LinkedIn Retargeting That Converts: Setup, Content, and Tactics

On average, It takes 8 touches to schedule the first meeting. Touchpoints are more likely to happen where the prospect spends time, e.g., on LinkedIn.

Running retargeting on LinkedIn = more touch points.

However well-structured your LinkedIn marketing campaign may be, there’s never any guarantee for excessive conversion… or even a little conversion.

LinkedIn retargeting campaigns are similar to regular ad campaigns that you may have created in the past, but there are a few key areas that differ. This article explains in depth how LinkedIn retargeting ad campaigns work, how to set them up, and the best LinkedIn ads retargeting strategies used by our LinkedIn ads agency.

Did you know that only 6.1% of LinkedIn users who engage with your LinkedIn ad campaign may then go on to allow themselves to be driven and converted? Given the amount of users currently active on the site, that’s a disconcerting percentage. What happens to the rest of them? Well, they simply aren’t grabbed enough to convert for whatever reason.

While this may be scary and disheartening for many brands and marketers alike, fear not. Sometimes all it takes is a minor tweak or rewording of your LinkedIn ad campaign to turn a ‘no’ or ‘maybe’ into a ‘hell, yes’ from a lead. Another thing that helps? Hooking audiences who’ve already previously engaged with your brand on LinkedIn in the past. This is called a LinkedIn Retargeting Campaign and it is designed for brands looking to expand their lead generation with another digital marketing tactic.

Key takeaways

• Exclusions help improve efficiency: Removing current customers, job seekers, and irrelevant roles from your retargeting audiences helps avoid wasted spend and sharpens targeting.

• Company Engagement gives a broader signal than clicks: It lets you target companies based on collective behavior—not just individual actions—unlocking access to decision-makers who rarely engage directly.

• Tailor your retargeting content to match audience warmth: Use more detailed, high-intent formats like lead gen forms or demo CTAs for warm audiences, and lighter, trust-building content for cooler ones.

Case Study: How We Helped Kodo Survey to Generate 167% More Leads in 3 Months Using LinkedIn Ads

1 – What are LinkedIn Retargeting Ads?

We’ve all borne witness to the magic of retargeting campaigns, whether we know it or not.

We’ve all engaged in internet shopping (even just internet “window shopping”) for a particular product or service, and then have chuckled to ourselves when weeks later, we’re being bamboozled with ads and convenient reminders about the product in question on every website we visit.

Ladies and gentlemen, that is retargeting for you. It’s a brand’s way of reminding you that your desired product is still available and could you hurry up and purchase it, please?

How it works isn’t peer pressure, per se. How many times have we all been browsing the web for something and we’ve “ummed and ahhed” about it, and have been interrupted by a phone call or a family member needing assistance, and have then quickly forgotten about the product/service we were eyeing?  

The purpose of retargeting is to remind you that a brand exists and they’ve got what you need to solve a problem or improve your life in some way or another. In a nutshell, from a marketer/brand’s point of view, it is displaying ads to users who have previously engaged with your brand. It reminds them that they can trust you to service their needs again – and that they should do just that.

But where does the professional networking site, LinkedIn, fit into all of this? It works the exact same way. If you’ve previously run a LinkedIn ad campaign with the purpose to drive LinkedIn traffic to your website, a LinkedIn retargeting ad campaign will serve as a reminder to previous engagers that your website still exists and still caters to the user’s needs.

How does it work? LinkedIn’s algorithm keeps track of previous ad campaign engagers and is aware of who’s likely to be re-converted.

As with your initial LinkedIn ad campaign, you will be able to create a retargeting audience from multiple sources. For your retargeting campaign, your ads will be aimed at what’s called your “warm” audience (users who’ve already shown interest in your brand online in the past).

Here are your audience-building options:

• LinkedIn Members who viewed your ad video on LinkedIn.
• LinkedIn Members who interacted with your single image ads, document ads and conversation ads.
• Contact and/or companies sourced from a list of emails you’ve gathered and uploaded to LinkedIn.
• People who have visited your website but are also LinkedIn members.
• Leads who interacted or filled out a lead-gen form through one of your LinkedIn posts.

LinkedIn Retargeting Costs

While the conversion figures we mentioned earlier may have been somewhat daunting, you’ll be pleased to know that these statistics aren’t applicable to LinkedIn retargeting campaigns. On the contrary, success rates are much higher:

– 37% increase in CTR with contact targeting.

– 30% increase in click-through rate (CTR) with Website Retargeting ads.

– 14% decrease in post-click cost-per-conversion (CPC) with Website Retargeting ads.

If you’re wondering why LinkedIn retargeting ads are generally much more successful at guaranteeing a conversion, it’s because these users have already been converted in the past, or have at least liked your brand enough to engage with it. Hence why they’re considered a “warm” audience.

The other piece of good news? Not only is conversion more likely here, but a LinkedIn retargeting ad campaign will also lower your average cost-per-lead (CPL), thus almost guaranteeing a ROI in your LinkedIn ads budget.

2 – How to Create LinkedIn Ads Retargeting Campaigns

If all of this has piqued your interest, but you’re still wondering how to ensure you’re on the track to conversion success with your LinkedIn ads retargeting campaign – here’s how to go about it to guarantee maximum conversion.

2.1 – Set Up LinkedIn Pixel

You’re probably already aware how important KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) measures are within your digital ad campaign’s journey. LinkedIn allows conversion tracking – and the great news is, it’s quick and easy to set up.

Firstly, you’ll need to find your unique Javascript code. Here’s how to do that:

–  If you haven’t installed your Insight Tag yet, first go on to your LinkedIn campaign manager page

– Click on the account assets tab.

– This will then open a dropdown. From the Account Assets tab dropdown click on conversion tracking.

– Click on Data sources then click the Install my Insight Tag button.

– Click Manage Insight Tag button and select See tag from the dropdown.

Installing Your Insight Tab:

– Here you’ll need to Copy all of the tag code from the I Will Install The Tab Code Myself, then click I’m Done.

– On each page of your domain, scroll to the end of the <body> tag in the global footer.

– Paste the Insight Tag code you’ve just Copied just before the <body> tag ends.

Check each page for correct Insight Tag installation:

– Head back to Insight Tag under Account Assets. Correctly installed tags will send a signal from your website to LinkedIn when a user visits that page. The domain name will appear here too.

– LinkedIn will then need to verify this page, which can take up to 24 hours.

– Once verified, your verified domain will show up green (Active) in your Status column on LinkedIn.

2.2 – Build LinkedIn Retargeting Audiences

Now that you’re all installed with your Insights Tag, it’s time to start building your LinkedIn retargeting audiences. Here’s how:

– Head to your LinkedIn Campaign Manager (if you’re not there already) and select the account you’ll be working with.

– Find the Account Assets tab and select Matched Audiences.

– Click on Create Audience of the Matched Audiences page (located on the right side of the page).

– Select the audience type you wish to build.

– Scroll down and then choose Create to build a new audience.

Please note: it can take up to 48 hours to build an audience on LinkedIn, so don’t be miffed if you don’t see results immediately. Another thing to consider is that you’ll need a minimum of at least 300 LinkedIn users compiled as an audience before you’ll be able to send your retargeting ads.

Different audience pages will slightly differ in the way they appear. Here are the audience page options:

Website Audience Set Up

Naturally, the purpose of this variation is to retarget the LinkedIn users who have previously visited your website.

Here’s how to build a Website Audience on LinkedIn:

– Give your audience here a name. You’ll need to remember this name later in your campaigns, so be specific, or make note of what it is in case you forget.

– Add key pages from your website under Match A URL. This means you can add multiple links to one audience.

– Take stock of the page rules (this is important).

• Equals – this is the exact URL you list and is great to use when you want to restrict subpages. A useful option when you want to restrict subpages
• Starts with – includes all pages starting with whatever you enter.
• Contains – contains asks you to type in a word or string. This option would make it easy to group URLs in a pattern, like related products, service offerings, or article topics whose URL string includes the same keyword or phrase.
• AND/OR: Use AND to retarget users who both visit a page URL and visit another URL containing a word you specify. Use OR to group URLs and retarget people who visit any page listed.

Video Audience Set Up

Video ads are becoming increasingly popular in the digital marketing world, and LinkedIn’s platform is no exception. LinkedIn ad video retargeting allows you to target previous users who have viewed a video ad.

Here’s how to build this type of audience:

– Name the audience (same advice applies to making sure you recall this name).

– Choose the Viewing Percentage (25%, 50%, 75%, or 97% of the video).

– Select Lookback Period (30, 60, 90, 180, 365 days in the past).

– Click the checkbox next to the video campaigns you want to include.

– Click Create.

Video campaigns are a great way to quickly build retargeting audiences without spending much. I always create retargeting audiences for 30, 90, and 180 days to engage and re-engage people over time.

Using the “retarget people who watched 50% of a video ad” option my retargeting audiences grow fast.

Also, here are my internal benchmarks by format:

• Cost per 50% video view: $0.90 – $2
• Cost per click on a single image ad: $3.10 – $4.90

So it’s cheaper to build retargeting audiences with video campaigns than with image ads.

Expert Tip: Choosing the right video view percentage depends on the length of your video. If your video is 1 minute long, 50% view is a solid signal of interest. But if your video is 2.5 minutes, you can go with a 25% view—because the time spent to reach that point is already enough to indicate real interest in your content.

Lead Gen Form Audience Set Up

If you’ve previously used LinkedIn to generate leads with a lead-gen form, this approach will help you when retargeting that particular audience.

– Name your audience (same rules apply as above!)

– Select the engagement level you require. This can be users who opened your lead-gen form (including submissions), or only users who opted to submit your lead-gen form.

– You can specify how long ago the audience members engaged with this form (between 30 days to a year).

– Check the box next to the campaign/s you wish to retarget.

Company Page Audience Set Up

This variation is designed for audiences who have engaged with your company’s LinkedIn page as a whole (regardless of whether they engaged with the previous ad campaign or not).

The process is this:

– Name the audience (you get the picture!)

– Choose the engagement type you require. Engagement on a company’s LinkedIn Page includes a page view or a click on your page’s header Call To Action (CTA).

– Select how recently your page’s audience members engaged.

– Click Create.

Event Audience Set Up

This variation is only applicable to companies who schedule/create events on LinkedIn that require users to RSVP, and will allow you to retarget LinkedIn users who are likely to RSVP to an event.

Here’s how to do it:

– Name the audience.

– Check the boxes next to Event names to include the event/s you want to create.

– Click Create.

Single Image audience Set Up

Single image ad retargeting allows you to create an audience based on members who’ve engaged with your single image ad on LinkedIn. You can choose to create the audience based on any interactions people had with your ad or when people perform chargeable clicks on your ad.

– Name the audience.

– Select how your audience members engaged with your ads

– Click Create

Expert Tip: Never choose “any interactions with your ad.” Always go for “people who performed chargeable clicks.” These clicks are actually relevant and they include “see more” tecxt to expand intro text, comment, like, share, and clicks to your company page. You’ll end up with 40–50% more relevant users to retarget compared to using “any interaction with your ad.”

Case Study: How We Helped Kodo Survey Increase Demos by 167% Using LinkedIn Ads

2.3 – Use Matched Audiences in a LinkedIn Retargeting Campaign

For this method, you’ll need to set up a LinkedIn ads account. Once you’ve done this, you’ll have the freedom to create an ad campaign with any ad format (LinkedIn sponsored ads or InMail message retargeting). Once your LinkedIn ads account is set up, here are the next steps:

Step 1: Create a Linkedin campaign

Head to Campaign Manager and go through the usual set-up procedure.

– Create a New Campaign.

– Select a campaign group.

– Choose your objective.

Step 2: Use Matched Audience in Campaign

– Scroll to Who is Your Target Audience.

– Click Audiences > Retargeting.

– Select from the options of Matched Audiences: Company page, Events, Lead gen form, Video, Website.

– Choose the Matched Audience under that type. For example, Lead-Gen Form audiences.

– Finish out the campaign set up. Particularly, with ad format, placement, budget and schedule, bidding, and conversion tracking information.

– Move on to create your ads and launch the campaign.

Step 3: Create ads following LinkedIn retargeting best practices

While creating a LinkedIn retargeting campaign is not dissimilar to creating a generic ad campaign on the platform (with the focus being on retargeting previous audiences, of course), there are some good practices to follow to enhance your chances of success.

– Design your content to be specifically tailored to each audience. The bundled campaigns and URLs that come with Matched Audience are there to give you more resources to personalise your ads to better your chances of success. Match the audience’s previous action to what you know will appeal to them in this ad campaign.

– Use more than one ad format. Different ad formats are designed for different campaign objectives, so it is important to match your ad format with your campaign’s end goal.

– Always measure to improve (if need be). LinkedIn’s KPIs are there to help you improve and tweak your campaigns to maximise their success. Sometimes your ad campaign won’t hit the mark first time around – and your KPIs will highlight the areas in which improvement is needed. The only thing you won’t be able to do is alter the campaign’s objective.

Pro tip: With LinkedIn retargeting campaigns, try to avoid layering the other targeting options on top of your Matched Audience targeting.

2.4 – Leverage Audience Exclusions

To improve the efficiency of your campaigns and prevent wasted spend on not relevant companies or members , it’s essential to exclude irrelevant segments from your retargeting audiences.

Here are some strategic exclusions you should consider:

– Current Customers: Upload a list of existing clients or use account-based marketing (ABM) data to prevent showing ads to users who have already converted.

– Competitors: Exclude competitor domains or companies names to avoid wasting wasting impressions on these companies.

– Your company: Filter out your own company using company name criteria.

– Low segment Job titles and seniority : Remove students and interns jib titles and unpaid, training or entry seniorities if your focus is purely on decision-makers.

– Job seekers: Exclude the members trait attribute “Open to work” LinkedIn members from your campaign. There’s a higher chance they’ll click on your ad or visited your website to see if you have job opportunities.

Converted Users: If your conversion tracking event is tied to a thank-you page, create a retargeting audience for that page and use it as an exclusion.

3 – Retargeting Content

– Case studies
Nothing builds trust better than showcasing someone else who trusts you. Plus, it lets you talk about your product and how it helps.

– Testimonials
Same as case studies but with a human touch. Shows that is good to work with you. It is as important as the product itself.

– Product ads
Most B2B products are too complex to understand from a single landing page. Retargeting lets you dive deeper into different product features and use cases.

4 – Go Beyond Individual Retargeting with Company Engagement Level

Retargeting is the bread and butter of LinkedIn but one feature underused for many marketers: Company Engagement Level.

Unlike traditional retargeting which builds audiences based on individual behavior (clicks, video views, form submissions), Company Engagement gives a more holistic view and lets you tracks the behavior of of entire companies that are interacting with your brand. It combines signals from organic activity, paid engagement, website visits, and the number of targeted employees to give you a broader picture of how “in-market” a company might be. And it benchmarks that behavior against other advertisers.

Why does this matter? Because one click from one person doesn’t always equal buying intent. And in B2B, it rarely does. You’re selling to buying committees, not just individuals. Company Engagement helps you pick up on buying signals from across the account even from people who never interact with your ads directly.

It also gives you visibility into senior decision-makers who rarely engage with ads themselves but might be part of the buying process. Think C-levels who rely on their teams to gather solutions and vendors—they might never click, but their teams will.

You can take this even further by using engagement levels to segment companies by buying stage. For example:

• Cold: low activity across the board
• Warm: some engagement like multiple visits or ad clicks
• Hot: high engagement, frequent return visits, form submissions

Then use LinkedIn’s native targeting (job title, seniority, etc.) to narrow down your retargeting audience on the right people within those companies. High engagement doesn’t mean the entire company needs to see your ad—just the right stakeholders.

One note: This approach requires paid program maturity as well as data and content to work off. When you are just starting with LinkedIn ads, regular retargeting will serve you well. It works best when you’ve already got your LinkedIn program up and running with content, data, and a steady paid strategy in place. But once your basic retargeting setup is humming, this is a powerful move to level up your account-based targeting and it’s a big part of what makes LinkedIn the most plug-and-play ABM platform out there.

5 – Structure Your Retargeting Audiences

Structure your retargeting campaigns across 30, 90, and 180 days to stay top of mind.

My time windows are:

30-day audience – audience that is more likely to buy from you now

90-day audience – audience that is interested but needs more touchpoints

180-day audience – audience that is not interested in talking to you right now but may be in the future

It is fine to default to the 90-day audience when you start.

Not sure where to start? Here are 5 simple rules I often use to decide how and where to push content based on engagement level and format:

• When the content is more detailed (e.g. a precise explanation of how the product works), I usually run it in retargeting.
• When the format is more engaging (like a longer video or a lead gen form), I also tend to keep it for retargeting.
• If there’s a strong CTA like “Book a demo,” I mainly target the 30-day retargeting audience.
• I usually put most of the ad pressure on the 90-day retargeting audience — it’s the one that converts best.
• I often run Text Ads and Spotlight Ads on the 180-day audience to stay visible with a low cost.

Conclusion

So, there you have it! You’re now fully knowledgeable and ready to go with creating a killer Retargeting Ad Campaign on LinkedIn. Congratulations!

The key to successful marketing on LinkedIn is to understand your audiences and understand the objective behind your retargeting ad campaign – which is lead generation aimed at LinkedIn users who have previously engaged with your company’s LinkedIn page or your website. Those users are your key focus here. Retargeting does not work for users at the beginning of their buying journey with your brand, so be sure that your audiences are selected based on their previous engagement as outlined by LinkedIn’s KPIs.

It is likely that you’ll have more than one audience type, and your ad formats need to mirror the needs and desires of each specific audience. This is an important stage that will enhance your conversion success. Where available, try and personalise your content as much as possible. This is especially relevant if your campaign is an Inmail one, which lands directly into your audience’s LinkedIn message box while they’re active on the site.

Taking the time to understand how LinkedIn’s algorithm works in terms of marketing and sales will help you utilise this useful platform to ensure your brand gets the best out of this resource. LinkedIn is an ideal channel for B2B marketing; be that for lead generation, brand awareness, and everything in between. The trick is to stick to what works and always take stock of your measuring tools.

We hope you have found this article to be useful and insightful for your future LinkedIn marketing endeavours. Best of luck with your retargeting ad campaign!

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.

You might also be interested:

• Linkedin Ad Campaign Objectives: How to Choose the Right One
• LinkedIn Ads Targeting Options: The Complete Guide
• How to add a User to LinkedIn Campaign Manager?
• A Complete Guide to LinkedIn Tracking for Beginners
• Linkedin Bidding Strategies: The Complete Guide 
• LinkedIn Ad Optimization: Tips and Best Practices