Why LinkedIn Ads Should Be Part of Your Marketing in 2026
LinkedIn’s ad system deserves to be part of your marketing mix in 2026, here's why...
In the world of business, sales and marketing, it’s common to be presented with information that suggests that LinkedIn is one of your most cost-effective sources to share insights, influence and most importantly, generate leads.
As Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee) recites religiously, “It’s ******* free.” And he’s correct: LinkedIn remains an incredibly powerful free tool for your digital and sales strategy, and when used with frequency and strategic planning, it can be one of the most potent lead-generation channels for service-based businesses.
Image credit: Wikipedia
However, there’s an influential side of LinkedIn that I rarely see mentioned: its advertising features. For context, as a Digital Marketing Agency, we often undergo discovery sessions with our B2B clients. As part of this process, we take time to understand both their marketing mix and their lead funnel.
This is often where we see consistency in the client’s chosen digital marketing channels: email platforms such as Mailchimp, as well as popular reactive and proactive channels, such as Google and Meta, are their core lead generators within their digital space.
Within the silo, this is a relatively appropriate response. Google remains a powerhouse platform for generating leads and sales through Google Ads and Search Engine Optimisation (“SEO”), and Meta’s investment in AI within its advertising suite continues to lower the entry-level difficulty for new businesses promoting their offerings.
But why are LinkedIn ads considerably less popular in the B2B service sector? Why aren’t people using it? And more so, why isn’t anyone shouting about the platform’s incredible data set to utilise in your targeting?
The History of Advertising on LinkedIn
LinkedIn’s advertising options have been available throughout its lifespan. The platform launched its first digital ad options in 2005, only two years after its founding, providing the ability to advertise through Display Ad targeting, such as banner ads, evolving into a much more robust offering in 2008 in the form of Text Ads / Direct Ads, allowing users to target at a greater scale.
Looking ahead to 2026, LinkedIn’s in-platform advertising options have significantly improved, aligning with Meta and Google's display advertising options, including Carousel Ads, Video Ads, Conversion Tracking, and more.
But it’s not just the options that are worth talking about; it’s the targeting.
Upon initial view, and to most businesses that aren’t as familiar with the platform’s powerful account targeting, you could presume LinkedIn’s ads function similarly in their structure to other platforms; however, as a digital marketing agency, our clients are often surprised by the wealth of options available when creating their target audience on the platform.
What can you target through LinkedIn Ads?
LinkedIn’s audience targeting utilises the platform’s deep profile options and company page information to create a highly detailed ‘persona’ to target audiences based on location, age, job title, job sector, industry, seniority, skills, and company, including company revenue and Fortune 500 status.
Examples of targetable audience attributes on LinkedIn Ads:
- Company
- Company Category
- Company Connections
- Company Followers
- Company Growth Rate
- Company Industries
- Demographic
- Age
- Gender
- Education
- Degree/Qualifications
- Fields of Study
- School
- Job Experience
- Job Functions
- Job Seniorities
- Job Titles
- Member Skills
- Years of Experience
- Interests
- Member Groups
- Member Interests
- Member Traits
This also includes standard targeting capabilities, such as Predictive, Lookalike, List Uploads, and Retargeting. With the targeting options mentioned earlier, you can pinpoint your audience and speak directly to them with a campaign that yields more qualified leads than platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.
The value of LinkedIn’s targeting options is further highlighted for a digital marketing agency like Revive Digital, which frequently targets niche sectors to generate leads when other platforms, such as Meta, aren’t precise enough or appropriate.
We’ve used this in our marketing strategies for some of our most difficult-to-target industries, and for our digital marketing clients tasked with raising brand awareness among a highly targeted audience.
Please see the example case study below.
LinkedIn Ads Case Study – Aviation (MRO Sector)
Client: Ourselves
Objective: Brand Awareness, Leads
As a digital marketing agency with a diverse variety of staff and clients, we were looking to capitalise on an employee’s experience set within a target industry, and with an existing variety of sector-relevant case studies, it was logical to create a short campaign to target this space.
For this area, we chose Aviation, specifically the Aviation MRO sector.
Key Points:
- The sector still relies on traditional client marketing channels, including print materials, networking, business development, and trade shows.
- A large portion of their decision-makers are on LinkedIn and generate sales and leads through relationships, fitting within specific circles or working with high-performing businesses in the sector.
- Finding a marketing agency with aviation expertise is slim to none, so using similar industry terminology is necessary.
The Approach:
To speak directly to the target audience on LinkedIn, we utilised creatives that speak directly to their requirements, in this example, supporting them on their next tradeshow, which we ran leading into one of the sector’s most significant events of the year.
This also included a bespoke landing page outlining industry priorities, including aviation press and PR services, pull-up banner design, social media support, and print.
The Targeting:
In Status: Current Role
Example Roles:
- Creative Director
- Director of Business Development
- Sales Manager
- Director of Event Management
- Managing Director
- Marketing Assistant
- Sales And Marketing Specialist
- Marketing Manager
- Marketing Intern
- Event Assistant
- Event Specialist
- Event Coordinator
- Event Manager
- Sales Director
- Director
- Marketing Director
- Marketing Specialist
- Regional Sales Manager
Example Roles:
- Airlines & Aviation
Summary:
Utilising LinkedIn’s powerful targeting tools, we reached users in current, relevant roles and decision makers in our target industry, while using a dedicated landing page and creatives that spoke directly to consumers.
If you’ve read this far, you’re either invested in creating a targeted social media campaign using Paid Social on either LinkedIn or similar platforms or have an inherently curious mind that allows you to consume hours of content. Either way, before we share a snippet of our campaign results, here’s a little more about us.
We’re Revive Digital, a digital marketing agency based in Southend-on-Sea, Essex. As one of the longest-running digital marketing agencies in Essex, we have provided digital marketing services nationwide for almost fifteen years, with a team of nearly thirty in-house experts covering web design, development, and digital marketing, including SEO, Google Ads (PPC), and Social Media Management.
Recently, we’ve also launched our Creative Studio, Rev.01, which is well positioned to provide support for branding, creative strategy, graphic design, video, and more.
The results:
Following our short lead generation campaign and the addition of an exciting prospect to the pipeline, a review of the data provided further insights into interested parties and the effectiveness of our targeting.
When reviewing our professional demographic report, we identified that the most significant portion of users who viewed our ads were Business Development (30.82%), Sales (22.29%), Marketing (19.34%) and Operations (18.11%), with smaller portions distributed between Engineering, Media & Communication and Customer Success / Support.
Those targeted users were employees or representatives of some of the largest aviation companies in the world, including BAE Systems, Safran, Airbus, EasyJet, Aerobility, DB Schenker and Thales Group, one of the world’s largest aviation groups, with €20.6bn in revenue.
This case study is a small example of the legwork that a detailed paid social strategy can provide to get you in front of your ideal audience segment, without the wasted expenditure that can often come with a ‘set up and see’ mindset that often comes when dipping your toes in using paid social platforms such as Meta and Linkedin as part of your marketing strategy. And that’s where we come in.
If you’re ready to take the next step in the evolution of your marketing strategy and want to discuss how paid social and other channels could enhance your lead generation and sales, drop us a call or email, and we’ll put the kettle on.
