The £300K Analysis: Six Metrics Compared
We analysed £300K in LinkedIn thought leader ad spend across 25+ B2B SaaS accounts, comparing engagement and brand awareness campaign objectives head-to-head. Here's what we found:
| Metric | Engagement | Brand Awareness | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost per landing page click | $17.22 | $17.24 | Tie (Report No. 1, 36 paired accounts) |
| Dwell time | Slightly higher | Slightly lower | Engagement ✓ |
| Engagement rate | Nearly 2× higher | Lower | Engagement ✓ |
| Reactions & comments | Astronomical cost | Astronomical cost | Draw |
| Penetration / unique reach | Lower unique reach | Broader distribution | Brand Awareness ✓ |
| Pipeline influence | Leaning engagement* | Less conclusive | Engagement ✓ (leaning) |
*Pipeline comparison is not fully apples-to-apples because engagement-optimised accounts often had more outbound running alongside. However, engagement still leans ahead.
Where Engagement Wins
On cost per click the two objectives tie. Paired within 36 accounts running both, a landing page click costs $17.24 on brand awareness and $17.22 on engagement: engagement gets 82% more landing page clicks per impression, brand awareness pays 39% less per impression, and the two cancel. Where engagement does win is interaction.
The engagement rate being nearly 2× higher matters because every like, comment, and click is a warm outbound signal. When someone engages with your thought leader ad, that data flows into tools like Trigify, gets enriched through Clay, and triggers outbound sequences. Brand awareness doesn't generate these signals at the same rate, it optimises for impressions, not interactions.
Dwell time being slightly higher on engagement means people are actually spending more time reading and watching your content, not just scrolling past. LinkedIn's algorithm delivers the ad to people more likely to engage, which self-selects for people who are actually interested in your topic.
Where Brand Awareness Wins
Brand awareness wins on unique reach, it shows your ads to more unique LinkedIn members. The algorithm optimises for breadth of distribution rather than depth of engagement. This means a higher percentage of your target audience sees the ad at least once.
That matters on big cold audiences. On a cold audience of 30,000 or more, brand awareness reaches 184% more people at a 59% lower CPM, and over 100,000 people it reaches 3.8× as many per dollar. Under 10,000 people it reaches only 1% more and costs 49% more per engagement, because there is nobody extra to reach.
Brand awareness on cold audiences of 30,000 or more where the job is to be seen. Engagement under 10,000 people, on uploaded lists, on retargeting pools, on video and on anything you need clicked. Between 10,000 and 30,000 cold, pick by goal: reach, brand awareness; action, engagement. The full paired data is in Kiin Labs Report No. 1.
What About Reactions and Comments?
Both objectives produce astronomically expensive cost-per-reaction and cost-per-comment numbers. This is normal, don't optimise for reactions or comments as a primary metric. They're a nice byproduct of engagement optimisation, and each one is a signal for outbound, but the cost per individual reaction is too high to justify on its own.
Focus on CPC, engagement rate, penetration rate, and downstream pipeline influence. Those are the metrics that actually correlate with revenue.
Whichever objective you choose, track your penetration rate (percentage of target audience who've seen your ads at least once) and frequency (average impressions per person per month). Target 50%+ penetration and 5-8× frequency per month. If engagement optimisation isn't hitting these thresholds, consider adding a small brand awareness campaign alongside to broaden reach, but keep the majority of spend on engagement.