LinkedIn ad objectives: which one to pick and what each allows

Everything below comes from LinkedIn's Marketing Solutions help pages: marketing objectives available for your ad campaigns, the eight objective pages (brand awareness, website visits, engagement, video views, lead generation, website conversions, job applicants and talent leads), ad formats for objective-based advertising and objective-based reporting with key results. How Campaign Manager is organised and how targeting works are in our LinkedIn ads basics guide; what each bidding strategy charges for is in our LinkedIn ads bidding guide. Neither is repeated here.

The eight objectives at a glance

LinkedIn describes an objective as "a specific, measurable goal that guides your advertising efforts," and says each one "offers ad formats and bidding strategies that align with the goals of that objective." The objectives are grouped into three tiers of the marketing funnel: brand awareness, consideration and conversions. Ad sets are then delivered to the people "most likely to take the action you want based on the objective you select."

Two of the eight are for recruiting, not marketing. Talent leads "is only available to companies with an active LinkedIn Recruiter contract", and it uses LinkedIn Landing Pages to collect candidate interest. For a company selling a service or product, the realistic choice is among the first six.

LinkedIn's own advice on choosing is short: match the objective to your business goal, and ask what your success metrics are, which ad format you want to use and which part of the funnel you are focusing on. If your goal is sales, it suggests the objective "might be to generate leads or drive website conversions."

Which ad formats each objective allows

After you pick an objective, Campaign Manager only offers the formats that support it. This table combines the format lists on each objective page (Talent leads is left out; it allows single image, carousel, video and spotlight ads):

Note on event ads: the website conversions page does not list them, but LinkedIn's separate ad formats by objective page does. Check Campaign Manager before planning an event campaign around that objective. For lead generation, LinkedIn notes: "Newsletter articles aren't currently available for lead generation ad sets."

A few things the table makes plain. Follower and thought leader ads only work for awareness and engagement (see our LinkedIn thought leader ads guide). Message ads are not offered for awareness or engagement, while conversation ads are offered for every objective except video views and job applicants (our LinkedIn conversation ads guide covers both message formats). Document ads appear under the five marketing objectives other than video views, and with lead generation they can gate the full file behind a form, as our LinkedIn document ads guide explains.

If you want several formats tested inside one campaign, LinkedIn's flexible ads option mixes up to four images or videos with up to five headlines and descriptions into as many as 64 ad versions. It has limits: it needs a new campaign, works with single image and video only, needs dynamic budget optimization, and creatives "go through a learning phase of approximately one week," after which underperformers "may be automatically paused."

Optimization goals and bidding by objective

Inside each objective you choose an optimization goal and a bidding strategy. The options differ more than most people expect:

Three rules sit behind that table:

• Changing the default goal limits bidding. On the website visits, video views, lead generation, job applicants and talent leads pages LinkedIn says: "If you change the optimization goal for an ad set, you can only select manual bidding as a bidding strategy."
• Message ads in lead generation get one goal. "When you create a lead generation campaign with a Sponsored Messaging ad format, the only optimization goal available is leads."
• Website conversions needs tracking first. "Conversion tracking must be enabled to utilize this objective." That means the Insight Tag or Conversions API set up and a conversion defined; see our LinkedIn Page guide for the tag.

Brand awareness has one more limit: you can't choose an ad rotation option, and its ads "default to using the rotate ads evenly option." What you are charged for under each combination (impressions, clicks, views or sends) is set out in the bidding guide's chargeable events table.

Choosing between objectives that look alike

Website visits or website conversions

Both send people to your site. Website visits optimizes toward people likely to click; LinkedIn says these ad sets "are shown to those most likely to click on your ad." Website conversions optimizes toward the action you defined, so it only works once conversion tracking is in place, and it doesn't offer cost cap. If your site doesn't yet record a form submit or booking as a conversion, website visits is the objective that can run today, and the conversion data you collect meanwhile makes the switch possible later.

Lead generation or website conversions

The difference is where the form lives: inside LinkedIn, pre-filled from the member's profile, or on your own landing page. The trade-offs are covered in our basics guide. One thing worth adding here: lead generation is the only objective with the qualified leads goal, which optimizes toward leads your sales team later marks as qualified (see below).

Brand awareness or engagement

Brand awareness is judged on reach, and its cost per result is "the total spent on your ad set by every 1,000 member accounts reached." Engagement is judged on engagement clicks, which LinkedIn defines broadly: "clicks to your landing page, LinkedIn Page, social actions, social pill, and LinkedIn Page follows." Pick awareness when the aim is to be seen by a defined audience, engagement when you want people to interact with a post or follow your Page.

Video views or another objective with video

Video views allows video only and counts views as the result. Video ads are also available under every other marketing objective, so if the video exists to get clicks or leads, choose that objective and use the video as the creative. Our LinkedIn video ads guide lists what each objective pays for with video.

The qualified leads goal

Within lead generation, the qualified leads optimization goal uses your own sales outcomes to steer delivery. You send LinkedIn the leads that met your bar (for example a marketing or sales qualified lead) through the Conversions API, or through CRM Sync in Business Manager, which auto-creates conversions and "can take up to 72 hours" to do so. If a Conversions API integration exists, lead generation ad sets select qualified leads automatically.

• The only bidding strategy is maximum delivery, and the formats are single image, carousel, video, event and document.
• Qualified lead data "must be shared with LinkedIn within 30 days" to count for optimization.
• LinkedIn describes "a two-week learning phase" and recommends uploading five or more qualified leads within two weeks.
• Use one event source. Selecting events from both CAPI and CRM Sync "can result in duplication in reporting and double counting of conversions."
• Expect a different cost picture: LinkedIn says the overall cost per lead might rise while the cost per qualified lead falls, and recommends focusing on the latter.

Getting leads from LinkedIn into your CRM, and statuses back out, is the work our CRM and website integration guide and offline conversion import guide describe for other platforms; the same lead records feed this goal.

Changing the objective later

The ad set settings page is clear: "If you change your objective, any ad set settings you've already selected will reset and you'll need to reselect them. The objective and ad format can't be changed after the ad set is launched." In practice, switching from website visits to website conversions, or from engagement to lead generation, means building a new ad set, so it pays to settle the objective before launch rather than after the first week.

What counts as a result

Campaign Manager reports a key result and a cost per result for every ad set. "The key result is determined by the ad set's objective and bidding optimization goal":

The clicks column is not the same across objectives: LinkedIn says it "reports chargeable clicks and varies by objective." A website visits ad set counts clicks that open your landing page, while an engagement ad set also counts Page clicks, social actions and follows (LinkedIn's website visits and engagement chargeable click tables list each type). Comparing click-through rates between ad sets with different objectives therefore compares different things. LinkedIn also notes that some ads on the LinkedIn Audience Network (see our Audience Network guide) may be measured with a model, so "some key results might come from audiences that sometimes align only partially with your targeting criteria."

How we pick an objective

This is our own practice, not LinkedIn's guidance:

• We start from what the client can measure. With no conversion tracking on the site, we use lead generation or website visits, and set up tracking before considering website conversions.
• We use one objective per ad set and name the ad set after it, so reports aren't mixed up later.
• We keep awareness and engagement ad sets for audiences we later retarget, using the engagement and website audiences from our LinkedIn Matched Audiences guide.
• For lead generation, we move to qualified leads once the CRM can send status changes back, and judge it on cost per qualified lead.

Google and Meta make you choose a goal in a similar way; compare our guides to Google Ads basics and Meta ads basics.

Frequently asked questions

How many objectives does LinkedIn Campaign Manager have?

Eight: brand awareness, website visits, engagement, video views, lead generation, website conversions, job applicants and talent leads. Talent leads needs an active LinkedIn Recruiter contract.

Can I change the objective of a live LinkedIn ad set?

No. LinkedIn says the objective and ad format can't be changed after the ad set is launched. Changing the objective before launch resets the settings you had chosen.

Which LinkedIn objective should I use for leads?

Lead generation if you want the form inside LinkedIn, pre-filled from the member's profile; website conversions if the form is on your own site and conversion tracking is set up.

Why can't I use cost cap with website conversions?

LinkedIn only lists maximum delivery and manual bidding for the website conversions objective. Cost cap is available for brand awareness, website visits, engagement, video views and lead generation.

Why are my bidding options limited to manual?

For several objectives, choosing an optimization goal other than the default, such as impressions, leaves manual bidding as the only strategy.

For more on LinkedIn advertising, see our guides to LinkedIn ads basics, LinkedIn ads bidding, LinkedIn Matched Audiences and LinkedIn Campaign Manager roles.