in order to connect with the right profiles (AKA, the decision-makers within organisations) and can identify where the perspectives are within their buying journey. You can then either aim your campaign at these targets specifically, or you can build a “replica” account list of similar prospects.
Once you’ve put together your accounts list, you can then upload it to LinkedIn via the Campaign Manager and the Account Targeting feature.
Influencing the Decision-Makers
This is where it’s important to have established a deeper connection and understanding with the prospects on your accounts list. Once you’ve done this, you can then discern their core values and needs, and then tailor your campaign’s content in accordance with these values and needs.
Account-based marketing can be challenging because it puts the marketer in the position of needing to approach the message within their campaign on a deeper level than any other campaign type in order to gain the brand awareness you desire.
1.2 – General Brand Awareness
Moving on to the other option: general awareness. Even if you decide to bypass the ABM approach, you’ll still need to strategise a way of garnering the awareness you desire for your brand.
The key to success within any brand awareness marketing approach is putting your content in front of the right audiences – AKA, hot leads (leads who are ready and willing to convert). And using the tools within LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager can help you do this.
LinkedIn’s Targeting Filters & Parameters (Via Company Data):
- Company name.
- Company industry.
- Company size.
- Job title.
- Job function.
- Job seniority.
- Member schools.
- Fields of study.
- Degree.
- Member skills.
- Member groups.
- Member gender.
- Member age.
- Location.
Depending on what scale you would like to build brand awareness, you can refine these filters accordingly to build to the most specific, targeted audience possible.
When building a brand awareness audience, it’s wise to aim for an audience of minimum 300,000 LinkedIn members. This should at least guarantee a return-on-investment of your budget costs. Remember: the less parameters you use, the more broader your audience will be.
Your metrics will help you discern how warm these audience members are by whether or not they engage with your campaign the way you’d like. This can then provide the insights you need to tweak your campaign, if need be.
LinkedIn Layered Targeting
In order to optimise the potential of your LinkedIn brand awareness campaign, it can be wise to deploy layered targeting tactics. You can do this by focusing on both audiences and buyer personas for different campaign types, which will help you with personalisation of ads, which is a lucrative approach to marketing on LinkedIn.
Also, it is important to find the “sweet spot” when narrowing down the different audience filters to use – using too many can limit the amount of audience members you gather, and using too many will result in an audience that is too broad and vague. Neither of these approaches will generate success. Choosing the right amount predominantly depends on your industry.
2 – How to Build Effective Awareness Campaigns on LinkedIn Ads
Now you’re familiar with the types of targeting campaign options there are on LinkedIn, let’s look at optimising your brand awareness campaign to maximise its success:
2.1 – What Campaign Objective to Choose
The campaign objective you choose determines what LinkedIn charges you for, not just how the algorithm optimizes. Most marketers pick objectives based on their names without realizing the cost implications and/or performance – and that’s where they waste budget.
Understanding LinkedIn Objectives for Brand Awareness
Through my experience running hundreds of LinkedIn ads campaigns for B2B companies, here’s what actually works:
Brand Awareness Objective: I use this primarily for Thought Leader Ads. It offers lower CPMs and more cost-effective landing page clicks without penalizing you for creating engaging content. But for single images? You’ll pay for impressions without meaningful engagement.
Website Visits Objective: This is my go-to for single image ads, even in awareness campaigns. You only pay for clicks that actually reach your landing page – not for profile views, social actions, or other engagement. Much better control over spend.
Video Views Objective: The cheapest way to build retargeting audiences. I typically see $0.02-0.05 per view compared to $15-30 CPCs for single images. Perfect for top-of-funnel when you need to build large audiences fast.
Engagement Objective: Be very careful here. LinkedIn charges you for everything – likes, comments, shares, profile views, even clicks on hashtags. I’ve seen companies burn through $5,000 in a week paying for meaningless social actions. Only use this if social proof is your primary goal. In general, you’ll get lots of comments and social shares but low quality traffic
Don’t let objective names fool you. Understand what each one actually charges for and optimize accordingly.
2.2 – Select the Right Format
Choosing the right ad format is crucial for your brand awareness campaign success. Each format serves different purposes and performs differently depending on your objectives and content strategy.
Thought Leader Ads (TLA)
Thought Leader Ads let you promote content from your employees’ personal LinkedIn profiles rather than just your company page. In my experience, they generate higher engagement because people trust individuals more than corporate accounts. A must-have format for a brand awareness strategy.
Always use Brand Awareness objective for Thought Leader Ads. It gives you lower CPMs and more cost-effective landing page clicks without penalizing you for creating engaging content. Engagement objective will cost you 40-60% more for the same results.
Video content in Loom style with shared screen works particularly well, especially to showcase a feature or a short product tour. This personal approach creates authenticity that resonates. You’ll get better CTRs when switching from polished videos to screen recordings.
Expert Tip: Let your organic post gain traction first. Once you have good engagement (50+ reactions), insert links at the end with a clear CTA like “visit our website” or “book a demo.”
Through testing, these content types consistently perform:
- Customer success stories shared from your CEO’s perspective
- New features announced by your product lead
- Your executives commenting on industry trends
- Surveys and reports shared by executives (these generate more downloads than traditional ebooks)
Only use executives or employees who are already active on LinkedIn – this helps get organic traction. Keep it real, don’t try to polish your style. People love authenticity. Focus on helping first – a TLA post is not a sales brochure.
Video Format
Videos are the fastest and cheapest way to build retargeting audiences. Video viewer audiences build faster than single image format, and the cost per view is typically 10x cheaper than a single image click.
Focus on two things only: the specific problem your audience faces and how you solve it. Don’t try to capture leads at this stage. Your audience doesn’t know you yet, and asking for conversions too early kills performance.
Most B2B videos fail because they’re not made for LinkedIn. They’re created for websites, meant to be watched on desktop. But 90% of LinkedIn traffic is mobile, scrolling through their feed.
Here’s what I see constantly: 5-second logo animation (lost 50% of viewers), vague establishing shots (lost another 30%), product finally appears at 15 seconds (98% already gone).
Expert Tip: You have 2 seconds. Show your product and what it does immediately. Address the pain point in the first sentence. Skip your company intro – nobody cares at this stage.
Format for mobile first. Square or vertical videos stop the scroll better, but don’t go only vertical – you’ll miss the 10% of high-value desktop users who often convert better.
This isn’t the place for deep product demos. Your audience wants to know you can solve their problem, not how your backend architecture works. Save the details for retargeting.
Single Image Format
Single images remain the foundation of LinkedIn advertising. They’re quick to produce, easy to test, and consistently deliver results.
Single images excel when you have one clear message to communicate:
- What specific pain-points your company solves
- Promoting a piece of thought leadership content
- Highlighting one key differentiator
- Building visibility for major company news
For single images in awareness campaigns, use Website Visits objective, not Brand Awareness. Website Visits ensures you only pay for actual clicks to your landing page. With Brand Awareness objective, you’re paying for impressions from people who might not even notice your ad.
The challenge with single images is standing out. Your image needs to stop the scroll immediately. Use bright colors that contrast with LinkedIn’s blue interface. Data visualizations and problem-focused questions consistently outperform product screenshots.
Expert Tip: Keep your message laser-focused. One key point, one clear benefit. Don’t try to explain your entire value prop – just give them one compelling reason to learn more.
Single images are perfect for testing your messages and angles. I prefer starting by testing two creatives and two ad copies in the same campaign with the same topic. For example, one campaign with pain point angle #1 and one campaign with pain point angle #2. With $20-40 daily budgets per campaign, within 7-10 days you’ll know which messages resonate. Then you can double down on the winner while testing new angles.
2.3 – Organic Presence-Building
You can do this naturally just by posting and having a presence on LinkedIn, as well as using paid marketing strategies. That way you can test both options and see which is generating the most awareness for your brand.
Going for the organic approach involves posting/sharing content that is relevant to your audience’s needs. Keeping an eye on relevant trending topics is a good place to start, as well as engaging with them.
Taking advantage of features such as LinkedIn Events can also be useful.
2.4 – Analysis & Optimisation
This is where LinkedIn’s metrics come in handy. These are the metrics you’ll need to keep an eye on:
- Conversion (rate, cost per lead, and cost per conversion)
- Awareness (click-through rate, impressions, and clicks)
- Consideration (click-through-rate, clicks, and website visits)
It is important not to check your metrics until at least seven days into your campaign. Any sooner will not provide an accurate representation of the impact it is making. Be patient!
Also, consider a/b testing your campaigns to ensure optimal success.
3 – How to measure Brand Awareness on Linkedin Ads
Building brand awareness can be one of the most challenging aspects of marketing. However, when executed properly, you can see much tangible success.
Once your campaign has gone live, it is imperative you then wait for seven days to pass to allow your campaign to circulate and then regularly check your metrics. Once you can see how it is performing, you can make any necessary amendments to optimise it, if need be.
If your campaign’s call-to-action (CTA) leads to your website, don’t forget to add an Insight Tag to monitor your audience’s behaviour once they leave LinkedIn and click on your URL.
Tracking your campaign’s success on LinkedIn can be measured by the following metrics:
- Click-through-rate (CTR)
- Your campaign’s current reach
- Cost-per-1000-impressions (CPM)
- Engagement rate
Brand awareness is a crucial stage of online marketing, and often it needs to be implemented prior to creating a campaign that focuses exclusively on lead conversion (making sales, etc.). It will help you build your audience, stay ahead of your competitors, and will help you with campaigns down the line that are aimed at users at a different level of their buying journey.
Conclusion
Taking the time to create a brand awareness campaign on LinkedIn, and following the above steps to ensure it is performing at its optimum level, will not only provide you with the recognition you desire, but it will aid you in future campaigns.
If you’d like to learn more about how we help B2B SaaS and Tech companies grow their MRR through LinkedIn advertising, contact us online or send us an email today at info@getuplead.com to speak with someone on our team.
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