LinkedIn Ads examples: 5 examples of B2B advertising

LinkedIn is the premier professional social network that no B2B brand can afford to ignore. Yet, surprisingly few brands utilize it as an advertising platform, even though that is where we believe the real opportunities lie. In this article, we showcase inspiring LinkedIn ad examples from various clients, tailored to different campaign objectives. We share examples for brand awareness, website traffic, and lead generation, and dive deep into a series of video ads developed for one of our longest-running partnerships with Apex Dynamics BV.

In our campaign evaluations, we primarily rely on the Merkelijkheid LinkedIn Benchmark. This contains the anonymized results of all campaigns we’ve managed for our clients in recent years. It is an essential tool for gauging campaign performance and making timely adjustments. In this article, we share several examples:

• Apex Dynamics: Building brand awareness via LinkedIn
• Why LinkedIn is indispensable for supporting your trade show presence
• Why LinkedIn is the ultimate social platform for lead generation
• LinkedIn ad example for a B2B product launch
• LinkedIn ad example: Account-based lead generation

Apex Dynamics: Building brand awareness via LinkedIn

Apex Dynamics BV is a supplier of gearboxes, pinions, and racks. It is also our longest-running partnership, characterized by a strong focus on digital marketing and a high willingness to innovate. The various LinkedIn campaigns we’ve developed for Apex over the years are a perfect illustration of this. The goal: to increase brand awareness for Apex Dynamics BV among engineers involved in mechatronics and robotics. In these campaigns, we target people explicitly based on specific interests and skills rather than just their job titles or the companies they work for.

“With our LinkedIn ads, we are fishing outside our own pond, but with the right bait and for the right fish (target group)” – Thom van Oss, Director of Apex Dynamics BV.

Through these campaigns, we distribute various films that highlight the personal and service-oriented nature of Apex. The content focuses on products, expertise, and people; think of an Apex technical expert explaining the quality classes of racks, a brief tutorial on the Apex design tool, or the features of a specific gearbox line. Additionally, we run a series of films where Director Thom van Oss visits former members of Team Rembrandts, which Apex has enthusiastically sponsored for years. These films emphasize the experience these young engineers gained and how they apply those skills today at various Dutch technical firms.

Key characteristics and results from these campaigns:

• Average of 5,000 to 10,000 views per month
• Average Cost Per Mille (CPM) between €8 and €15
• An average view rate of 35.11% to 46.65% based on all impressions
• An average completion rate of 2.46% to 3.6% based on all impressions

LinkedIn is pre-eminently the platform where you can achieve visibility and brand awareness within your B2B target audience at a relatively low cost.

LinkedIn ad example: Optimizing trade show visits with awareness campaigns

In other campaigns, we combine brand awareness with sales support—specifically campaigns centered around trade shows. How often do you attend or exhibit at industry events? Our B2B clients typically attend several trade shows a year. However, the results of these visits and the associated efforts are often questionable or simply lack transparency. To amplify the impact of trade show attendance and investment, we support these events with LinkedIn campaigns.

One example is the Achema trade show, where one of our clients exhibited in 2022. The target group consisted of companies attending the fair, including both existing contacts and potential new relationships. Prior to the event, these contacts were approached by telephone for an appointment; the LinkedIn campaign served to support these conversations and build visibility in the lead-up to the show. The ad simply read “Meet us at Achema 2022 in Frankfurt” and linked to an article where the company’s management discussed the topics they hoped to address at the fair.

What did this deliver?

• Over 4,000 impressions among 600 people (a highly specific target group)
• 50% of the target group was reached during the summer holiday period
• Over 50 clicks to the website

Besides visibility, the most important result was the increase in high-quality conversations during the fair. An additional challenge in this specific campaign was the summer period, when fewer people are working and active on LinkedIn. Our key lesson from this campaign: start advertising earlier if your trade show takes place during or immediately after the summer holidays.

LinkedIn ad example: Lead generation

By far, our clients use LinkedIn most for lead generation, and the platform is perfectly suited for it. You don’t just want to show ads and drive traffic to your website for a targeted B2B audience; you want to make contact! LinkedIn offers several ways to do this, but our favorite is lead generation using native LinkedIn forms: contact details in exchange for a white paper, factsheet, or brochure. A LinkedIn lead generation ad example is a must-have for this article!

Over the past few years, we’ve executed multiple lead campaigns for a training agency focused on personal development and leadership. These lead campaigns are both a component and the ultimate goal of a larger strategy that includes phases focused on brand awareness and website traffic. Here are some results from one of these lead campaigns:

• Over 11,000 impressions among more than 8,000 people
• CPM of €22.50 and a cost of €30.48 to reach 1,000 unique individuals
• 3.19% Click-Through Rate (CTR)
• 20 leads, with a Cost per Lead (CPL) of €12.50

A few months later, the same target group and campaign generated another 10,000+ impressions and 10 leads, this time at a CPM of €18.44 and a CPL of €18.18. This campaign is a great example of the success of repetition: repeating your message across different campaign types leads to more leads.

Brand awareness and website traffic campaigns for a B2B product launch

For one of our clients, a Dutch manufacturer of packaging machines, we have managed various Google and LinkedIn campaigns for years. Last year, they introduced an innovative new product that offers both their existing customer base and potential new clients a completely fresh packaging solution—one that even works on competitors’ machines.

The question then arises: how do we ensure as many people as possible are introduced to our new product? Alongside all usual channels like dealers, the website, and newsletters, we quickly began advertising on both Google and LinkedIn. Following successful LinkedIn campaigns in the medical sector, we turned our focus to the retail market in the Netherlands and Germany. This campaign consisted of two parts: one focused on brand awareness and one on website traffic. A snapshot of the results:

• Over 22,000 impressions
• Average of 3 views per person
• Average CPM of €35.82
• 44 clicks to the website

Case: LinkedIn advertising for account-level sales support

How do you achieve visibility among the decision-makers at companies you want to do (more) business with? LinkedIn is the only platform that guarantees visibility within these specific organizations. For a Dutch company active globally in the high-tech and semiconductor industries, we regularly build and optimize campaigns to support their account-based sales teams. Compared to the previous lead generation example, this is a great illustration of LinkedIn lead gen in a highly technical market. The approach is also different; we opted for account-based LinkedIn campaigns.

The advantage of account-based LinkedIn campaigns is that the target group is extremely specific, usually consisting of one or a few companies and a selection of job titles. This allows us to tailor the ads precisely to the needs of that specific audience. Here are some anonymized results from various campaigns:

• In one and a half months, ads were visible an average of two to four times
• The CPM of €9.46 is significantly lower than the average for an awareness campaign in our benchmark (€15.01)
• The CTR of the website campaign was exceptionally high at 1.61%, well above our benchmark average (0.74%) and even higher than 75% of the campaigns in our data (0.90%)
• The Cost Per Click (CPC) was also remarkably low at €0.76, compared to the benchmark average of €4.50
• The lead phase of this campaign yielded 3 leads at a Cost Per Lead of €83.31. While this is below the average lead count in our benchmark, it represents a very low CPL for our client’s specific market and was therefore a highly successful result.

The ad creative (text and image) determines the number of clicks and the CTR. In this campaign, we found that combining ads for different services and specialties within a single campaign worked well. This allowed us to appeal to various areas of expertise within the target group—something for everyone. This was also an effective choice because our client’s objective was to present the brand from multiple angles. Ultimately, it wasn’t about one specific product, but rather the entire enterprise as the ideal high-tech partner.

This method of LinkedIn advertising is so targeted it’s almost like placing a billboard directly in front of your warmest leads’ office building. No other platform offers the ability to create guaranteed visibility with your specific potential customer. That is why we believe LinkedIn is an indispensable tool for every sales team.

Want to see more LinkedIn ad examples?

In recent years, LinkedIn has proven itself across countless campaigns and industries as a premier platform for lead generation. While results vary significantly by sector, we believe that advertising on LinkedIn, including lead generation campaigns, should be a staple in any B2B online marketing plan.

Curious why LinkedIn is the right B2B platform for your brand and how we can use it to drive visibility, awareness, traffic, and leads? We’d love to start a conversation and show you, through even more examples and data, why LinkedIn is essential to your digital strategy. Want to learn more? You can find all our insights on our LinkedIn advertising page.