The targeting options, in one place
Every LinkedIn campaign needs a location. On top of that, audiences come from two places in Campaign Manager:
- Attributes: company (name, industry, size), job (function, seniority, title), skills and member groups.
- Matched audiences: an uploaded company list (up to 300,000 companies, 60 to 90% match), an uploaded contact list, CRM segments, and retargeting audiences from your site, ads, forms, videos and events.
Where each lives in the interface is in the Campaign Manager tutorial.
What advertisers actually use
| Targeting | Accounts using it | Share of spend |
|---|---|---|
| Uploaded company or contact list | 61% | 47% |
| Retargeting audience | 64% | 19% |
| Audience Expansion on | 28% | 3% of all spend |
| LinkedIn Audience Network on | 46% | 8% of all spend |
1,046 to 1,069 accounts with $250 or more of spend in the twelve months to 7 September 2026; a campaign can use several, so the columns add to more than 100%. Lists carry almost half of all spend: most B2B advertisers on LinkedIn are running some form of account-based marketing.
1. Retargeting first
Retargeting pools are the cheapest warm audience in most accounts: lead gen form openers who did not submit, video viewers at 50% or more, and visitors to pricing and demo pages. Send them the demo ask, ideally in a message ad, where 41% of form openers submit. Which pools to build, and the windows: LinkedIn retargeting for B2B.
2. Your account list, with a job filter
An uploaded company list is a cold audience with a higher CPM, not retargeting: the companies have not shown interest yet. On its own, it reaches everyone at those companies, interns included. Layer a job function and seniority filter onto the list, and in the same advertiser cost per click falls by 26% (Report No. 7). How to build the list: B2B account lists for LinkedIn.
3. A cold audience of 30,000 or more
For demand creation beyond your list, define the buyer by function and seniority rather than by dozens of job titles. Keep it at 30,000 or more: below that, the same advertiser pays 32% more per impression and gets no better click rate. Function changes the price too: sales roles are the cheapest to reach at a $33.65 CPM and C-suite and founders the dearest at $47.45 (cost by job function). Company size is priced in benchmarks by company size.
How big should a LinkedIn audience be?
Big enough to spend your budget without saturating it. The rule we use: under about $2 a day per 1,000 members. A $50-a-day campaign wants an audience of 25,000 or more; a 5,000-company list with a job filter may only support $10 to $15 a day. Small audiences also fatigue fast: under 10,000 members, a full pass of the audience takes 14 days on thought leader ads, against 53 days over 100,000 (audience size).
Two settings to switch off
Audience Expansion adds people who resemble your audience; Audience Network sends ads to third-party apps and sites. Both dilute the targeting you built, and in the panel 28% and 46% of advertisers had them on. We switch both off on every account.