50 Best IT Services LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn ads offer many opportunities for IT services companies to reach their target audience effectively. With its vast network of professionals and advanced targeting capabilities, the platform can be a powerful tool for creating brand awareness, establishing credibility, and converting prospects into paying customers.

In this article, we will look at real-world case studies featuring LinkedIn ad campaigns from our clients in the IT Services industry. The goal is simple—to understand what makes a successful LinkedIn campaign.

How did we analyze LinkedIn campaigns?

We started by identifying our biggest clients operating in the IT Services industry and shortlisted 5 of them for thorough campaign analysis. Subsequently, we conducted a performance review, closely monitoring how individual campaigns progressed during 6 months, from May to November 2023.

Throughout this analysis, we looked at 138 unique campaigns, and our classification of them was based on 5 campaign objectives, facilitating a more structured measure of impact and effectiveness. Ultimately, this systematic approach helped us—(a) pinpoint the most well-received campaigns on LinkedIn ads that emerged from this diverse set of campaigns and (b) establish valuable performance benchmarks to inform future marketing endeavors.

Before we get into the nitty-gritty, here’s a quick snapshot of the companies and campaigns featured in our analysis, including the ad spend associated with each:

The Companies We Analyzed

Company	USP	Time Range	Time Range	Campaigns Analyzed
CQL	A full-service digital commerce agency	$5,758	6 month	8
Company 1	Data and Automation solutions	$3,731	6 month	4
Henson Group	Azure Cloud solutions, OpenAI solutions, and managed services	$18,108	6 month	42
Kentik	The network observability company	$198,650	6 month	78
Rise Display	Customizable LED Tickers	$5,442	6 month	6

LinkedIn Campaign Objectives, Ad Formats, and Performance Metrics

We evaluated key metrics across all campaign objectives and ad types: clicks, click-through rate (CTR), cost per mile (CPM), cost per click (CPC), and conversions. These metrics remained consistent for all objectives, except for Lead Generation and Video Ad campaigns, where we focused on measuring the cost per lead (CPL) and video view rate instead.

We started by focusing on five primary objectives:

• Brand Awareness: Campaigns are straightforward, relying on creating impressions. They prove highly effective for establishing and building a brand presence at the initial stages of the sales funnel.
• Engagement: Campaigns encourage customers to interact with your posts through social actions like likes, comments, hashtags, shares, and follows.
• Video Views: While video is available as an ad format for other objectives, selecting video views as your objective gives you the exclusive option to bid based on cost per view.
• Lead Generation: Campaigns target prospects at the bottom of the funnel, using pre-filled forms for seamless lead capture and conversion actions.
• Website Visits: Campaigns drive prospects to your website, effectively guiding them from the top of the funnel to the bottom to boost engagement and conversions.

LinkedIn offers a range of ad formats, allowing advertisers to choose the most suitable option for their campaign objectives. We picked the three below.

• Sponsored Content ads on LinkedIn are available in various formats, including single-image ads, document ads, video ads, carousel ads, event ads, and thought leader ads. Each format offers unique ways to engage with your target audience and achieve different marketing goals.
• Dynamic ads use individual user data (such as name, profile image, job title, and other relevant profile information) to create personalized content for each viewer. They can be successfully used for Account Based Marketing (ABM), event or webinar promotion, and bottom-of-funnel customer acquisition.
• Text ads: Campaigns provide IT Services companies with a self-service solution for building, managing, and refining personalized campaigns, ensuring optimal reach and relevance.

After setting our ad objectives as performance benchmarks, we relied on the following metrics to measure campaign success.

• Cost Per Lead (CPL) indicates the cost of acquiring one lead. A low CPL means that your LinkedIn ads attract new leads without breaking the bank and ultimately maximizing their return on investment.
• Click-through rate (CTR) measures the percentage of leads interacting with an ad’s specific calls-to-action. A high CTR demonstrates the campaign’s effectiveness in capturing audience attention, driving engagement, and generating leads.
• Cost Per Click (CPC) is the cost incurred for each ad click. A low CPC signifies that your ad campaign secures clicks at a minimal cost, maximizing engagement and resource utilization.
• Clicks serve as a measure of engagement and interest, indicating that a user has been sufficiently attracted by the ad’s messaging or visual elements to take further action. This could mean visiting a landing page or filling out a lead generation form.
• Conversions quantify the actions taken after ad clicks. A positive ROI occurs when the cost per conversion is less than the value generated. If you’re receiving fewer conversions than usual, evaluating your audience targeting options, ad messaging, and/or landing page is recommended.
• LinkedIn Ad Frequency can play a big role in results and should be closely monitored as well. 

Impactable’s LinkedIn Ads Showcase: What does a successful IT Service Industry LinkedIn Ad campaign look like?

Now that we’ve talked about our clients and what we want to achieve with the ads, let’s look at the actual ads Impactable has used when following LinkedIn Ads best practices to the fullest.  We’re focusing on 2-4 clients in each category out of the 5 because none of them used all four types of ads or campaign goals.

1. Top Brand Awareness Campaigns

Company	Total # of Brand Awareness Campaigns	Total Spend
Rise Display	2	$1,328
CQL	1	$714
Henson Group	3	Organic

Let’s take a look at some top-performing software brand awareness ads.

1.1. Clicks
	Henson Group	CQL
Clicks	167	81
Ad
Rise Display
Clicks	19
Ad

1.2. Click-through rate (CTR)
	CQL	CQL
CTR	1.23%	1.07%
Ad

1.3. CPM
	Henson Group	Rise Display
CPM	$8.05	$10.5
Ad

1.4. CPC
	CQL	Henson Group
CPC	$1.44	$2.92
Ad

1.5. Conversions
	Rise Display	Rise Display
Conversions	15	15
Ad

2. Top Engagement Campaigns

Company	Total # of Engagement Campaigns	Total Spend
Kentik	7	$27,376
CQL	2	$91

Let’s review some of the top-performing IT Services LinkedIn engagement ads.

Sponsored Updates (Including LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads)

2.1.1. Clicks, CTR & Conversions
	Kentik	Kentik
	Clicks – 3596 CTR – 8.52% Conversions – 8	Clicks – 1701 CTR – 5.86% Conversions – 14
Ad

2.1.2. CPM
	Kentik	Kentik
CPM	$9.23	$12.54
Ad

2.1.3. CPC
	Kentik	Kentik
CPC	$0.40	$0.41
Ad

Dynamic Ads

2.2.1. Clicks
	CQL	CQL
Clicks	7	6
Ad

2.2.2. CTR & Conversions
	CQL	CQL
	CTR – 0.06% Conversions – 2	CTR – 0.05% Conversions – 2
Ad

2.2.3. CPM & CPC
	CQL	CQL
	CPM – $1.14 CPC – $4.3	CPM – $1 CPC – $4.3
Ad

3. Top Video Campaigns

Company	Total # of Video Ad Campaigns	Total Spend
Kentik	8	$57,262
Henson Group	1	$500

Here is what successful video ad campaigns for the IT Services industry look like.

3.1. Clicks
	Kentik	Kentik
Clicks	468	287
Ad

3.2. CTR
	Kentik	Kentik
CTR	0.56%	0.51%
Ad

3.3. CPM
	Kentik	Henson Group
CPM	$17.74	$22.04
Ad

3.4. CPC
	Kentik	Kentik
CPC	$5.54	$5.62
Ad

3.5. Video View Rate
	Henson Group	Kentik
Video View Rate	70.79%	36.77%
Ad

4. Top Website Visit Campaigns

Company	Total # of Website Visit Ad Campaigns	Total Spend
Kentik	21	$71,514
Henson Group	28	$17,101
CQL	2	$4,627
Rise Display	3	$4,114
Company 1	3	$3,667

Let’s review some of the top-performing Website Visit campaigns for the IT Services industry.

Sponsored Update

4.1.1. Clicks
	Kentik	Henson Group
Clicks	979	721
Ad

4.1.2. CTR
	Henson Group	CQL
CTR	5.52%	5.68%
Ad
Company 1
CTR	3.94%
Ad

4.1.3. CPM
	Henson Group	Company 1
CPM	$8.29	$8.42
Ad

4.1.4. CPC
	Henson Group	Rise Display
CPC	$0.53	$0.70
Ad
CQL
CPC	$0.98
Ad

4.1.5. Conversions
	Rise Display	Rise Display
Conversions	159	133
Ad

Text Ads

Company	Total # of Text Ad Campaigns (Wesite Visits Objective)	Total Spend
Kentik	2	$135
Henson Group	2	$507
CQL	3	$326
Company 1	1	$64

4.2.1. Clicks
	Henson Group	Kentik	Company 1
Clicks	15	9	7
Ad

4.2.2. CTR
	CQL	Henson Group	Company 1
CTR	0.05%	0.05%	0.03%
Ad

4.2.3. CPM
	Kentik	CQL	Henson Group
CPM	$0.06	$0.1	$0.14
Ad

4.2.4. CPC
	Kentik	CQL	Henson Group
CPC	$2	$2	$3.7
Ad

4.2.5. Conversions
	CQL	CQL
Conversions	54	46
Ad

5. Top Lead Gen Campaigns

Company	Total # of Lead Gen Campaigns	Total Spend
Kentik	30	$42,363

Let’s review some of the top-performing IT Services LinkedIn lead gen ads.

5.1. Clicks
Clicks	431	164
Ad

5.2. CTR
CTR	1.99%	1.71%
Ad

5.3. Cost Per Lead
Cost Per Lead	$63.07	$85.82
Ad

5.4. Conversions
Conversions	$63.07	$85.82
Ad

In Conclusion

In the realm of IT Services, whether you’re a well-established corporation or an SME looking to enhance your digital advertising efforts, LinkedIn can be a valuable resource. It provides diverse opportunities to connect with the relevant professional audience. Depending on your short- and long-term goals, you can choose from various campaign objectives and ad formats to ensure that you reach the right people at the right time with the right messaging.

See also 28 best LinkedIn ads for SaaS, and best practices for LinkedIn Video ads for additional info. 

We hope that looking through Impactable’s showcase of the top IT Services ads encourages you to embark on your own journey of creating impactful LinkedIn ads.