Choosing the right campaign objective is one of the first decisions you make when launching LinkedIn Ads. And on the surface, the Website Conversions objective seems like an obvious choice.

If your goal is to send prospects to a landing page and generate conversions, why wouldn't you tell LinkedIn to optimize specifically for conversions?

The answer is a little more complicated.

For many B2B advertisers, the Website Conversions objective may not have enough data to perform the optimization it's designed to provide. And in some cases, you may end up paying more for clicks without getting better results.

Here's what advertisers should understand before choosing it.

How the Website Conversions Objective Works

The Website Conversions objective is designed to do more than simply drive traffic to your website.

LinkedIn uses conversion data to identify people within your target audience who are more likely to complete a conversion. The idea is straightforward:

Give LinkedIn conversion data → LinkedIn learns who converts → LinkedIn prioritizes those people → You generate more conversions.

In theory, this can be extremely useful. The problem is that machine learning optimization requires enough conversion volume to identify meaningful patterns.

According to LinkedIn, advertisers should have around 50 conversions per week for the system to properly optimize toward conversions.

That's a significant amount of conversion volume for a B2B advertiser. Most B2B companies aren't generating 50 conversions every week from a single LinkedIn ad set. Some aren't even generating 50 conversions per month.

That creates a fundamental problem: you're asking LinkedIn to optimize toward a behavior without giving it enough data to reliably understand that behavior.

The Data Problem With LinkedIn Ads

This isn't necessarily a criticism of LinkedIn's technology.

Optimization systems need data.

Meta, for example, is widely known for its sophisticated advertising algorithms and enormous amount of behavioral data. Even there, advertisers are generally encouraged to generate significant conversion volume before relying heavily on conversion optimization.

LinkedIn has access to valuable professional data, but its advertising ecosystem doesn't have the same volume of user behavior and conversion signals available to platforms like Meta.

For B2B advertisers with relatively low conversion volume, that makes conversion optimization a particularly difficult problem.

If LinkedIn doesn't have enough information to distinguish between someone likely to convert and someone unlikely to convert, you're potentially paying for an optimization that isn't giving you much additional value.

You May Also Pay More for the Optimization

There's another consideration: cost.

At B2Linked, we've consistently found that the Website Conversions objective can cost roughly $1 to $2 more per click than Website Visits in comparable campaigns.

That doesn't automatically make Website Conversions a bad objective. If the additional cost produces significantly more qualified conversions, it could easily be worth it.

But that's the important question:

Are you actually getting enough additional performance to justify the premium?

If you're generating too few conversions for LinkedIn's optimization system to learn effectively, the answer may be no.

You could end up paying more per click for an optimization system that doesn't have enough data to work at its full potential.

Website Visits vs. Website Conversions

This is where Website Visits becomes particularly interesting.

Both objectives can be used to send prospects to your website, but their optimization approaches are different.

With Website Visits, LinkedIn is primarily focused on finding people who are likely to click through to your website.

With Website Conversions, LinkedIn is trying to find people who are likely to complete your conversion event.

That distinction sounds like an obvious reason to choose Website Conversions. But if your account doesn't have enough conversion volume, optimizing for the deeper action may not necessarily produce better results.

There's also a feature of both objectives that we really like at B2Linked.

When you're bidding by the click, LinkedIn charges you for the click that takes someone to your website rather than charging for every possible interaction with your ad.

For advertisers focused heavily on efficiency, that's a valuable distinction.

So Should You Avoid Website Conversions?

Not necessarily.

The Website Conversions objective isn't inherently bad. In fact, there are accounts where it can absolutely make sense. The bigger mistake is assuming that because your ultimate goal is conversions, you automatically need to use the conversion objective.

Your campaign objective should support your actual data situation, not just your desired outcome.

If you're generating substantial conversion volume, Website Conversions is worth testing.

If you're generating relatively few conversions, Website Visits may be a more efficient starting point.

And rather than guessing, you can test the two directly.

How to Test Website Visits vs. Website Conversions

The cleanest way to compare the objectives is to create two otherwise identical campaigns or ad sets.

Keep these variables consistent:

• Targeting
• Ad creative
• Bidding strategy
• Budget
• Landing page
• Conversion tracking
• Campaign duration

Then change only the objective.

Run the campaigns long enough to collect meaningful data and compare more than just cost per click.

Look at:

• Conversion rate
• Cost per conversion
• Qualified leads
• Pipeline generated
• Lead quality
• Overall campaign efficiency

The goal isn't to find the objective with the cheapest clicks.

It's to determine whether the additional optimization provided by Website Conversions actually produces better business results.

What We've Seen at B2Linked

We've tested Website Conversions against Website Visits across multiple accounts. In our experience, Website Conversions has rarely been the winner.

We've tested this comparison roughly ten times, and only once did Website Conversions clearly outperform Website Visits. Interestingly, that account was also generating a relatively high volume of conversions.

That's exactly what we'd expect.

When there is enough conversion data for LinkedIn to learn from, conversion optimization has a much better chance of delivering additional value.

When there isn't enough data, you're potentially paying for an optimization that can't reach its full potential.

The Takeaway

The biggest lesson here isn't "never use Website Conversions." It's to stop assuming that LinkedIn's campaign objectives should always be taken literally.

If you want conversions, it doesn't automatically mean the Website Conversions objective will generate the most conversions.

For many B2B advertisers, Website Visits may provide a better combination of traffic volume, cost efficiency, and predictable delivery. But if you're generating significant conversion volume, Website Conversions is absolutely worth testing.

At B2Linked, we recommend treating the objective as a hypothesis rather than a default setting.

Test Website Visits against Website Conversions. Keep everything else consistent. Then let the data decide.

Because the best objective isn't necessarily the one with the most impressive name. It's the one that produces the best results for your account.

‍

‍