LinkedIn Benchmark results 2023

We mainly work for B2B companies active in Western Europe. These brands primarily use LinkedIn Advertising to acquire new customers, with a minority using it to reach existing relationships. Our experience shows that a LinkedIn Advertising strategy with 3 campaigns; brand awareness, website visit, lead generation, yields the best results. The most leads. Therefore, in this article, we discuss the KPIs of these phases.

CTR LinkedIn benchmark

What percentage of your views lead to a click? This is called the Click Through Rate (CTR), and it’s a KPI we look at in every campaign. The CTR indicates interest in your topic, product, or service in combination with the advertisement. A high CTR is a good sign; with a low CTR, we first question whether the advertisement is appealing before examining its content. But, you should know what’s ‘normal’.

In the brand awareness phase, our campaigns have an average CTR of 0.49%. For all brand awareness campaigns, the CTR falls between 0.23% and 0.78% in 75% of the cases. The CTR in this phase is calculated based on all clicks on the campaign, not just clicks to your landing page but also clicks to your LinkedIn profile or one of the ad’s response options. So, the actual number of clicks to the landing page is often slightly lower.

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This picture changes when we look at campaigns aimed at website clicks. Here, only a click to your landing page counts. According to our LinkedIn benchmark, the CTR for this type of campaigns averages 0.74%. In 50% of the campaigns, the CTR is between 0.46% and 0.90%.

For lead campaigns, we see that the CTR is even slightly higher on average, namely 0.93%. Across all campaigns, the CTR in 50% of the campaigns is between 0.49% and 1.02%.

Average CPC LinkedIn Advertising Campaign

How much do you need to spend on average to achieve a click on LinkedIn? We assess this based on the Cost Per Click (CPC). Here, we see a less significant difference per type of campaign, which makes sense: generally, campaign types cost more as the desired action is more valuable. Therefore, a brand awareness campaign achieves many more impressions and reaches more people than a lead campaign. We also observed that the percentage of clicks increases in campaigns aimed at website clicks and leads, making the rising costs per click relatively bearable.

On average, a click on LinkedIn costs €2.05 to €4.28 for a Brand Awareness campaign. In a campaign aimed at website clicks, a click costs an average of €2.13 to €5.47, and for lead campaigns, the average Cost Per Click ranges from €2.86 to €7.21.

CPM LinkedIn benchmark

Perhaps the most important cost factor to monitor is your Cost Per Mille (CPM), the amount it costs to display your ad a thousand times. Cost Per Mille is a factor that allows you to easily compare the performance of different campaigns because it is calculated in the same way for every campaign goal, unlike, for example, clicks. Additionally, CPM is a commonly used (standard) bidding strategy, allows you to easily compare costs for different types of campaigns based on your CPM, and is a reliable factor for setting budgets for your next campaigns based on past results.

LinkedIn itself uses CPM as a crucial tool for determining campaign costs. But what is an average CPM for a LinkedIn campaign? According to our experience, the difference in CPM between different campaign goals is greater than the Cost Per Click. Our LinkedIn benchmark shows that the average CPM is €15.01 for a brand awareness campaign, rises to €26.21 when the goal is website clicks, and averages €36.66 for LinkedIn lead campaigns.

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The differences are smallest when we only look at brand awareness campaigns, with the CPM between €8.20 and €17.91 in 50% of the campaigns. The number of campaigns in which the CPM was higher is very limited. In campaigns for website traffic and leads, the differences are greater. In 50% of the campaigns aimed at website clicks, the CPM falls between €15.82 and €30.56. For lead campaigns, this range is between €22.50 and €41.91. The difference with the brand awareness campaigns is that we see more extreme results in both leads and website campaigns.

LinkedIn Benchmark: What Results Can You Expect?

Now that we know the average of several commonly used LinkedIn KPIs, let’s look at the results of different types of campaigns. What results can you expect from the different LinkedIn campaigns:

• Brand Awareness
• Website Traffic
• Lead Generation

Both reach and impressions are strongly influenced by the size of the target audience. Since our clients are active in B2B markets beforehand, we work with very specific target groups, often a niche, allowing us to achieve many impressions and a considerable reach with a relatively small budget. We generally aim to reach about 50% of the target group.

LinkedIn Brand Awareness Campaign Results

When you set up a campaign for brand awareness, the most important results are the number of impressions and the reach. This measures how many people have seen an advertisement at least once or multiple times.

On average, for every €100 campaign budget, we achieve about 6,662 views among approximately 2,750 LinkedIn members. That’s an average of 2.4 views per LinkedIn account.

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LinkedIn Website Traffic Results

The desired result of a website traffic campaign is, of course, to get as many people to the website as possible.

On average, we achieve 22 website visits for every €100 campaign budget. Additionally, there are the people who have seen the campaign in this phase; you continue to build brand awareness. On average, this amounts to 3,846 views.

LinkedIn Lead Generation Campaign Results: Costs and Benefits

But what does a LinkedIn lead generation campaign typically yield? This question is more complex, as the results vary more widely, and the propositions of our clients are so diverse. One approaches a very specific niche, while another has a much broader target group or offer. The leads are generally more valuable in the niche market, but the campaign also produces fewer leads on average.

The average cost per lead ranges from €24.55 to €99.98.

Free Webinar: Linkedin Advertising Benchmark

Lunch webinar on our LinkedIn Advertising Benchmark. Learn how you can optimize your campaign + get a unique tip. Watch live at the 14th of november 12:00 CET or receive the recording immediately after!

Ready to get started with LinkedIn advertising?

Merkelijkheid works for a wide range of companies in mainly B2B markets. For many companies, we successfully use LinkedIn to work on brand awareness, drive visitors to the website, and generate valuable leads.

In this post, we compile the hard results of our experience, but that’s not everyone’s cup of tea. If you want to explore the possibilities with us or have a specific question or goal in mind, please contact us, and we will discuss the organic and paid opportunities of LinkedIn with you!

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