Most B2B video ad funnels on LinkedIn fail for one reason: the video is asked to do three jobs. It is meant to get watched, get engagement and get a form filled, on one objective, to one audience. The data says video is good at exactly one of those — being watched — and worse than a static post at the other two. So the funnel below gives the video one job, and hands the others to the formats that do them cheaper. Every number is from Kiin Labs' 2026 studies: $31M of LinkedIn spend, every comparison the same advertiser running both settings, Audience Network excluded.
Top of funnel: the video, on the video views objective
If the goal is people watching the video, the objective is video views. Paired within the same accounts across sponsored video:
- Video views vs brand awareness (54 accounts): cost per view −18%, cost per completion −32%. View rate and CPM are level; brand awareness simply gets fewer people to finish.
- Video views vs engagement (90 accounts): cost per two-second view is a tie, cost per completion −25%. Engagement buys the same glance plus reactions (engagement rate +78%, four times the landing page click rate); video views buys the watch-through.
- Brand awareness vs engagement (49 accounts): completion rate −24%, cost per minute watched +63%. Brand awareness is the worst objective for a video.
Bidding. Let LinkedIn bid. "Maximise video views" against a manual CPV bid in the same account: CPM −21%, cost per view −10%, cost per completion −25%. Cross-account it is $0.076 against $0.129 a view. If you must bid manually, bid low: the highest-bid campaign in an account pays 90% more per view than the lowest for a view rate 4% higher.
Audience. Cold and big. $0.072 a view over 100,000 people, $0.148 under 10,000. Retargeting lifts view rate 13% but pays 17% more per view — use it in the middle layer, not here. An uploaded list pays more for nothing.
What to measure. Cost per view, view rate, completion rate, cost per completion. Not clicks: a video views campaign has a 0.04% landing page CTR and $97 landing page clicks, and that is the format doing its job. Benchmarks on the video views objective, median account: $0.108 per view, 36.8% view rate, $38 CPM, 3.3% completion, $2.73 per completion. Thought leader video is watched more (46.5% view rate) and costs more per view ($0.123).
Middle of funnel: retarget the viewers with thought leader ads
LinkedIn lets you build a matched audience from video viewers — people who watched 25%, 50%, 75% or 97% of a video, 180-day window. That is the funnel's middle layer: a warm pool that has already given you fifteen seconds of attention.
Serve that pool thought leader ads on the engagement objective — single image, from a founder or a named expert, no link needed. Engagement is the right objective on any retargeting pool: brand awareness on retargeting gets 17% more reach for 51 to 90% more per engagement, and paired within account retargeting on thought leader ads gets 25% more engagement and 20% longer dwell than cold. Two or three authors, refreshed every two weeks if the pool is under 10,000 (it will be), read frequency at the account level. The objective rules in full are in engagement vs brand awareness.
Start with the 25%-viewer audience; add the 50% and 75% audiences as separate campaigns once each passes 300 members, and expect the 75% pool to engage best and cost most. Do not put the original video in front of this pool again — the people who watched it once will not watch it twice, and the ones who did not are not in the audience.
Bottom of funnel: the form goes on a document or a message, not the video
The instinct is to attach a lead gen form to the video. Don't. Paired within account, video with a form costs 60% more per lead than single image with a form; a demo form on video converts 1.2% of opens and needs 80 form opens per lead. The cheapest lead on LinkedIn is a message ad with a form — $56 median for a content offer, $175 for a demo, 41% form completion — and the best feed format for a download is a document ad, 22% cheaper per lead than single image with 174% higher completion.
So the bottom layer is: message or conversation ads with a form to the 50%+ viewer pool and the thought leader ad engagers; document ads with a content offer to the wider retargeting pool; a demo request only in the inbox, where it converts at 40% against 2% in the feed. Every number here is from Lead Gen Forms Benchmarks 2026.
The setup in Campaign Manager
- Campaign group 1 — Video, top. Objective: video views. Bidding: maximise video views. Audience: cold, job title or function plus company size, 100,000 or more; Audience Network off. One video, 15 to 30 seconds, message in the first three seconds, captions on. Daily budget sized to the audience, under $2 a day per 1,000 members.
- Matched audiences. Video viewers 25% / 50% / 75%, 180 days. Website visitors. Thought leader ad engagers.
- Campaign group 2 — Thought leader ads, middle. Objective: engagement, CPM bid, low. Audience: the viewer pools. Two or three authors, one post each, single image, refreshed fortnightly.
- Campaign group 3 — Capture, bottom. Message ads with a form to 50%+ viewers and engagers; document ads with a content offer to the 25% pool; demo requests in the inbox only. Conversions defined as submissions, never opens.
- Reporting. Top on cost per completion and pool growth. Middle on engagement rate and penetration of the viewer pool. Bottom on cost per lead split by content and demo, and pipeline by account from the CRM.
Budget and what to expect
The structure runs from about $4,000 a month of media. A working split to start: half on the video, a third on the thought leader ads, the rest on capture, moving budget down the funnel as the pools fill. At median benchmarks, $2,000 of video buys roughly 18,000 two-second views and 700 completions a month; a 25%-viewer pool builds to several thousand people within the first month at a 100,000+ audience. Expect the first form leads in the second month, when the middle layer has had time to work; a capture campaign launched in week one against an empty pool is the most common reason a video funnel looks expensive.
Frequently asked questions
Which objective should a LinkedIn video ad use?
Video views, if the goal is the watch: 18% cheaper per view and 32% cheaper per completion than brand awareness, and 25% cheaper per completion than engagement, paired within account. Engagement only if you want reactions as well as the view — same cost per two-second view, 78% more engagement. Brand awareness is the worst of the three for a video.
Should I bid manually or use maximise video views?
Use maximise video views. In the same account it beats a manual CPV bid by 21% on CPM and 10% on cost per view, and cross-account the gap is $0.076 against $0.129 a view. If you bid manually, bid low — the highest-bid campaign pays 90% more per view for a 4% higher view rate.
Can I put a lead gen form on a video ad?
You can; it costs 60% more per lead than the same form on a single image, paired within account, and a demo form on video converts 1.2% of opens. Put the form on a message ad ($56 content, $175 demo) or a document ad instead, and use the video to build the audience those formats retarget.
How do I retarget people who watched my LinkedIn video?
Campaign Manager → Plan → Audiences → Create matched audience → Video. Choose the video, the watch threshold (25%, 50%, 75% or 97%) and the lookback (up to 180 days). The audience needs 300 members before it serves. Serve it thought leader ads on the engagement objective, not the video again.
How to structure a video ad funnel for a B2B SaaS company?
Three layers with one job each: the video on video views with automatic bidding to a cold audience over 100,000; thought leader ads on engagement to the people who watched 25% or more; a lead gen form on a document or message ad to the warmest of them. Budget roughly half, a third and the rest to start, and judge each layer on its own metric — completions, engagement, cost per lead by offer.
How is a LinkedIn video funnel different from a Meta video funnel?
Same three-layer logic, different costs and targeting. LinkedIn targets by company and job title, so the top layer can be aimed at a named account list and the CPM is several times Meta's; Meta's cheap frequency makes it the better place to keep the warmed audience seeing you. Kiin runs both from one account list in Full Paid Media: LinkedIn creates the audience, Meta keeps it warm, the form goes where it converts.
Sources: Kiin Labs, LinkedIn Ads Benchmarks 2026 — video, Thought Leader Ads Benchmarks 2026, chapter 6 and Lead Gen Forms Benchmarks 2026. Paired within account, Audience Network excluded, twelve months to September 2026.