What you can expect
With more than 24 million active users, LinkedIn offers plenty of opportunities to reach your target audiences. Whether your goal is awareness, consideration, or conversion, LinkedIn helps you reach the right people at every stage of the customer journey.
But how well are your ads actually performing? If you’ve ever run LinkedIn Ads, you know that evaluating campaign performance is not always easy. These questions probably sound familiar:
- How do my campaigns compare to competitors?
- Are my campaigns already successful, or should I keep optimizing?
- What is a good performance target for my campaign?
- Which benchmarks and KPIs are relevant for running LinkedIn Ads?
In this blog article, we as a LinkedIn Ads agency explain which metrics you can use to analyze your campaigns, optimize your ads, and achieve better results. The benchmarks listed here are not universal values, as they can be influenced by several different factors.
LinkedIn CPM: Current Benchmarks
What Is CPM?
What Are the Benefits of CPM?
CPM, short for Cost per Mille, is also known as cost per thousand impressions. It shows how much you pay for your ad to generate 1,000 impressions.
An impression is counted when your ad is shown to a person in a placement on the platform. In other words, it represents a visual contact. It does not matter whether the person actively notices the ad or not.
Example
A company wants to increase awareness for a new product and spends €500 on a LinkedIn campaign. The ad is displayed 50,000 times. This means the company pays €10 for every 1,000 impressions.
Easy Calculation of Total Costs
One key advantage of CPM is the predictability of advertising costs. With CPM, you can plan your budget more efficiently by roughly estimating in advance how much it will cost to generate a certain number of impressions. This is especially important for smaller companies or start-ups with limited marketing budgets that want to achieve maximum visibility with their campaigns.
Planning Impressions
Based on the displayed CPM, you can calculate how many impressions you can expect from your LinkedIn campaign depending on your available budget.
Reliable Calculation of Ad Spend
If you want to increase the reach of your LinkedIn campaign, CPM helps you anticipate the costs involved. Since the amount is calculated per 1,000 impressions, it provides a solid basis for media planning.
Which Marketing Goals Is CPM Most Relevant For?
On LinkedIn, CPM plays an important role when it comes to reaching potential customers and running cost-efficient ad campaigns. It is especially relevant for campaigns focused on brand awareness or branding, where the main goal is to spread a message as widely as possible.
What Is the Average CPM?
An analysis of all our client accounts showed an average CPM of around €31 in 2024 so far. While this is relatively high compared to other platforms, the traffic quality on LinkedIn is often stronger than on competing channels. However, CPM can vary significantly depending on campaign objective, industry, and target audience. That is why individual cost planning and testing are essential.
Factors That Influence CPM
- Competition Within the Target Audience: The more companies bid on the same target audience, the higher your CPM will be. For example, audiences such as decision-makers are usually more expensive than broader audiences such as specialists, students, or entry-level professionals.
- Relevance and Quality of the Ad: LinkedIn rewards well-performing ads with a lower CPM. If your ad generates strong engagement within the target audience, such as clicks, likes, and comments, LinkedIn classifies it as relevant. The message-market fit also has a major impact on CPM. In other words: the better your message matches the needs and expectations of your target audience, the more relevant your ad will be rated. That is why it is important to make sure the right content is shown to the right people.
- Timing: There are times on LinkedIn when demand for ad placements is higher, which can cause CPMs to rise. In addition to peak usage times, specific periods such as holidays or quarter-end phases can also affect your CPM.
- Geographic Targeting: CPMs vary by country. In economically strong regions with high competition, such as Germany or the United States, CPMs are often higher.
What Can You Do If Your CPM Is Too High?
- Reduce your campaign budget
- Adjust your target audience using demographics
- Take seasonality into account
- Change the campaign objective
- Test new ads, creatives, and wording
- Optimize landing pages
- Optimize bidding
- Adjust ad delivery
LinkedIn CPC: Current Benchmarks
What Is CPC?
CPC, short for Cost per Click, is also known as cost per click or Pay per Click, PPC for short. It describes the price you pay when potential customers or interested users click on your ad.
Clicks on LinkedIn can include:
- Clicks on a call-to-action button, such as “Learn more” or “Apply now”
- Clicks leading to external websites or landing pages
- Clicks that trigger an interaction with a lead form
Example
A company selling project management software wants to generate more leads. To do this, it launches a LinkedIn campaign with the goal of driving interested users to a landing page where they can request a demo.
The campaign generates 125 clicks and spends €500 in campaign budget. This results in a CPC of €4 per click.
What Are the Benefits of CPC?
In general, CPC on LinkedIn, together with CTR, is an important indicator of how relevant your ad content and campaigns are to your target audience. CPC helps you in particular with the following points:
Cost Transparency: CPC shows how much you pay for each click on your ad. This allows you to understand how efficiently your budget is being used to generate interest and interaction within your target audience.
Measuring Ad Relevance: CPC is a useful indicator of how relevant and interesting your ads are for your target audience. A high CPC can indicate that you are not reaching your audience effectively enough or that your message is not the right fit.
Comparing Different Campaigns: CPC is also a relevant metric when comparing different LinkedIn ads or target audiences. It helps you understand how different campaigns or audiences are performing, so you can optimize them accordingly.
Which Marketing Goals Is CPC Most Relevant For?
On LinkedIn, CPC is particularly important for consideration campaigns and conversion campaigns. In other words, it is most relevant for marketing goals where user interaction with the ad is the main focus.
What Is the Average CPC?
On LinkedIn, the average CPC usually ranges between €4 and €6. Based on our analyses, the average CPC in 2024 was around €5.75.
However, the actual CPC, just like other metrics, can vary significantly depending on industry, target audience, and competition. Individual analysis and budget planning are therefore essential.
What Can You Do If Your CPC Is Too High?
High click costs can indicate that your topic is not capturing users’ attention or that your message is not being communicated clearly enough. Here are a few tips to help improve your LinkedIn CPC:
- Improve the quality and messaging of your ad
- Adjust your targeting
- Use audience segmentation and testing
- Optimize your landing page
- Use clear call-to-actions, or CTAs
- Tailor your content more precisely to your target audience
- Improve landing page loading speed
- Optimize the landing page for mobile devices
- Simplify conversion processes
LinkedIn CTR: Current Benchmarks
What Is CTR?
CTR, short for Click-Through Rate, measures the ratio between the number of clicks on an ad and the number of impressions.
On LinkedIn, CTR, together with CPC, is one of the most important performance metrics for analyzing the relevance and effectiveness of your ads. It gives you a data-based foundation for evaluating and optimizing your ads to achieve better results.
A high CTR indicates that your ads are highly relevant to your target audience. A low CTR is a signal that you should take a closer look at your ads and identify optimization potential. Further below, you will find tips on what to do if your CTR is too low.
Example
A B2B company offering IT security solutions wants to use a LinkedIn campaign to reach decision-makers in the IT industry and encourage them to learn more about the product on the website.
The ad is shown 10,000 times and generates 200 clicks. This results in a CTR of 2%.
What Are the Benefits of CTR?
The click-through rate is not only an important metric, but also a tool that helps you analyze your ads. CTR supports you in the following areas:
- Measuring ad relevance
- Comparing different ads and campaigns
- Building a basis for audience optimization
- Identifying problems early
- Optimizing budget allocation
Which Marketing Goals Is CTR Relevant For?
The click-through rate on LinkedIn is especially relevant for marketing goals focused on interaction, engagement, and conversions. It helps you evaluate how effectively your ad motivates users to respond to your call-to-action.
What Is the Average CTR?
Based on our analysis, the average CTR in 2024 was 0.54%. However, it is important to note that CTR can vary depending on the ad format and the type of click interaction.
Spotlight Ads and Text Ads usually have a low CTR, averaging around 0.02%. However, these ad formats are also relatively cost-effective and are designed to achieve different types of results.
For conversion-focused Image Ads, Video Ads, and Carousel Ads, there are certain thresholds that indicate whether an ad is more or less attractive. Below, we have put together a short overview to make this easier to evaluate:
What Can You Do If Your CTR Is Too Low?
A low CTR usually indicates that your ad is not relevant enough for your target audience, your creative or message is not convincing, your audience is not defined precisely enough, or the timing of your ad is not ideal.
Here are a few tips to improve your CTR:
- Optimize your ad copy and call-to-action, or CTA
- Make your creatives more engaging
- Re-evaluate your message
- Adjust the ad format, for example 1:1 or 4:5
- Optimize your landing page
- Test and optimize ads regularly
FAQ
Which KPIs are most important for LinkedIn Ads?
The most important KPIs for LinkedIn Ads are CPM, CPC, and CTR. Depending on the campaign goal, such as awareness, consideration, or conversion, these metrics have different levels of relevance and should always be evaluated together.
What is the average CPM for LinkedIn Ads?
The average CPM for LinkedIn Ads was around €31 in 2024. The actual CPM can vary depending on industry, target audience, competition, and campaign objective. Although LinkedIn is often more expensive than other platforms, the traffic quality is usually very high.
What is the average CPC for LinkedIn Ads?
The average CPC for LinkedIn Ads usually ranges between €4 and €6. Based on current analyses, the average value in 2024 was around €5.75. A high CPC can indicate that ads or target audiences need further optimization.
What CTR is realistic for LinkedIn Ads?
The average CTR for LinkedIn Ads is around 0.54%. Image Ads, Video Ads, and Carousel Ads usually achieve higher click-through rates than Text Ads or Spotlight Ads. The actual performance always depends on the ad format, target audience, and campaign objective.
Which marketing goals are CPM, CPC, and CTR relevant for?
CPM is especially relevant for brand awareness campaigns. CPC is particularly important for consideration and conversion campaigns. CTR is a key metric for evaluating ad relevance and interaction strength across all funnel stages.
Are LinkedIn Ads benchmarks universally valid?
LinkedIn Ads benchmarks are useful as a reference point, but they are not universally valid. Actual performance depends heavily on industry, target audience, competition, ad format, and campaign objective. That is why an individual analysis is essential.
LinkedIn Ads Agency
Still not quite sure how your ads are performing or where to start optimizing them? No problem. As a LinkedIn Ads agency, we take care of the design, setup, and reporting of your LinkedIn ads. We help take your performance marketing to the next level. 🚀
We are partners of the most relevant platforms, including LinkedIn, Meta, TikTok, and Google. With years of experience and a wide range of clients, we are confident that we can help make your performance marketing more successful too.
Still unsure? No worries. We offer a non-binding audit where we review all your current activities. A collaboration only starts if we are certain that we can provide real added value for your business. So, what are you waiting for? Get in touch and let’s talk.
