LinkedIn Ads Aren’t Broken. You Just Haven’t Tested This Yet.
How to actually measure LinkedIn Ads
LinkedIn Ads Aren’t Broken. You Just Haven’t Tested This Yet.
A client asked us recently: “Should we just pause LinkedIn for a bit and double down on Google Ads?”
It wasn’t a flippant question. It was five months into a $10K+/month effort that was driving a handful of leads and a lot of frustration.
So we didn’t say “no.” We said:
“Let’s run a holdout test. Pause it — and track how it affects the rest of your pipeline.”
Because unlike other paid channels, LinkedIn sits in a weird liminal space in most B2B orgs.
It’s not quite brand.
Not quite demand.
Not quite direct response.
And most teams don’t take the time to measure it properly.
But done right? LinkedIn can be one of your most valuable full-funnel channels. You just have to run it differently.
1. Don’t just turn it off. Run a holdout test.
If you’re considering shutting down LinkedIn ads, don’t just flip the switch. Treat it like a real experiment:
Run a holdout test for 2–3 months. Pause spend on LinkedIn while keeping other channels steady.
Monitor net-new opportunities, site traffic, and direct traffic. Do they dip without LinkedIn running?
Check engagement & recall. Have your sales team ask if prospects have “seen your stuff on LinkedIn” during discovery.
This is how you figure out if LinkedIn is actually influencing pipeline — or just eating budget.
2. Treat LinkedIn like a full-funnel channel.
Too many B2B marketers use LinkedIn like a billboard: awareness only.
But that’s not how buyers behave. You need:
Top-of-funnel reach campaigns to get in front of the right people.
Mid-funnel engagement with doc ads, testimonials, founder content.
Bottom-funnel conversion plays like in-feed demo CTAs or InMails.
👉 We recommend allocating budgets across the funnel, not just TOFU:
20% for awareness
40% for mid-funnel education
40% for direct conversion
We've seen this approach work especially well in enterprise and healthcare segments, where buying cycles are long and multiple stakeholders are involved. For one healthcare client, we generate 1 opp/month directly from LinkedIn. In another case, the client over-indexed on TOFU and wasn’t seeing any sourced revenue — we’re now rebuilding their full-funnel structure.
3. Make sure your audience is actually on LinkedIn
Channel fit matters.
One client we worked with sells to IC engineers — they weren’t very active on LinkedIn. But when the company moved upmarket to target engineering leaders, LinkedIn became viable. (Although Twitter, Reddit, and newsletters also played a role.)
Your audience needs to be active and reachable on LinkedIn. If they’re not, no targeting trick will save you.
4. Measure influence the right way
Direct attribution doesn’t tell the full story. But that doesn’t mean you’re flying blind.
Here’s what to do instead:
Track account-level engagement — impressions, video views, and clicks from key accounts over time.
Correlate ad exposure with CRM activity. Did a deal come in after an account had 20+ impressions in a week? Note the timing and pattern.
Use AI to extract qualitative data from discovery calls. Have your reps ask: “Have you come across us before?” or “Did you ever see our stuff on LinkedIn?” Use tools like Grain or Gong to tag those mentions and sync them into the CRM.
Run brand recall studies every 3–6 months to check if your audience remembers you and your message.
All of these signals together will tell you if LinkedIn is moving the needle.
5. You don’t need gift cards to generate demos (but they work)
We’ve seen success running in-feed and InMail campaigns without offering a $100 incentive. They can help — especially in crowded categories — but they’re not required.
The key is creative sequencing:
Video or reach ads to build familiarity
Doc or carousel ads to educate
Clear demo CTAs once trust is built
You don’t need to bribe people to book a demo — just build a message they recognize and trust.
6. Community POV
Prompted by Ivars Krutainis 🦦:
“A real world pickle.
Here’s a situation. I have a client that we’ve been running LinkedIn ads for four, almost five months. It’s a technical product and ACV will range depending on the scope of deployment. It could be anywhere from $10k to $250k projects.
We started with target account lists. Adding job titles and member skills on top. It brought in some leads, but it soon dried out.
Then we went with native targeting. Focusing on specific industry verticals. Overlaying with job titles, member skills and company sizes. But we did not see significant uplift, so went back to account based targeting and contact lists (Clay).
We’re running image ads and conversation ads for lead gen. Founder promoted posts and document ads for engagement layer. We’ve tested driving traffic to website vs native lead gen. We’re working on video assets now.
The ad engagement is actually not bad. Image ads get 0.7-8% CTR cold and 1% CTR retargeting layer. Promoted posts get 8-10% and document ads get 3%.
But.
It’s only driving a few direct attribution leads per month. We do see some more influenced deals coming through. It’s always debatable, if the 57 paid impressions on account was the deciding factor for the client to sign up. Or was it all the other interactions they’ve had with the brand.
A lot of effort has gone into running various plays, and monthly budget is around $10-12k for LinkedIn. We’ve been at it for a while, and most brands by this point see more consistent lead flow.
What would you do?
A. Double down on account/contact lists and increase the budget to $20k.
B. Switch to engagement play with focus on founder content and video. Not expecting many direct leads, but building brand mental availability.
C. Pause LinkedIn ads and focus on other channels (paid search).
Practitioners weighed in:
💬 Kamil Newczyński commented:
“You might still get leads even after pausing the ads … In those cases, attribution methods break down … I’d continue with a hybrid approach A + B. Def. not C.”
→ Many warn against completely pulling the plug—LinkedIn may not show up in attribution, but its real value hides in influence and brand presence.
💬 Mo Fawzy suggested:
“Switch to a reach play … focus on founder content, video, social proof … Add a step for SDRs to validate … That’s how I’d do it 👍🏼”
→ Reinforces the idea of running a full‑funnel, keeping budget in awareness but with clear pathways to conversion and sales validation.
💬 Justin Hannemann chimed in:
“Wonder if there’s an option where you split ‘B’ into B1 and B2 where B1 runs 30% of the budget focussed on Brand (founder led/ emotional content) and B2 is offer based … switching offers …”
→ You don’t need to choose between brand or demand—design your funnel to serve both in parallel.
💬 Gabriel Ehrlich emphasized creative/offer fit:
“Good CTR, no conversions = offer or landing page issue. … Use Wynter to test messaging.”
→ If clicks aren’t leading to demos, the bottleneck is messaging or the value prop—not necessarily LinkedIn.
LinkedIn isn’t dead. But lazy LinkedIn is.
If you’re not seeing results, don’t assume the platform doesn’t work—assume your setup might need work.
Run a holdout test. Rebalance the funnel. Check your offer. Ask your sales team what buyers are saying.
And remember: the goal isn’t just impressions—it’s impact.
You don’t need to blow all your budget on reach ads or bribe your way to demos. You need message–market–channel fit. That’s where LinkedIn starts to pay off.