LinkedIn ads are generally considered expensive. Many scrappy startups start with around $1000 – 2000. They have questions like – What can I accomplish on LinkedIn ads with a small budget or where to start? What’s the minimum budget to get started with LinkedIn ads?
Most experts have argued that if you don’t have $3,000 a month for at least a start and six-month roadway, you shouldn’t consider LinkedIn ads because they are fairly expensive, but my thoughts are slightly different regarding what it costs to advertise on LinkedIn.
Table of contents
Assessing Your Starting Point
With a small budget, say $1,000 a month, there are some things to consider. First, do you have the opportunity to start with a warm retargeting audience, first-party data versus starting with an initial touch cold layer?
If you’re thinking about LinkedIn ads in a silo, then starting with $1,000 and having to start with cold first-touch awareness traffic is going to be very hard, if not impossible, to get an ROI out of because you are getting in front of people that have not expressed a need or show any level of intent yet.
There are no intent indicators that they are in the market to buy. Yes, it’s very focused targeting, but you’re getting in front of people who are likely to have a need based on the demographic, i.e., they look like the others you serve. They’re likely to have problems similar to those of other clients but we haven’t actually seen any sign they are in-market.
So, you’re playing the long game of trying to build this awareness and demand, which you then hope to nurture, build trust with, and convert down the road.
That could be a long path. So the very first thing I usually do is ask, can we skip that? Do we have enough retargeting audience and first-party data to start and leverage our budget by retargeting and converting what’s already in our pipeline?
First, I would look at your website traffic and other channels. I would evaluate
- Are you running Google Ads?
- Are you using paid listing sites?
- Have you invested in SEO?
- Do you have an organic motion?
- Are you running meta ads?
- Do you have collectively enough website traffic?
If you have 2000-5,000 visitors a month, and even a fraction of that is qualified visitors, then it’s likely that you can start with most of your budget, if not all of that $1,000 in retargeting.
I will go through two scenarios of what LinkedIn ad strategy looks like for the $1,000 budget.
Scenario 1: Sufficient Website Traffic for Retargeting
If your startup already attracts a steady stream of visitors to your website, starting with a retargeting strategy can be highly effective. By focusing on those who have already shown interest, you skip the cold awareness phase and begin retargeting right away.
1. Qualifying and Converting Existing Traffic
- Set up a retargeting campaign aimed at visitors who have interacted with your site or engaged with your content in the last 90 days.
- Layer on more qualifying filters like the industries you serve, company sizes of a given range that have the budget or a need, and they’re a decision maker, seniority level of director and above who could be someone you want to talk to.
- The main types of content that I would put in there are things that will move the needle on trust, like expert interviews, detailed how-to explainer guides, videos, step-by-step instructions on how to do exactly what you do for clients, or case studies/success stories of when you did this for other clients.
2. LinkedIn Campaign Structure
- Allocate a significant portion of your $1,000 budget (or all of it) to this retargeting effort, focusing on maintaining visibility and reinforcing your brand message.
- Depending on the size of the audience, I might have a main anchor campaign that’s either an image or a video to build trust and credibility. Then, supplement it with additional high-impression, low-cost campaigns, like text ads, spotlight ads, and follower ads. They show up to the right of the feed, and you can pepper them with different messaging and link to different things. Try to get them to follow your company page and take that next step in the evaluation process.
3. LinkedIn Budget Allocation
- Aim to spend around $10-15 per day on your main retargeting campaign, adjusting based on audience size and engagement levels.
- Allocate smaller amounts (e.g., $5-10 per day) to text ads and spotlight ads, ensuring continuous visibility across LinkedIn.
By leveraging your existing audience and focusing on building relationships with warm leads, you can optimize your $1,000 budget effectively.
Scenario 2: Insufficient Website Traffic, Starting with Cold Outreach
The next main setup would be if you have to start with a cold layer because you don’t have enough website traffic; LinkedIn’s going to be in a silo. This one’s going to be a little trickier.
1. LinkedIn Cold Campaign Set Up
We will start with one main anchor campaign, which could be a video or image. Since this is your first touch, you will focus on making a good impression and sending that traffic to your website (your home page or the main product page).
Usually, I hit on one of 3 things –
- A lot of times, I’ll just go with something more promotional. “Hey, this is who we are, who we serve, what we do.” That way, those clicks, and those interactions show some intent.
- The second thing I might leverage is leaning into the big pain point or problem we solve. For us, it might be something like: “Are you overpaying for your LinkedIn ads? ”.
- The third thing is results. It could be that we took company X from losing Y amount of money on LinkedIn to showing an ROI of this, or we helped. So I guess it could be either a success story or the main result that maybe new clients would hope to achieve with you.
Sell them the story. Tell them you can finally get an ROI from LinkedIn ads or LinkedIn ads convert, qualify your traffic, and improve the ROI of your other channels, this will get them curious.
2. LinkedIn Budget Allocation
In this scenario, I will have this one anchor cold campaign. Since it’s our only campaign, you’ll put the whole budget, $33 a day, equaling $1,000 a month.
So, what that might look like is you start with $33 a day in this cold campaign. You need at least 300 taggable visitors, post interactions, or company page visitors to funnel them into retargeting. Once you do, you’re not going to shut off cold and just shift into retargeting because that would dry up your fresh source of traffic.
3. Transition to LinkedIn Retargeting
After a month of running your initial cold outreach campaign, it’s time to shift some of your budget towards retargeting. You can reduce your daily spend on cold outreach to around $20. Allocate about $10 per day towards your first retargeting campaign.
If your retargeting audience is relatively small, like fewer than 1,000 people, $10 per day should be sufficient to keep your brand in front of them. This leaves you with approximately $23 per day for cold outreach and $10 per day for retargeting.
The primary goal of retargeting is to build trust and credibility with your audience using compelling assets like videos or success stories. As your retargeting audience grows over time, consider expanding your campaigns. By month three, you could introduce text ads and spotlight campaigns, each requiring around $10 per day.
Gradually adjust your budget allocation as your campaigns evolve. Ideally, aim to have a significant portion of your budget—perhaps around 60%—allocated to retargeting as your audience expands. This setup allows you to maintain consistent visibility and engagement on LinkedIn.
Final Thoughts on Effective LinkedIn Budget Utilization
All being said and done, $1000 a month isn’t the average campaign budget on LinkedIn for jumping into LinkedIn ads. But you can get it done by being tactical and resourceful. Assess the health of your website traffic and then pick a reasonable approach, as mentioned above.
Got more questions about LinkedIn ads and how to generate more ROI with LinkedIn ads? Book a demo call today and get your doubts sorted.
