LinkedIn ad example: 5 examples of B2B advertising

LinkedIn is the business social media platform that no B2B brand can do without. Yet, it is still used by relatively few brands as an advertising platform, while we believe that is where the real opportunities lie. In this article, we provide inspiring LinkedIn ad examples from various clients, focused on different campaign goals. For example, we share a LinkedIn ad example for brand awareness, website traffic, and lead generation. We also go into detail about a series of video ads on LinkedIn for one of our longest-running collaborations with Apex Dynamics BV.

In our campaign evaluations, we primarily rely on the Merkelijkheid LinkedIn Benchmark. The anonymized results of all campaigns we have run for our clients over the past years are included in this. It is an important tool to estimate how a campaign performs and to adjust in time. In this article, we share several examples:

• Apex Dynamics: Building brand awareness via LinkedIn
• Why LinkedIn is indispensable to support your trade show visits
• Why LinkedIn is the social media platform for lead generation
• LinkedIn ad example for B2B product launch
• LinkedIn ad example: account-based lead generation

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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, with a strong focus on online marketing and a high willingness to try new things. The various LinkedIn campaigns we have been developing for Apex for several years are a good example of this. The goal: to increase brand awareness of Apex Dynamics BV among technicians involved in mechatronics and robotics. In these campaigns, we explicitly target people with certain interests and skills, rather than the companies they work for or the roles they perform.

“With our LinkedIn ads, we fish outside our own pond, but with the right bait and for the right fish (read: target audience)” – Thom van Oss, Director Apex Dynamics BV

With these campaigns, we distribute various films that highlight the personal and service-oriented nature of Apex. The films focus on products, knowledge, and people; think of a technical expert from Apex explaining the quality class of racks, a brief explanation of the Apex design tool, or the features of a specific line of gearboxes. Additionally, we advertise with a series of films in which director Thom van Oss visits former team members of Team Rembrandts, which Apex has enthusiastically sponsored for years. These films emphasize the experience of these young technicians with the team and how they now apply that in their work at various Dutch technical companies.

We share some characteristics and results of these campaigns:

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

LinkedIn is by far the platform where you can achieve visibility and brand awareness among your B2B target audience at relatively low costs.

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LinkedIn ad example: optimizing trade show visits with brand awareness campaign

In very different campaigns, we combine brand awareness with sales support, namely campaigns specifically around trade shows. How often do you visit or exhibit at trade shows? Our B2B clients generally attend several trade shows a year. However, the results of these trade shows and all related efforts are often questionable or simply not very transparent. To increase the impact of trade show visits and investments, we support these with campaigns on LinkedIn.

One example is the Achema trade show where one of our clients was an exhibitor in 2022. The target audience consists of companies that will be present at the trade show, both existing and potential new contacts. Prior to the trade show, these contacts were approached by phone to arrange meetings at the show; the LinkedIn campaign supported these conversations and increased visibility of our client leading up to the trade show. The ad simply says “Meet us at Achema 2022 in Frankfurt” and links to an article in which the company’s management discusses the topics they hope to address at the trade show.

What does it yield?

• Over 4,000 impressions, among over 600 people (very specific target audience)
• 50% of the target audience reached during the summer holiday
• Over 50 clicks to the website

Besides visibility, the most important result is the increase in qualitative conversations during the trade show. An extra challenge in this specific campaign was the summer period, when people work less and are therefore less active on LinkedIn. Our main lesson from this campaign is: start advertising earlier when your trade show takes place during or immediately after the summer holiday.

LinkedIn ad example: lead generation

LinkedIn is by far the most used platform by our clients for lead generation, and the platform is perfectly suited for this. The targeted B2B audience you can assemble on LinkedIn is of course not only meant to be shown ads and driven to your website; you want to make contact with them! LinkedIn offers several options for this; our favorite is lead generation through a LinkedIn form: contact details in exchange for, for example, a whitepaper, factsheet, or brochure. A LinkedIn ad example focused on lead generation should not be missing in this article!

For a training agency in personal development and personal leadership, we have run multiple lead campaigns over the past years. These lead campaigns are part of and the end goal of a larger campaign that also includes phases focused on brand awareness and website traffic. We share some results from one of these lead campaigns:

• Over 11,000 impressions, among over 8,000 people
• The CPM is €22.50 and it costs €30.48 to reach 1,000 unique people
• 3.19% Click Through Rate
• 20 leads, with a Cost per Lead of €12.50

The same target audience and campaign yielded over 10,000 impressions and 10 leads a few months later, this time at a Cost Per Mille of €18.44 and a Cost per Lead of €18.18. This campaign is a good example of the success of repetition: repeating your message in different (types of) campaigns leads to more leads.

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Brand awareness and website traffic campaigns for B2B product launch

For one of our clients, a Dutch manufacturer of packaging machines, we have been working for years on various campaigns on Google and LinkedIn. Last year, they introduced a new, innovative product that offers both their existing customer base and potential new customers a completely new packaging solution. A solution that also works on packaging machines from competitors.

Then the question quickly arises: how do we ensure that as many people as possible get to know our new product? Besides all the usual channels such as dealers, the website, newsletter, etc., we quickly started advertising on both Google and LinkedIn. After successful LinkedIn campaigns in the medical sector, this time we focused on Retail in the Netherlands and Germany. This campaign consisted of two parts, one focused on brand awareness and one on website traffic. A selection of the results:

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

Case: LinkedIn ad for sales support at account level

How do you achieve visibility among decision-makers of companies you want to do (more) business with? LinkedIn is the platform that guarantees visibility among these companies. For a Dutch company active worldwide in the high-tech and semiconductor industry, we regularly build and optimize campaigns to support their account-based sales teams. This is, compared to the previously mentioned LinkedIn ad example focused on lead generation, a good example of LinkedIn lead generation in a technical market. The approach is also very different; here we chose account-based LinkedIn campaigns.

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

• In one and a half months, ads were visible on average two to four times
• The Cost Per Mille of €9.46 is much lower than the average for a brand awareness campaign in our benchmark (€15.01)
• The Click Through Rate of the website campaign is exceptionally high; 1.61%, well above the average in our benchmark (0.74%) and even higher than 75% of the campaigns in our benchmark (0.90%)
• The Cost Per Click is also remarkably low, €0.76 compared to €4.50 average in our benchmark
• The lead phase of this campaign yielded 3 leads, at a Cost Per Lead of €83.31. Although this is below the average number of leads per campaign in our benchmark, it is a very low Cost Per Lead for our client’s market and therefore still a very successful result.

The ads (text and image) determine the number of clicks and the CTR. In this campaign, we noticed that it works well to combine ads from different services and specialties in one campaign. This way, we addressed different expertise within the target audience; something for everyone. Moreover, this is an option in such campaigns because it is precisely a goal of our client to bring the brand to attention from multiple angles. After all, it is not about one specific product or service but the company as a whole as the ideal high-tech partner.

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This way of advertising on LinkedIn is so specific, it is almost like placing a billboard in front of the company building of your warmest leads. No other platform offers you the possibility to guarantee visibility with your potential customer. That is why LinkedIn is, in our opinion, an indispensable tool for every sales team.

Want to see more LinkedIn ad examples?

In recent years, LinkedIn has proven itself in countless campaigns for very diverse sectors as a highly suitable platform for lead generation. Of course, results vary greatly per sector, but as far as we are concerned, advertising on LinkedIn, including lead generation campaigns, should not be missing from any B2B online marketing plan.

Curious why LinkedIn is also the right B2B platform for your brand and how we can use it for more visibility, brand awareness, website traffic, and leads? We would love to talk with you and show you, based on even more examples and data, that LinkedIn is indispensable in your online marketing strategy. Want to read more? On our page about LinkedIn advertising, we collect all our information.