11 LinkedIn Ads Best Practices for Better Performance in 2026

LinkedIn Ads remains one of the most powerful platforms for B2B marketers.

No other advertising platform allows you to target professionals with the same level of precision. Whether you're targeting job titles, seniority, company size, industry, or specific skills, LinkedIn gives advertisers access to decision-makers that are difficult to reach anywhere else.

But there's one problem. Many advertisers unknowingly hurt their own performance before their campaigns even begin.

After years of managing hundreds of LinkedIn Ads accounts, we've found that many of the platform's default recommendations don't necessarily align with advertisers' goals. They're often designed to maximize delivery, not maximize efficiency.

At B2Linked, we've managed more than $200 million in LinkedIn Ads spend, and while every account is different, there are several best practices we consistently apply to improve performance and reduce wasted spend.

Here are the recommendations we'd follow if we were building a LinkedIn Ads account from scratch today.

1. Don't Assume LinkedIn's Default Settings Are Optimal

One of the biggest mistakes advertisers make is trusting every recommendation inside Campaign Manager.

Many default settings are enabled automatically, and unless you know what they do, they can quietly increase costs or reduce targeting precision. Whenever you launch a new campaign, make it a habit to review every setting instead of simply accepting the defaults. Small configuration changes can have a surprisingly large impact on performance.

2. Turn Off Audience Expansion

Audience Expansion is enabled by default in many campaign types.

While LinkedIn positions it as a way to find additional relevant prospects, it also allows the platform to show your ads to people outside the audience you intentionally selected. If you've carefully built your targeting criteria, there's usually little reason to hand that control back to the algorithm.

If you want to reach adjacent audiences, create dedicated campaigns for them so you can measure performance separately.

3. Disable the LinkedIn Audience Network

The LinkedIn Audience Network extends your ads to third-party websites and mobile apps.

Although it may increase delivery, many advertisers find that traffic quality doesn't match what they receive directly on LinkedIn. If your priority is generating qualified B2B leads rather than maximizing impressions, keeping campaigns on LinkedIn itself often produces more consistent results.

If you're curious about the Audience Network, test it independently so you can clearly compare performance instead of mixing results into your primary campaigns.

4. Use Permanent Location Targeting

Location targeting is another setting that's easy to overlook.

LinkedIn offers the option to target people who either permanently live in a location or have recently been there. For most B2B campaigns, permanent location targeting creates a much cleaner audience. This helps reduce impressions from travelers or temporary visitors who aren't actually part of your intended market.

5. Manual CPC Is Often More Cost-Effective

Maximum Delivery bidding is LinkedIn's default recommendation.

While it can be useful in certain situations, it's frequently one of the most expensive bidding strategies available. Manual CPC gives advertisers significantly more control over costs while still allowing campaigns to generate consistent traffic.

Instead of letting LinkedIn bid whatever it takes to spend your budget, you're able to define exactly how much you're willing to pay for each click.

6. Ignore the Recommended Bid Range

When switching to Manual CPC, LinkedIn immediately provides a suggested bidding range.

Many advertisers assume these recommendations represent the "correct" bid. In reality, they're often much higher than necessary. A better approach is to begin with a conservative bid and increase it gradually until your campaign consistently reaches its desired daily spend.

This simple adjustment alone can dramatically reduce cost per click.

7. Keep "Optimize for Performance" Enabled

Not every LinkedIn default deserves to be disabled.

One setting that's generally worth keeping is Optimize for Performance at the ad level. Although "Rotate Ads Evenly" sounds attractive from a testing perspective, it doesn't actually guarantee equal exposure.

Instead, it simply enters every ad into the auction at the same rate—even weaker-performing creatives. That often results in paying more for fewer impressions.

Allowing LinkedIn to favor stronger-performing ads typically leads to lower costs while naturally identifying winning creatives.

8. Stop Asking Cold Audiences for Sales Meetings

Many advertisers launch campaigns targeting ideal prospects and immediately ask them to schedule a demo.

Unfortunately, perfect targeting doesn't automatically create trust.

Most buyers aren't ready for a sales conversation after seeing your company for the first time. Instead, build a funnel that gradually introduces your expertise through educational content, thought leadership, customer stories, and helpful resources before presenting a high-commitment offer.

Retargeting plays a critical role in this process.

9. Helpful Videos Usually Beat Expensive Videos

Many brands assume high production value equals better performance.

In practice, authenticity often wins.

Videos featuring a knowledgeable person speaking directly to the audience, sharing practical advice or industry insights, frequently outperform polished corporate brand videos. People come to LinkedIn to learn; not necessarily to watch commercials.

Focus on delivering value before worrying about production quality.

10. Build Smarter Audiences

Audience size matters, but bigger isn't always better.

Very small audiences may struggle to generate enough impressions for meaningful optimization. Extremely large audiences, on the other hand, often hide valuable insights.

Instead of combining everyone into one campaign, consider segmenting audiences by seniority, job function, company size, or industry. Running the same creative across multiple audience segments reveals exactly who responds best to your messaging.

This creates valuable market intelligence while improving optimization decisions.

11. Give Yourself Enough Budget to Learn

LinkedIn is a premium advertising platform.

That means campaigns need enough budget to generate statistically meaningful data. If spending levels are too low, campaigns may finish the month before enough clicks or conversions have accumulated to confidently optimize performance.

While every business has different financial constraints, advertisers should understand that limited budgets also limit the speed of learning. The goal isn't simply spending more.

It's spending enough to make informed decisions.

Bonus Best Practice: Build Trust Before You Sell

The highest-performing LinkedIn campaigns don't immediately push prospects toward conversion.

Instead, they guide buyers through a journey.

People first need to recognize your brand, understand your expertise, and believe you can solve a problem before they're willing to speak with sales. The faster your content helps prospects know, like, and trust your company, the more effective your lead generation efforts become.

This is one of the biggest reasons B2Linked encourages advertisers to think beyond individual campaigns and focus on building full-funnel LinkedIn Ads strategies. The best results rarely come from a single ad; they come from a sequence of valuable interactions that build confidence over time.

One Final Tip: Understand What a "Click" Actually Means

One commonly misunderstood metric inside Campaign Manager is click-through rate.

Not every campaign objective defines a click the same way. Depending on the objective and ad format you're using, LinkedIn may count different user actions as clicks.

As a result, comparing CTR across different campaign types can be misleading. Rather than evaluating campaigns using a single benchmark, make sure you understand how LinkedIn defines engagement for each objective before drawing conclusions.

The Bottom Line

There isn't a single setting or optimization that guarantees LinkedIn Ads success.

High-performing campaigns come from combining smart targeting, efficient bidding, strong creative, thoughtful funnel design, and continuous testing. Many advertisers assume higher costs are simply part of advertising on LinkedIn.

In reality, a significant portion of those costs comes from relying on default settings that may not align with your goals.

By taking more control over your campaigns, and focusing on delivering value throughout the buyer journey, you'll often improve results without increasing your budget.

Whether you're launching your first campaign or optimizing an established account, these best practices provide a strong foundation for generating more efficient, predictable performance from LinkedIn Ads.

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