As advertisers, we need to stay in front of our audiences as frequently and consistently as we can.

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That’s because it often takes multiple touch points (research suggests at least 8 on average) with a brand before a prospect is ready to invest.

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So how do you accomplish that on LinkedIn Ads?

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When putting together a holistic strategy, you need to consider what ads to display at every stage of your customers’ journey.

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Before sharing one ad, you may require them to see another ad first, creating a chain of ads and experiences that nurture and educate your prospects until they’re ready to convert.

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Essentially, you need to leverage retargeting.

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But some of LinkedIn’s retargeting options take longer to set up than others.

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That’s because LinkedIn requires an audience size of at least 300 people (that the platform recognizes in its user base) in order to run a campaign.

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Longer setup time means the more each stage of your customers’ journey will be delayed and the less likely your audience will remember you in later stages.

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So if you want your brand to stay top-of-mind, here are the retargeting options you should use and which you should be cautious of.

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THE FASTEST WAYS TO BUILD RETARGETING AUDIENCES ON LINKEDIN ADS

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VIDEO AD RETARGETING

Video Ad retargeting is, by far, the fastest method we’ve come across for building retargeting audiences.

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Where some of LinkedIn’s options take months to build an audience large enough to retarget, Video Ad retargeting can do it in a matter of days.

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What Video Ad retargeting allows you to do is target those based on what percentage of your Video Ads your prospects have watched.

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This includes 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% of your Video Ads.

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Like most other retargeting methods, you can also specify a timeframe for how recently prospects engaged with your ad.

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This includes 30, 60, 90, 180, and 365 days in the past.

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We consider those who watch at least 50% of our Video Ads to be high quality prospects.

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Even when limiting our targeting to only those who watched at least 50% of our Video Ads, we’ve been able to build up an audience large enough to retarget with about $1,000 in ad spend over the course of 7 days.

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If you’d like to know which campaign objective is the most cost-effective for running Video Ads, check out this podcast episode.

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SINGLE IMAGE AD RETARGETING

Like Video Ad retargeting, Single Image Ad retargeting audiences can be built up in a matter of days.

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With this retargeting method, you can retarget those who performed chargeable clicks on your Single Image Ads or expand that to include any interactions on your ads.

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Note that chargeable clicks change depending on your campaign objective.

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If your objective is Website Visits, you’re only charged for when someone clicks to your website.

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Under the Engagement objective, though, you’re charged for any interaction, which can include likes, comments, shares, clicks to your LinkedIn Company Page, and more.

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It’s the inclusion of any interaction that can accelerate the building of your retargeting audience.

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One precaution, though, is to beware enabling the LinkedIn Audience Network (LAN).

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This can help you generate even more engagement at a higher volume, higher rate, and lower cost, but in our experience, the quality of clicks is quite poor.

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So, though LAN can help you build retargeting audiences even faster, it’s not a feature we can recommend using at this time.

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THE SLOWEST WAYS TO BUILD RETARGETING AUDIENCES ON LINKEDIN ADS

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LEAD GEN FORM RETARGETING

Arguably the slowest and costliest method for building a retargeting audience is via LinkedIn’s Lead Gen Form Ads.

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With this option, you can retarget those who open a Lead Gen Form or those that submit one.

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Even if leads are dirt cheap ($20 – $30 per lead, for example), it can take $6,000 – $9,000 in ad spend and 1 – 3 months to build a large enough audience to retarget. And that’s if you maintain a steady pace of generating leads at this cost.

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Does this mean this is a bad retargeting option? Absolutely not!

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Depending on the quality of leads, this can be a good way to build a pool of prospects interested in your brand.

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But what it does mean is that you’ll need to anticipate running ads for a longer period of time and with a larger ad budget before you can graduate prospects to the next stage of your holistic strategy.

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And if you want to move quickly without losing momentum, this may not be the best choice.

WEBSITE VISITS RETARGETING

Like Lead Gen Form retargeting, Website Visits retargeting can help you stay in front of warmer prospects (those that are aware of your brand), but it can take longer to build an audience that meets LinkedIn’s 300-member threshold.

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Especially if you drive a lower volume of traffic to your site per week, it can take months to build an audience large enough to retarget.

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So this is another option where you’ll need to anticipate running ads for longer before funneling prospects into the next stage of your strategy.

MAINTAIN MOMENTUM WITH FASTER RETARGETING CHOICES

LinkedIn has a lot of great retargeting options, but only a couple of them build audiences quickly, keeping your brand top-of-mind.

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What are your favorite LinkedIn retargeting methods and why? Comment below!

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P.S. Our mission is to help 20K marketers, business owners, and recruiters decrease costs and increase scale on LinkedIn Ads.

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If you don’t have the time, resources, or know-how to manage it all on your own, consider booking a discovery call with us.

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We’d absolutely love the chance to get to work with you!

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Written by Eric Jones

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