LinkedIn Ads

This page is for the marketer who advertises on LinkedIn through an AI client. The first four sections are for the administrator: LinkedIn Ads is off until they are done.

LinkedIn ads spend money. So nothing made here can run by itself: a campaign group is created as a draft, a campaign and an ad are created paused, every change is shown to you before it is made, and switching something on is always its own step. See How it keeps you safe.

The Meta Ads page has the same sections in the same order, so you can compare the two.

Switching LinkedIn Ads on

LinkedIn Ads is off in a new installation. Until an administrator switches it on, every request about LinkedIn advertising is refused, and the refusal says where the switch is.

LinkedIn decides whether your app may advertise. Apply for the Advertising API product in the LinkedIn developer portal and wait for the approval.

Wait for LinkedIn's approval

LinkedIn refuses the whole sign-in when it is asked for a permission the app does not have. If you switch this on before the product is approved, nobody can connect LinkedIn at all, for posting either.

Then:

1. Open LinkedIn app.
2. Under Advertising API, tick Ask for the Advertising API permissions when people connect.
3. Press Save.

From then on the LinkedIn sign-in asks for three more permissions: r_ads, r_ads_reporting and rw_ads.

Everyone reconnects

People who connected LinkedIn before the switch was on do not have the new permissions. Each of them opens LinkedIn connection and presses Reconnect LinkedIn. See Connecting LinkedIn.

The LinkedIn Ads section below it has three more switches, all off: Leads: ask for r_marketing_leadgen_automation, Conversions: ask for rw_conversions and Matched audiences: ask for rw_dmp_segments. Each is a separate LinkedIn product with its own application and its own permission, and the same danger applies to each one. They have their own pages: Leads and Conversions and customer lists.

Spending limits

Nothing that a limit guards can be changed on an ad account until that limit is set for the account's currency. This is on purpose: a currency with no limit is not unlimited, it is closed.

1. Open Safety limits.
2. Under LinkedIn ad spend limits, fill in the four amounts. Each is written per currency, like USD 100, SAR 375:
   • Highest daily budget, per currency;
   • Highest total budget, per currency;
   • Highest total of active daily budgets on one account, per currency;
   • Highest bid, per currency.
3. Check the two numbers below them: Largest budget increase in one call, percent (starts at 50) and Longest a campaign may run, days (starts at 90).
4. Press Save LinkedIn ad spend limits.

A request cannot raise a limit by asking. A request over a limit is refused, never trimmed to fit, and the refusal carries the address of the Safety limits page.

A daily budget is an average

LinkedIn may spend up to 50% more than a daily budget on a single day. The limits cap the budget, not the day.

All the limits and switches are listed in Limits and switches.

Allowed ad accounts

By default a person can work on every ad account their own LinkedIn login has a role on. To narrow that for the whole installation:

1. Open Safety limits.
2. Under LinkedIn ad spend limits, type the ad account ids in Allowed ad accounts, separated by commas. Empty means every account a login can reach.
3. Press Save LinkedIn ad spend limits.

An account that is not on the list cannot be read or changed from here.

Allowed locations to target beside it limits where campaigns may be aimed. LinkedIn names a place by a number, and the list takes those numbers; the AI client can look one up for you. A place's number does not say which country it is in, so a region or a city inside a listed country has to be on the list itself. Empty means any location.

To see what your own login reaches, open LinkedIn connection and press Test connection. With the Advertising API on, the result lists your ad accounts with Your role and May change.

Reporting-only mode

To let people read LinkedIn advertising reports and change nothing:

1. Open LinkedIn app.
2. Under LinkedIn Ads, tick Reporting only.
3. Press Save, then stop the server and start it again.

It takes effect the next time the server starts. With it on, nothing that changes a campaign is offered to any AI client. Reports and previews still work.

To make one person read-only instead, remove May write from that user: see Users and access.

Reports

Ask in your own words. The AI client starts by listing your ad accounts, because every amount is in the ad account's own currency.

Which LinkedIn ad accounts can I use, and what is my role on each?

How did our LinkedIn campaigns do last month? Show spend, clicks, leads and cost per lead.

Who saw the "Acme ERP" campaign, by seniority?

What you can ask for:

• A list of campaign groups, campaigns or ads, with status, objective, budgets, bid and schedule, and for an ad the post it shows and LinkedIn's review of it.
• Performance by account, campaign group, campaign or ad: spend, impressions, clicks, leads, conversions, video views and engagements, for the whole range or by day, month or year. Days are counted in UTC.
• Who saw it: by job function, seniority, industry, company size, country, region, job title or company. One of these at a time.
• Why something is not being served: its status, what LinkedIn says is holding it, at which level (the ad account, the campaign group, the campaign or the ad), and why an ad was rejected.
• The account's standing: its status, anything holding it, what it spent in a month, and what is left of each campaign group's total budget.

What is this server's arithmetic

LinkedIn returns counts and cost. Some of what you read is worked out here, and the answer says so:

• Click rate, cost per click, cost per thousand impressions and cost per lead are this server's division of LinkedIn's figures. Where there is nothing to divide by, the rate is left out, not shown as zero.
• What is left of a campaign group's budget is this server's subtraction. The month's spend is LinkedIn's reporting, not an invoice.
• "Seen within the hour", "not for 3 days", "never" for LinkedIn's Insight Tag (the tracking code on your website) is this server's wording of LinkedIn's own times.

And three things LinkedIn does not give:

• Who saw it is approximate. LinkedIn gives only the top 100 values, a day behind, and they do not add up to the account's totals. Read them as proportions.
• An empty report means no activity or no access. LinkedIn answers both with nothing, and the answer says it cannot tell which.
• No balance, invoice or payment method. LinkedIn's API has none. Look in Campaign Manager.

Reach counts people, so it is never added up across rows or days.

Reports cost calls

LinkedIn limits advertising calls by the day. Ask for one report at the level you need, not one question per campaign.

Building a campaign

A LinkedIn campaign has three parts, made in this order.

1. The campaign group: a container for campaigns. It may cap what they spend together. Created as a draft.
2. The campaign: who sees the ads, the objective, the bid, the budget and the schedule. Created paused.
3. The ad (LinkedIn calls it a creative): what the campaign shows. Created paused.

Build a LinkedIn campaign for Acme's ERP webinar: finance managers and directors in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, 150 SAR a day for two weeks. Show me the audience size first.

The AI client shows you each part before it is made. What to look at:

• The audience count. LinkedIn's own estimate of how many members the targeting reaches. LinkedIn reports 0 for any audience under 300 members: that means too small to run, not nobody.
• The most the budget could spend.
• Political advertising. LinkedIn requires the advertiser to say whether the ads are political. The AI client asks you; it never answers for you.
• An end. While Longest a campaign may run, days is set, a campaign made here needs an end date or a total budget.
• Targeting. A location is required. A job title cannot be combined with a job function or a seniority, nor a company with an industry or a company size: LinkedIn refuses those combinations, so they are refused here first.
• Going beyond your targeting to similar members is off unless you ask for it.

LinkedIn's targeting may not be used to discriminate on personal characteristics such as gender, age, race or ethnicity.

The ad

An ad shows either a post your Page already has, or a new post made with it: text with one image, video or PDF from your media library, a link, or a carousel.

• A new post made for an ad appears on no Page, only as the ad. It does not count as one of the day's posts.
• Files are uploaded to LinkedIn only when you say go ahead, never for a preview.
• LinkedIn reviews an ad from the moment it is made, even while it is paused.
• An ad cannot be edited. To change it, a new ad is made and the old one paused, and LinkedIn reviews the new one afresh.
• All the ads of a campaign are one kind. A video or carousel campaign has to say so when it is created.

For a lead generation ad the form comes first: see Leads.

Boosting a post

To advertise a post your LinkedIn Page already has:

Boost our LinkedIn post about the new branch to operations managers in Egypt, 20 USD a day for a week.

One step makes a paused campaign and a paused ad that shows the post. If you name no campaign group, it also makes a new one, as a draft.

• A boost follows every rule of a campaign: the same limits, the same end, the political question, the same targeting checks.
• It is not for lead generation. That ad needs a form, so it is built step by step.
• The post has to be a published, public post of the ad account's own Page. LinkedIn does not sponsor a reshare or a post with several images.
• If LinkedIn refuses a step while it is being made, what the boost had made is removed again, and the answer says so.

Nothing a boost makes is running. Into a new group there are three things to switch on: the group, the campaign and the ad.

Previews

Before an ad runs, look at it:

Show me how the new LinkedIn ad looks.

You get links that show the ad as it would appear in the feed, on desktop and on mobile. A link works for about three hours; ask again for a fresh one. LinkedIn previews single image, carousel and video ads.

A preview is also a condition. While Require a preview before an ad is switched on is ticked (it is by default, under LinkedIn ad spend limits in Safety limits), an ad can be switched on only by someone who has had it previewed in the last 24 hours. That holds for ads made in Campaign Manager too, and for every active ad that would start running under a campaign or a group you switch on.

The reason: a paused ad costs nothing, a running one does, and the person who starts the spending should have seen what it shows.

Switching on

Switching on is the only way spending starts, and nothing else does it. It is never done as part of another request.

Switch on the "Acme ERP webinar" campaign.

The AI client first shows you a preview:

• the budgets that would start spending;
• the most it could spend: 1.5 times the daily budgets on one day; and in all, a total budget in full or a daily budget for the days it has left, whichever is less;
• the ads that would run, with LinkedIn's review of each;
• what the ad account's active daily budgets would total afterwards.

Only after you confirm is it switched on.

A campaign with no end

A campaign with neither a total budget nor an end date spends up to its daily budget every day until someone pauses it. The preview says so when that is the case.

What is checked before anything is sent:

• Each budget against its limit. A budget made in Campaign Manager above your limit cannot be started from here.
• The account's total. The daily budgets already running on the ad account plus the ones about to start must stay under Highest total of active daily budgets on one account.
• The preview, as above.

LinkedIn has three levels, and something runs only when all the levels above it are on. Switching on a campaign whose group is still a draft starts nothing: the preview says so, and the checks are made when the group is switched on.

A campaign that LinkedIn marks as completed is not switched on again from here. Copy it.

Pausing is the off switch. It can be undone.

Budgets

Raise the daily budget of the "Acme ERP webinar" campaign to 200 SAR.

Lower the bid on that campaign to 30 SAR.

What can be changed:

• a campaign's daily budget, total budget, bid and end date;
• a campaign group's total budget and end date.

A budget stays the kind it is. A daily budget is changed where there is one and a total budget where there is one; neither is added from here. A campaign group's daily budget is read and counted, but not changed from here.

A raise is held to the highest daily or total budget, the largest increase in one call, the account's total of active daily budgets, and the longest a campaign may run.

Lowering is never refused by the increase limit or by the account's total. Those two stop raises only: refusing a reduction would just keep the higher spend in place. An earlier end date is a reduction too. The new amount still has to be under the highest budget for the currency.

To follow a month's spend against your own plan, see Budgets and alerts.

Editing and copying

Rename the campaign to "Acme ERP - Q1".

Add Kuwait to the campaign's locations. Keep everything else.

Copy the "Acme ERP webinar" campaign with its ads.

Editing a campaign changes its name, its targeting, its end date, or whether LinkedIn may go beyond the targeting. It is not a second way to spend: no edit takes a status, a budget or a bid. The objective, the kind of ad and the Page are fixed when a campaign is made.

• Targeting is replaced whole. The AI client sends all of it, and the preview shows the audience count before and after. On a campaign that is switched on, the change decides who sees its ads at once.
• A later end date is held to the longest a campaign may run.
• A completed or archived campaign can be renamed and nothing more.
• There is no editing of an ad or of a campaign group.

LinkedIn has no copy of its own, so a copy is built here as a new campaign:

• It is paused, starts now, and is held to every limit a new campaign is, its budget and bid included.
• With its ads, each is a new paused ad showing the same post, at most 25.
• If the source's targeting or bidding is something this server does not build, the copy is refused. It is never copied with part of its targeting missing. Copy it in Campaign Manager.
• The conversions tied to the source are not tied to the copy. Ask for that separately.
• If LinkedIn refuses some of the ads, the campaign still exists, paused, and the answer says which ads were not copied. Do not run the copy again to get them.

Bulk changes

Pause every campaign in the "Q4" group.

Up to 25 campaign groups, campaigns or ads of one kind can be paused or archived in one request, or have their budget, bid or end date changed. Each item is checked by itself, by the same rules as a single change, and has its own row in the activity log. One item refused does not stop the others.

A bulk change cannot switch anything on and cannot delete. Each of those stays a single, confirmed request.

Deleting

Prefer pausing or archiving. Archiving stops a campaign and takes it out of the lists, and keeps its results.

Deleting cannot be undone. It asks twice: the preview, then a separate, explicit confirmation that you want it deleted. The AI client deletes only when you asked for a delete.

Delete the test campaign "Draft 3". Yes, delete it for good.

What cannot be deleted from here, because LinkedIn's API has no delete for it:

• a lead form, which can only be archived;
• an audience made of your website's visitors. A list of companies or contacts can be deleted, but not while an active campaign targets or excludes it.

Your role on the ad account

On LinkedIn, what you may do on an ad account depends on the role someone gave you in Campaign Manager, whatever you allowed at sign-in.

• A Viewer can read reports and nothing more. A change is refused here by name, before anything is sent.
• The roles that can change campaigns are Account manager, Campaign manager, Creative manager and Billing admin.

To get a role that can change campaigns, ask someone who manages the ad account in Campaign Manager. Your role shows in LinkedIn connection after Test connection, and the AI client can tell you.

Reading leads needs a role on the ad account and on its company Page as well.

No validation by LinkedIn

Google and, for most things, Meta can check a change without making it. LinkedIn cannot: it has no such mode for any advertising call.

So every preview on this page is this server's own check, and nothing is sent to LinkedIn until you say go ahead. The server checks what it can: your role, the limits, the targeting combinations LinkedIn documents as refused, the dates, the budget. LinkedIn has not seen the change and may still refuse it when it is made.

In the activity log, these previews are marked as checked here and not sent. Nothing here is ever called validated or approved by LinkedIn.

Bid rules

How a campaign bids is chosen when it is made, and it has to be a pair LinkedIn offers for the objective. A pair it does not offer is refused, with the ones it does.

Objective	How it may bid
Brand awareness, website visits, engagement, video views	LinkedIn bids for you, a cost cap, a target cost, or a manual bid
Lead generation	LinkedIn bids for you, a cost cap, or a manual bid
Website conversions	LinkedIn bids for you, or a manual bid

• When LinkedIn bids for you, the campaign takes no bid. Setting one on such a campaign is refused: LinkedIn would not use it now, and it could take effect unseen later.
• Every other way needs a bid above zero. A bid of zero would stop delivery.
• Every bid is held to Highest bid, per currency, a lowered one included. With no amount for the currency, a bid cannot be set.

The audience network

The LinkedIn Audience Network shows your ads on other companies' apps and sites as well as on LinkedIn. Here every campaign is made with it off.

To let a request ask for it:

1. Open LinkedIn app.
2. Under LinkedIn Ads, tick Let a call use the LinkedIn Audience Network.
3. Press Save.

Even then it is on only for a campaign where you ask for it. It is never on for lead generation, and a boost never uses it. A copy of a campaign that used it is made with it off while the switch is off, and the preview says so.

Related

• Leads: lead forms, and reading the leads they collect.
• Conversions and customer lists: conversion rules, sending conversions, and matched audiences.
• Troubleshooting: what a refusal means.