Most LinkedIn ad accounts hit a wall around the same point. Campaigns launch with promise, early traction looks good, then everything plateaus. The leads dry up, costs creep higher, and the momentum just… stops.
The problem usually isn’t the platform – it’s the lack of structure. Without a clear funnel strategy, campaigns become a collection of disconnected tactics rather than a cohesive system that moves prospects from awareness to decision.
After analyzing 200+ B2B SaaS accounts representing hundreds of millions in ad spend, the pattern is clear: accounts that scale consistently follow a disciplined funnel structure with precise retargeting and proof-driven creative at every stage.
This benchmark report breaks down what’s actually working in 2025: the budget splits, retargeting windows, creative strategies, and audience efficiency benchmarks that separate high-performing accounts from those stuck in neutral. These aren’t theoretical frameworks – they’re performance patterns extracted from real campaigns managing real budgets.
What’s the Right Budget Split for LinkedIn Ads?
One of the most common questions when structuring LinkedIn campaigns is: “How much should go to each stage?” Too much in top-of-funnel and you’re burning budget on awareness with no conversion path. Too much in the bottom-of-funnel and you’re trying to convert cold audiences that aren’t ready.
The baseline framework that consistently outperforms across benchmarks is the 60/25/15 rule:
How do you know when to adjust this framework?
The framework is a starting point, not a rigid rule. Your actual performance tells you when to shift budget.
If MOFU campaigns are generating strong SQLs and your sales team is converting them well, push another 5-10% of the budget into BOFU. You’ve validated that your middle funnel works – now accelerate the bottom.
If TOFU engagement drops below 0.45% CTR, don’t just throw more money at it. Stop, diagnose the messaging problem, and fix it before scaling again. Low engagement at the top means you’re either targeting the wrong people or saying the wrong things.
This becomes especially important for teams moving toward demand generation strategies. You’re playing a longer game of building relationships and trust over time, not just chasing immediate form fills.
How Do Retargeting Windows Impact Performance?
Retargeting is where most LinkedIn ad strategies either compound or collapse. The mistake most advertisers make? They create one generic “website visitors” audience and blast the same message to everyone, regardless of when they visited or what they did.
This approach ignores a fundamental truth: someone who viewed your pricing page yesterday is in a completely different mindset than someone who downloaded a whitepaper six months ago. The first needs a nudge. The second needs reactivation.
Not all “warm” audiences carry equal intent. The key is matching messaging to recency and engagement level through defined retargeting buckets:
What’s the highest-performing retargeting play right now?
Retargeting demo page visitors (30-90 day window) with a document ad + lead gen form combination produces a 2.5x higher demo-to-close rate compared to standard retargeting approaches. The combination provides value while capturing intent simultaneously.
This tactic works because it respects where the prospect is mentally. They’ve already shown high intent by visiting your demo page, but something stopped them from booking. A document ad gives them a reason to re-engage without the pressure of an immediate commitment, while the lead gen form captures their information for sales follow-up.
For more advanced retargeting strategies, including how to flip lead gen campaigns into retargeting for better lead quality, check out our complete guide to LinkedIn demand generation shifts.
What Does “Good Performance” Actually Look Like at Each Funnel Stage?
Benchmarks without context are dangerous. Seeing that “good” CPL is $150 doesn’t help if you don’t know which stage, which audience type, or which creative format that number represents.
Here’s a complete breakdown of what to expect and what to optimize for at each stage.
TOFU (Top of Funnel)
- Primary goal: Build awareness and audience pools for retargeting
- CTR benchmark: 0.45% – 0.9% (top quartile)
- CPC range: $8 – $15
- CPM range: $50 – $90
- What to optimize for: Engagement and reach, not immediate conversion. You’re building familiarity and creating retargeting audiences.
- Top-performing creative: POV videos, Thought Leader Ads, founder-led content that doesn’t scream “ad”
- Key metric to watch: CTR decline week-over-week signals creative fatigue
MOFU (Middle of Funnel)
- Primary goal: Educate, qualify, and nurture intent
- CTR benchmark: 0.5% – 0.8%
- CPC range: $10 – $18
- CPL (Lead Gen + Document Ads): $120 – $250
- Form fill rates: 8% – 18%
- What to optimize for: Lead quality and engagement depth. Document ad views and content downloads signal serious interest.
- Top-performing creative: Document Ads, webinar clips, case story snippets, playbooks
- Key metric to watch: Form fill rate dropping below 8% means your offer or landing page needs work
BOFU (Bottom of Funnel)
- Primary goal: Convert qualified prospects into SQLs
- CTR benchmark: 0.7% – 1.2%
- CPC range: $12 – $22
- SQL cost: $200 – $450 (especially with CRM/first-party retargeting)
- Demo booking rate: 3% – 6% (from retargeted audiences)
- What to optimize for: Conversion efficiency and deal velocity. This is where precise targeting and strong proof points matter most.
- Top-performing creative: Case studies with ROI data, competitive comparisons, customer testimonials, pricing previews
- Key metric to watch: SQL cost creeping above $500 means either targeting is too broad or proof isn’t strong enough
Important note: These ranges assume B2B SaaS companies in the $5K-$25K ACV range. If your ACV is significantly higher or lower, your acceptable costs will vary. For detailed SQL cost targets, CAC payback timelines, and pipeline velocity metrics by ACV tier, see our complete LinkedIn Pipeline Benchmarks guide.
Which Creative Formats Work Best at Each Stage?
Creative isn’t just about design: it’s about strategic alignment between format, message, and audience readiness. The biggest waste in LinkedIn advertising happens when advertisers use the wrong creative format for the wrong stage.
For example, pushing a “book a demo” call-to-action with a generic product image to a cold TOFU audience will burn the budget fast. Conversely, serving thought leadership content to someone who’s visited your pricing page three times is leaving revenue on the table.
Creative performance varies dramatically by funnel position. Here’s what the data shows:
What’s the most underused creative tactic?
Document engagement is emerging as a powerful warm signal for BOFU sequencing. When someone downloads or views a document ad, they’re spending 3-5 minutes with your content. Far more engagement than a standard click, right?
This behavior indicates higher intent and willingness to invest time in understanding your solution.
Additionally, rotating creative formats prevents audience fatigue and extends campaign effectiveness. LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads, in particular, can maintain performance for months because they appear as organic content rather than traditional ads, reducing ad fatigue significantly.
How long does each creative format last before fatigue sets in?
Creative fatigue is real and predictable. Here’s how long each format typically performs before needing a refresh:
- Single Image Ads: 4-5 weeks
- Carousel Ads: 7 weeks
- Video Ads: 9 weeks
- Document Ads: 11 weeks
- Thought Leader Ads: 12 weeks
Thought Leader Ads last longest because they appear organic rather than promotional. Single image ads fatigue fastest because they’re static and easiest to skip.
The key: don’t wait for performance to crater. Build your creative production pipeline around these timelines.
Which creative formats pair best with each audience type?
Not every creative format works with every audience. Here’s what the data shows:
- CRM Retargeting / BOFU: Case studies, testimonials, Thought Leader Ads work best. These audiences need proof, not education.
- Warm MOFU: Document Ads, case studies, and video perform strongest. They’re familiar with you and ready for deeper content.
- Cold TOFU (1st-party): Video Ads and Thought Leader Ads build awareness effectively. Avoid direct conversion asks—they don’t know you yet.
- Cold 3rd-party: Document Ads, Video Ads, and Thought Leader Ads provide flexibility to test messaging. Skip testimonials and case studies until they’re warmer.
The biggest mistake: using conversion-focused creative (case studies, testimonials) on cold audiences, or using awareness creative (generic videos) on hot BOFU audiences ready to buy.
How Do Different Audiences Stack Up on Cost Efficiency
Audience targeting is where budget efficiency is won or lost. The difference between a $100 CPL and a $500 CPL often comes down to audience selection, not creative quality or offer strength.
The challenge most advertisers face is knowing which audience types deserve a budget and which ones are burning cash.
Cold audiences feel like they should work: after all, that’s where the volume is. But volume without efficiency kills profitability.
Audience performance follows a predictable efficiency ladder, from most to least cost-effective:
- Warm 1P (BOFU) – CRM lists, demo visitors → $75-$150 CPL
- Warm 1P (MOFU) – Content engagers, site visitors → $120-$250 CPL
- Intent/Fit (ABM) – ICP + intent signals → $250-$400 CPL
- Very Cold Native – Broad title/seniority targeting → $300-$600+ CPL
So, what does it mean for your ad strategy?
- Your warmest audiences deliver the best ROI. Cost-effective CPLs and highest SQL conversion rates are consistently seen in BOFU when paired with CRM or sales pipeline data. If you’re not actively retargeting your first-party data (past demo visitors, MQLs, event attendees), you’re leaving money on the table.
- Cold prospecting should feed your warm audiences, not drive immediate conversions. Very cold native targeting (job title, company size only) produces the highest CPLs and longest paths to revenue. Use these audiences to build awareness and create retargeting pools, not as your primary conversion driver.
- ABM works when layered correctly. Targeting accounts with the right fit signals (technographic data, intent signals, ICP criteria) sits in the middle of the efficiency curve. It’s more expensive than retargeting but far more efficient than broad cold targeting. The key is pairing ABM audiences with educational content first, then retargeting engaged accounts with conversion offers.
- Volume isn’t the answer to inefficiency. The trap many advertisers fall into: seeing cold audiences underperform and thinking “we just need more volume to make the numbers work.” But pouring more budget into $500+ CPL audiences just accelerates cash burn. The better play is building retargeting pools from your cold audience engagement, then shifting budget to those warmer layers.
How Should You Operate These Campaigns Week-to-Week?
Strategy without execution is just theory. The difference between accounts that scale and accounts that plateau often comes down to operational discipline – the weekly and monthly rhythms that catch problems early and capitalize on opportunities fast.
Most advertisers set up campaigns, let them run for weeks, then wonder why performance degraded. By the time they react, they’ve already burned significant budget on fatigued creative or saturated audiences.
Consistent execution separates accounts that scale from those that plateau. Here’s the operational cadence that works:
Weekly Operations
- Check creative fatigue: Single-image ads typically peak at 4-8 weeks
- Monitor SQL quality: Are BOFU leads converting downstream?
- Prune underperformers: Kill weak audiences or ads
Monthly Strategy
- Reallocate budget: Shift 10-20% from weak zones into top 2 ROAS pools
- Refresh assets: Update MOFU/BOFU content with new case studies and data
- Reassess messaging: Check if TOFU hooks remain relevant to current trends
Scaling Guidelines
- Don’t scale TOFU until MOFU → SQL flow is validated
- Scale BOFU only when 30/90-day retargeting pools are actively fed
- Use ad scheduling (business hours) to eliminate wasted impressions
The biggest scaling mistake is increasing TOFU budget when the funnel below it isn’t converting efficiently.
This creates a traffic jam: more people entering the top, but nowhere productive for them to go. Validate that your MOFU content is actually nurturing prospects and that BOFU offers are converting before flooding the system with more cold traffic.
For teams managing campaigns across multiple channels, including combining Google Ads with LinkedIn for demand generation, these scaling principles become even more important to prevent budget waste.
Bottom Line
Most LinkedIn ad accounts plateau not because the platform stopped working, but because they lack foundational systems: structured funnels, precise retargeting, stage-matched creative, and realistic audience expectations.
The 60/25/15 budget framework provides structure. Benchmarks establish guardrails. Your specific campaign data reveals where to push harder and where to pull back.
These aren’t enterprise-only tactics. Any B2B SaaS company can implement this approach. The difference is discipline and execution.
Ready to see how your account stacks up? Compare your metrics against these benchmarks to identify gaps and opportunities. Or if you’re building a LinkedIn strategy from scratch, explore our resources on getting started with LinkedIn ads and avoiding common agency pitfalls.
