This is the timeline we work to on every account and the one to hold any agency to. The dates are from the panel data (time to first lead, fatigue curves, penetration) rather than from optimism, and the benchmarks are the median and good quarter across 944 accounts in the 12 months to 7 September 2026.
Days 1 to 14: setup
What should happen. Access through Business Manager on your own ad account (you own the account, the history and the data; an agency that wants to run it from theirs is a red flag). The Insight Tag verified, Website Actions created, conversions defined and the CRM connected so leads leave LinkedIn before the 90-day retention runs out. The account list built and uploaded, titles layered on, exclusions applied (competitors, agencies, under 11 employees, students, current customers). Three campaigns built on one list: cold thought leader ads on the engagement objective (brand awareness only on audiences over 30,000), a retargeting campaign that will fill from week three, and one bottom-of-funnel offer, a document with a content form or a message ad for the demo. Creative drafted from your material: three to five ads per campaign. Manual bids set low. Audience Expansion and the Audience Network unticked and checked again after saving. A measurement plan that names the benchmarks you will judge the account against, and a weekly report format that leads with landing page clicks, not clicks.
What you should see by day 14: campaigns live and spending, the first delivery issue (usually a bid below the floor) fixed within 48 hours, and a report you understand.
Days 15 to 30: first data
What the data says about this window. A content offer at $25 to $50 a day has its first lead by about day 3 and a lead in 77% of campaigns by day 30; a demo offer in the feed takes about 12 days and 36% of low-budget demo campaigns never get one, which is why the demo ask goes in a message ad (40.7% completion) from the start. Reach into the list builds fastest early: 68% of a campaign's 90-day reach arrives in the first 30 days.
Judge month one on: landing page CTR (0.23% median, 0.38% good, over 0.8% strong), cost per landing page click ($17.54 median, $9.18 good), CPM against the audience's benchmark (US $84, UK $50, panel $36), form completion by offer (10.8% content, 2.2% demo in the feed; 40.7% in the inbox), and, on message ads, open rate (42.6% median) and cost per send ($0.42). Do not judge month one on cost per lead from a demo campaign or on pipeline.
What the agency should do with it: the first demographics read at two weeks (which functions and titles click and never convert), the first bid adjustments, and the first creative swap if landing page CTR is under 0.15%.
Days 31 to 60: the pool, the exclusions, the first leads that matter
What the data says. Creative on an audience under 10,000 is seen once by everyone in 14 days and engagement is down 9% after one pass, so the first refresh lands here. Retargeting audiences (ad engagers, 50%-plus video viewers, site visitors) reach a usable size at four to six weeks, and retargeting is where the cheap engagement is: 25% more engagement and 20% more dwell than cold at the same cost per click. The Companies tab has 30 to 60 days of engagement to sort by.
What you should see by day 60: the retargeting campaign live and taking a growing share of spend; exclusions applied from the demographics report; the first creative refresh; cost per lead by offer reported and inside the benchmark ranges ($164 content, $343 demo at the median; under $67 and $131 in the good quarter); message ad leads if the demo runs in the inbox; and a list of engaged companies from the Companies tab handed to sales with what they engaged with. If you run outbound, this is the week it starts referencing the ads.
Days 61 to 90: the read
What the data says. Cost per lead on lead gen forms rises 37% by month three as completion falls 22%, while CPM falls 9%, so a flat cost per lead at day 90 is a good result and a rising one with a falling CPM is the fatigue signal, not a market signal. Median audience penetration at 90 days is 20.5%; the top quarter passes 40%.
What you should see by day 90: a 90-day read against the plan: reach and penetration of the list, landing page CTR and cost per landing page click against the benchmarks, cost per lead by offer with the trend, form completion by format, Companies tab engagement level on the list and what sales did with it, and, from the CRM, the first opportunities with source. The agency should be proposing what changes next quarter (offer, format, audience, budget) from that read, not from a hunch. Pipeline from a cold list in a mid-market sales cycle is a month-three-to-six result; if the sales cycle is 90 days, the first closed deals arrive in month five or six.
The numbers to expect by when
| By day | Metric | Expect | Worry if |
|---|---|---|---|
| 14 | Delivery | All three campaigns spending; first bid fix done | Not spending after 48 hours; agency running it from their own account |
| 30 | Landing page CTR | 0.23% median, 0.38% good | Under 0.15% after a creative swap |
| 30 | Cost per landing page click | $17.54 median, $9.18 good (UK $22.84 median) | Over $35, or the report shows LinkedIn's clicks column only |
| 30 | Content leads | First lead by day 3 to 7; 77% of campaigns have one by day 30 | None by day 30 at $25+ a day: the form or the offer |
| 30 | Demo leads | From the inbox: opens 42.6%, completion 40.7% | A demo form on a single image in the feed (2.2% completion, $600 a lead) |
| 45 | Creative | First refresh on audiences under 30,000 | Same three ads at day 90 |
| 60 | Retargeting | Live, growing share of spend | No retargeting campaign |
| 60 | Cost per lead by offer | Content $164 median / $67 good; demo $343 / $131 | A blended cost per lead, or none |
| 60 | Companies tab | Engaged companies handed to sales with context | Nobody has opened the tab |
| 90 | Penetration of the list | 20% median, 40% good | Under 10% with no explanation (bid, budget, audience size) |
| 90 | Opportunities | First ones with source in the CRM, if the sales cycle allows | Nobody can say where a lead went after the form |
What a stalled account looks like
- The report leads with impressions, clicks and CTR from LinkedIn's default column, and the cost per click looks like $4 when the visit costs $17.
- One campaign, one audience, one offer, on the brand awareness objective "because it is cheap", with the Audience Network on.
- A demo form on a single image in the feed, still running at day 90, at $600 a lead.
- No retargeting campaign, no exclusions, the same three ads since launch.
- A blended cost per lead that mixes downloads and demos.
- Leads that reach the CRM days later or not at all; nobody has checked the 90-day retention.
- Nobody has opened the Companies tab or read the demographics report.
Any three of those at day 90 is the reason to run the client's audit of a LinkedIn ads agency. How we run the first 90 days on a paid media account, channel by channel, is on the paid media page; what a good agency answers before you sign is in how to choose a LinkedIn ads agency.