Why I ran the test
Most B2B marketers will tell you not to run gated content ads. The logic sounds right: the leads are low intent, sales wastes hours chasing them, and they don't scale past a point.
I wanted to test it myself. So instead of listening to the theory, I put my own money behind an experiment.
The full breakdown
| Metric | Result |
|---|---|
| Ad spend | $2,300 (across a few campaigns) |
| Cost per landing page click | £5.17 |
| Landing page conversion rate | ~45% |
| Leads | 155 |
| Cost per lead | ~£11 ($14) |
| Calls booked | 6 |
| Cost per booked call | £293 |
| Clients closed | 2 |
| Cost per client | £879 (~$1,100) |
| Average client value | $11,000+ |
That is the kind of maths you want on your side. Spending about $1,000 to land an $11,000+ client is a no-brainer, and if it scales the economics get better still.
Same caveat as always: this is my account, my audience and my face. For context, the median thought leader ad in the Kiin Labs panel costs $14.71 per landing page click across 212 accounts, and good is $8.37 (Thought Leader Ads Benchmarks 2026).
Step 1: the thought leader ads
I boosted my own personal posts. The post was simple: a direct offer to download my Notion-based LinkedIn Ads Operating System.
- Authenticity. It was not a polished corporate ad. It looked like me sharing something valuable, because it was.
- Clarity. "Here is my system, click if you want it." No fluff.
- Targeting. UK and US, marketing leaders and founders.
The metric that mattered was cost per click to the landing page: £5.17. Do not confuse it with LinkedIn's default CPC, which counts likes, comments, "see more" and profile clicks. On thought leader ads, 91% of the clicks LinkedIn reports never reach a landing page (Kiin Labs). Landing page clicks are the benchmark.
Step 2: the gated content
This is where many campaigns fall apart. A lead magnet only works if people actually want it. Mine converted around 45% of landing page visitors into 155 leads at about £11 each, a strong sign the content hit the mark.
The problem: too many Gmail and Yahoo sign-ups. For the next round I am asking for a business email and full name, so outbound runs on better data. I am not adding a phone number: that one field cuts form completion by 66% in the same account (phone number field).
Step 3: outbound and nurture
This is where the funnel came alive.
Outbound. Every morning I went through the new leads by hand. Found them on LinkedIn, connected, sent a personal Loom video or an extra resource, and started a conversation. That human touch made a big difference.
Email. I built a five-email nurture sequence. Open rates held at around 60% across all five (65%, 57%, 52%, 57%, 58%). The content was pure value: why companies fail on LinkedIn Ads, strategy breakdowns, and Loom deep dives into real campaigns, with a soft call to action at the bottom ("book a call if you want us to do this for you").
People kept opening, kept clicking and eventually booked calls. Some booked straight after an email. Others weeks later, after seeing me again on LinkedIn or YouTube. The attribution is messy, but the system clearly works.
Why it worked
- The offer had teeth. Not a fluffy "10 tips" PDF. A complete operating system I actually use, and people could see the value.
- Follow-up ran on several channels. Prospects saw me in their inbox, on LinkedIn (ads and DMs) and on video (Loom and YouTube). More touchpoints, more trust.
- It felt personal. Automated email is fine, but combining it with manual LinkedIn outreach made the whole thing human.
The bigger version of this funnel, with retargeting and conversation ads at the bottom, is in the thought leader ads playbook.
Will it scale?
So far this worked on about $2,300. My next step is to push $6,000 to $7,000 behind the same funnel and see whether the cost per client holds. If I can keep winning clients at around $1,000 each, it is a very scalable channel.
Expect some of it to move as spend grows: a bigger budget into the same audience raises frequency and CPM, and fatigue tracks how many times people have seen the ad (frequency and fatigue). Watch cost per landing page click and cost per lead week by week, not just the blended result.
What you can steal from this
- Don't ignore gated content. It is not low quality if the offer is good enough.
- Judge cost per landing page click, not LinkedIn's CPC. £5.17 per click was the number that mattered.
- Make the nurture emails genuinely useful. That is why mine held around 60% opens across five sends.
- Layer outbound and nurture. Do not rely on one channel; build trust by showing up everywhere.
- Track acquisition cost against lifetime value. A $1,000 cost per client looks high until you see the client is worth $11,000.
A lot of marketers will confidently say "never run gated content ads". The honest answer is: it depends. With the right offer, the right follow-up and a bit of hustle, they can be one of the most profitable parts of the funnel.
Campaign figures marked as mine are from Phil Ilic's own LinkedIn Ads account or audits, one advertiser, not benchmarks. Every other figure links to its source in Kiin Labs, built on $65M+ of LinkedIn Ads spend across 1,000+ advertiser accounts (medians across accounts, LinkedIn Audience Network excluded unless it is the subject, USD, 8 Sep 2025 to 7 Sep 2026). Cells with fewer than 10 advertisers are never published.
Originally published in the B2B Hero newsletter on 16 September 2025 as “I Spent $2.3K on LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads + Gated Content: Results Inside”. Edited for the web, with Kiin Labs figures added where we now have the data. Subscribe to B2B Hero.