41+ LinkedIn Ad Examples to Capture Your Business Audience

If you run ads or operate a business in the B2B space, LinkedIn ads are essential to your PPC strategy. LinkedIn is the ultimate place to reach your professional clients. After all, it’s a business social media platform.

Of course, options are overwhelming.

So in this article, we walk you through the ad types you can run on LinkedIn, so you know what’s available.

Then we have 41 LinkedIn ad examples to inspire your next LinkedIn ad campaign. Note: several examples are also featured in LinkedIn Case Studies.

Want to dig a little deeper first? Check out our guide to LinkedIn Ads Mastery.

LinkedIn Ad Types

Haven’t decided what ad types you want inspiration for? Here’s a quick overview of the differences between each option:

• Sponsored Content – Sponsored content ads appear natively on users’ desktop, and mobile activity feeds. In other words, these ads look and feel similar to other feed content. Sponsored content includes three ad formats: single image ads, carousel ads, and video ads.
• Dynamic Ads – Dynamic ads on LinkedIn are auto-personalized. Essentially, each ad populates specific fields based on each LinkedIn users’ profile information. Dynamic ad options include follower ads, spotlight ads, job ads, and content ads.
• Text Ads – Text ads have two placement variations. The first is a text-only ad on the top of user-profiles. You’ll also see them on the right side of a page, accompanied by a small image.
• Sponsored InMail – Sponsored InMail is a pay-per-send ad format. You can send personalized messages directly to users in your target audience.

When you create a campaign, you have to choose an ad objective that fits your overall business goal. This table summarizes the ad formats Linkedin recommends for each objective. Objectives are grouped by funnel stage. For example, the Website Visits objective is most useful for consideration-stage customers.

We include examples of each ad type in the sections below.

Best Practices and Policies for LinkedIn Ad Creation

One last thing before we jump into examples: make sure your ad copy and creative fit LinkedIn’s ads best practices. We’ll cover some essential tips here:

1. LinkedIn is primarily a professional networking site. The witty meme or gif that might make a Facebook or Instagram ad eye-catching might not be as well-received on LinkedIn.
2. Pay attention to who you’re targeting. The ad type and message should match your audience’s funnel stage.
3. Be brief. Users don’t have a lot of time; shorter, punchy messages and simple ad creative perform best.

More specifically, here are some Sponsored Content best practices:

• Ad headlines: < 150 characters. Concise headlines lead to more engagement.
• Descriptive copy: < 70 characters. Note: desktop truncates messages > 100 characters.
• Images: 1200 x 627 pixels. Larger visuals get up to 38% higher click-through rates (CTR).
• Targeting: Start with one location and two other criteria; be specific, but avoid limiting your audience
• CTA: Match your CTA with your content, so your audience knows how to act.

The bottom line: Take the opportunity to learn what works best so you don’t waste time or money creating ads that won’t resonate with your audience.

Now let’s dive into some LinkedIn ad examples.

LinkedIn Single-Image Ad Examples

1. Genesys

⚙️Type: Sponsored Content

🎯Goal: An ABM Marketing Solution that would drive more leads at a lower cost.

Genesys is an industry leader in omnichannel customer experience and contact center solutions. What I like the most about this ad is the playful take on ‘next generation.’ Their ad copy demonstrates that they know their business; the baby says, “we don’t take ourselves too seriously.” This campaign was particularly successful because they paired great ad creative with granular targeting within their current customer base. Their conversion rate rose to 2.7% overall and over 4% for their top-performing offer.

2. Florida International University

⚙️Type: Sponsored Content

🎯Goal: Raise awareness of online programs and increase enrollment of the right kinds of students.

While I’m not a particular fan of the stock photo-ish image on this ad, I can appreciate the copy. In combination with great targeting, this ad speaks to future students to whom diversity is a priority — “It’s your reason.” Ads that speak to human emotion and motivation will always outperform feature-benefit lists. Again, LinkedIn offered granular targeting that improved engagement to over 1.8% on sponsored content posts.

3. HubSpot

⚙️Type: Sponsored Content

🎯Goal: Engage marketing professionals in small to medium-sized businesses and generate leads.

Of course, this is an organic version of an ad (darn you dark posts!). However, I had to illustrate Hubspot’s “Powerful or Easy” campaign. It’s great for a couple of reasons. The first is that it creates a false dichotomy. It makes you a bit disgruntled because, after all, you want things that work well and are easy to use. Of course, that’s the idea here: once you look at the chart a little closer, you realize you can have that with Hubspot’s CRM solution.

I also like this ad creative because, while it’s easy to skim in your feed, it still packs in a lot of information. It turns out many other people liked it too — the inbound marketing giant got 400% more engagement from LinkedIn than any other platform through Sponsored Content. And it was one of the largest paid lead generators in their overall campaign. Try out a simple graph for yourself for a similar effect.

4. IR

⚙️Type: Sponsored Content

🎯Goal: Increased conversion, lower cost per lead

Quite frankly, I wouldn’t be able to process what a “Business online network assessment tool” was while scrolling idly through my LinkedIn Feed. That’s why the simple message in the creative is so powerful: “We’re Skype…but for Businesses.” Of course, I’m still unsure why I would need a separate Skype for business, but it goes a long way for brand awareness. For others who are more familiar with the use case, the CTA gives users in the conversion phase an opportunity to try the tool out.

IR does service a very niche audience: performance management for IT, payment, and communication. LinkedIn’s targeting saved the day and allowed them to reach their flavor of enterprise-level prospects.

5. Jive

⚙️Type: Sponsored Content

🎯Goal: Reach prospects in every stage of the sales funnel and increase engagement

Ah, the power of the negative. Sometimes using language that elicits scarcity is a good thing. In this case, Jive points out that a solution used widely by marketing and sales professionals (email) doesn’t work well for engaging customers. This ad nourishes leads who are considering other options and immediately suggests alternatives through their service.

6. Lincoln Electric

⚙️Type: Sponsored Content

🎯Goal: Generate leads, raise brand and product awareness, and fill the lead funnel.

I can appreciate what Lincoln Electric achieves here. It’s tempting on LinkedIn to be selling – but that doesn’t always work with your audience. This ad educates their base about the pros and cons of welding automation. Educational material might not immediately generate leads, but it will fill your funnel and allow you to nurture prospects that are now aware of your offering and space. In this case, Lincoln Electric reached more of the audience they were aiming for. Over 73% of those who clicked on sponsored content were manager level or above.

7. Marketo

⚙️Type: Sponsored Content

🎯Goal: Reach unique audiences and drive event registrations.

Marketo deals primarily with marketing automation software. This ad is a prime example of ad personalization when your offering (including software) has use cases for unique groups. In this case, Marketo wanted to reach enterprise and small business. This message and paired creative resonates with the small business group, whose resources might be “leaner” but still want to implement an effective content marketing strategy for lead generation. Ad personalization and targeting allowed them to beat their event registration goals by over 45% and increased engagement in both target audiences.

8. Microsoft Office

⚙️Type: Sponsored Content

🎯Goal: Boosting awareness of the power of Microsoft OneNote

Results: You would think that a giant like Microsoft has the marketing mix dialed in. But they were having trouble targeting educators and administrators about the benefits of OneNote. While educators and administrators are hard to reach or target on other platforms, many are on LinkedIn.

A woman in a brightly lit classroom acts as a stand-in for each member of the target audience, while Office promises to “revolutionize your classroom.” Plus, the copy is personalized; you can’t get more direct than “OneNote for Teachers.” Additionally, Microsoft did a great job of selling the features of the product and outlining the specific use cases for a teacher. For example, to help students collaborate digitally. The top-performing ad in the campaign had a click-through rate of 0.86%.

9. NICE Ltd.

⚙️Type: Sponsored Content

🎯Goal: Increase awareness and leads for a particular product, the company’s back-office performance.

The data analytics company wanted to highlight a product that helps measure, manage, and improve employee performance. This meant engaging with high-level HR decision-makers and nurturing them once they were leads. The copy speaks to a significant pain point in that group: lack of transparency into performance tracking.

The click-through rate of 0.35% and a 0.41% engagement rate resulted in influencers’ engagement in over 200 targeted companies.

LinkedIn Carousel Ad Examples

1. Cotton

⚙️Type: Sponsored Content

🎯Goal: Showcase advantages of cotton, highlight lesser-known aspects of the industry, and drive website traffic.

I’m a bit biased – I love carousel ads. They’re easy to engage with, and there’s a lot of creative real-estate to tell a brand story. Once my attention is on the images, I realize they illustrate each card’s message. Total clicks and engagements outperformed static ads for this ad, and the average ad received over 200 clicks.

2. Oracle Marketing Cloud

⚙️Type: Sponsored Content

🎯Goal: Product awareness and engagement

One barrier to getting people to download gated content is the mystery of what you’re getting once you give a company your email or other information. For some reason, even a generic preview of a title page helps. “That could be me,” I think, as I look at the anonymous hands scrolling through a mobile-version of the eBook.

This strategy paid off for Oracle, who wanted to promote their lesser-known cloud-based marketing service. The carousel ad got 37% more engagement than other static ad types.

3. Volvo Car Canada

⚙️Type: Sponsored Content

🎯Goal: Volvo Car Canada sought to increase awareness, consideration, and on-site lead conversion.

In proof that LinkedIn is for more than just B2B customers, the B2C ad campaign resulted in excellent results, with carousel ads providing 75% greater engagement than static ads.

“What what!” you say? It turns out that success on LinkedIn has a lot to do with your target customer. If you have a high-end or innovative product, LinkedIn ads could work very well for you. In this case. Volvo’s product images illustrate a sleek and compelling view of their new product, and the copy does a great job of highlighting key features.

4. Deputy

⚙️Type: Sponsored Content

🎯Goal: Brand awareness and customer engagement.

This is a unique carousel ad in that it stretches one image through all of the frames instead of featuring a different one for each frame. The pallet is consistent with their brand and easy to skim. But more than the uniqueness, this software company gets kudos for an ad that reached 57% more engagement than similar static display ads.

5. WeWork

⚙️Type: Sponsored Content

🎯Goal: Before COVID-related setbacks, WeWork sought to drive brand awareness and lead generation, which meant targeting startups, remote work businesses, and entrepreneurs who would benefit from co-working spaces.

These clean and professional-looking ads drove 63% more engagement than static ads, learning to an increase in lead generation of nearly 300% over other social media marketing efforts. While in-office work feels a bit different to all of us now, this ad illustrates the power of featuring real-estate and high-end spaces in ads.

6. Red Points

⚙️Type: Sponsored Content

🎯Goal: Increase brand awareness and increase lead generation.

The IP security brand Red Points wanted to increase engagement on their report for repelling efforts to counterfeit products. The carousel ad also features images that run through the frames instead of individual images, increased click-through rates, and 35% more downloads.

7. Salesforce

⚙️Type: Sponsored Content

🎯Goal: Lead generation, brand awareness, and engagement.

Nearly every carousel ad does something similar: it allows a brand to deliver more than one message creatively. The combination of animation and real people results in compelling ads for a well-known brand. The salesforce character is the unifying element between split sides of the image (and industry). Carousel engagement was over 72% better than similar display ads.

8. Gartner

⚙️Type: Sponsored Content

🎯Goal: Engagement with a specific infographic and content

Some carousel ads compete with display counterparts for engagement. Still, in this case, the infographic’s carousel presentation got more engagement than the same material’s sponsored content. This was a smart way to promote a unique piece of branded information. Consider repurposing infographic content or highlights from a recent survey or study in your next LinkedIn Ad.

9. MindTitan

⚙️Type: Sponsored Content

🎯Goal: Engagement and Lead Generation

This carousel ad leads the viewer from one image to the other by splitting the message into each frame to get more leads into the funnel. It resulted in 3X more signups than standard display ads.

10. Google Ads

⚙️Type: Sponsored Content

🎯Goal: Brand and product awareness and lead generation

Google Ads is well known, but many brands fail to understand its value and leverage it for their business. The carousel format was the right choice in this case because it allowed each card to tell the audience a unique selling point for Google Ads. In a single image ad, messages like this would be too busy and bulky for their feed environment. This carousel ad got a 75% greater engagement rate on LinkedIn.  Precise targeting also enabled Google to reach the decision-makers at small and medium businesses, increasing lead generation.

11. Rouche

⚙️Type: Sponsored Content

🎯Goal: Brand Awareness and Lead Generation

This carousel job ad for Roche, the biotech giant, resulted in 3X more engagement and a more significant number of applications than a similar static ad, proving the value of sponsored content for job ads. The ad copy and images work together to communicate: we offer stability in an unpredictable environment.

12. Hilton Hotels and Resorts

⚙️Type: Sponsored Content

🎯Goal: Product awareness and lead generation

Before COVID, Hilton wanted to show themselves not just as a hotel but to promote their event services and spaces, including food service. This ad, which ended in March of 2020, got over 75% more engagement than similar static ads. The images are high-quality and illustrate the details that matter to consumers.

13. Apple

⚙️Type: Sponsored Content

🎯Goal: Increase job recruitment success and career opportunity awareness

Apple has long been a top employer, and their retail and customer service teams are no exception. This carousel ad got 57% more engagement than similar static ads. When you create your job ads, don’t skip carousels. It can be a great way to showcase your ideal applicants represented in natural-looking environments.

LinkedIn Video Ad Examples

1. Acciona

⚙️Type: Sponsored Content

🎯Goal: Raise awareness

I like this video because it uses contrast to shock the audience. The video opens on a typical stockmarket floor until a group of professionals receives a message: there’s a different way of doing business. The video uses storytelling to guide you through a businessperson’s journey to discovering why sustainability works. The global leader in renewable energy got video views up over 44%.

2.  Verizon

⚙️Type: Sponsored Content

🎯Goal: Educate the audience about niche applications of new 5G technology

Cloud-based gaming is a new player in the gaming industry, which has grown exponentially over the last decade. Verizon recognizes the opportunity 5G presents to gamers and game developers. They partner with Bethesda Softworks in this video to educate the market on how reduced lag and streaming latency will revolutionize gaming worldwide. This is a longer video, but it hooks the audience with fantastical gaming vistas and dynamic music.

3. KLM

⚙️Type: Sponsored Content

🎯Goal: Travel awareness, customer education

A year ago, KLM celebrated 100 years of service and wanted to make a toast to their customers, “to more memories together.” KLM ran a video campaign that outperformed others by leaps and bounds. The ad is cinematic; it follows their flight attendants’ emotional intergenerational story without saying a word (or being gimmicky). Additionally, their cost per view was low, $.06, and they have a nearly 34% view rate.

4. MG India

⚙️Type: Sponsored Content

🎯Goal: Brand Awareness and engagement

The brand needed to reach a new level of buyers who could afford a luxury vehicle and would be interested in purchasing one. So they layered a few targeting factors into their campaign, which included newly minted executives who were also auto enthusiasts. The result? Three times higher engagement rate and click-through rate than industry benchmarks, and the lowest bounce rate in MG India’s history. Note the quick transitions and artistic elements in the video.

5. Microsoft Canada

⚙️Type: Sponsored Content

🎯Goal: Enhance local relevance and lead quality

Microsoft’s video on using AI technology to increase accessibility is a great way to connect with their base and communicate a use case for a new product. Microsoft Canada saw a 28% view rate, cost per view of $.016, and a 20% completion rate. The key has been testing, audience segmentation, and determining the ideal length for videos (15 seconds in their case).

6.  IE Business School

⚙️Type: Sponsored Content

🎯Goal: Engagement and brand awareness.

This video successfully addresses how fast the business world moves and offers a blended learning format in a time before distance learning became a necessity. By being ahead of the curve, view rates were 38%. The video is a bid long, so finish rates were just over 20%. Not bad, but they could improve it by shortening the video.

7. Slack

⚙️Type: Sponsored Content

🎯Goal: Slack had openings on their Munich team, so needed targeted engagement.

This ad had 59% more engagement and 1.5 times the number of completed applications. The applicants were also more qualified than those who applied through other campaigns due to LinkedIn targeting options.

8. Schneider Electric

⚙️Type: Sponsored Content

🎯Goal: Brand Awareness and Event Attendance

Results: When it comes to encouraging event attendance and increasing awareness, video is often the key. This video ad got over 62% more engagement than similar static ads, with 3.2 times the event registrations, meeting, and exceeding campaign targets. If you’re promoting your event, try getting a key player from your company to tell your audience about it.

9. Intuit QuickBooks

⚙️Type: Sponsored Content

🎯Goal: Brand awareness among small business owners.

This ad is quirky, fun, and brief (30 seconds). It uses Cobra Kai to share a new philosophy: to save time with Intuit Quickbooks. Through video ads, Intuit increased engagement by 60% over image ads, with over 34% view rates and a 29% video completion rate. The video ad also matches its campaigns across other media, providing brand consistency.

10. Dropbox

⚙️Type: Sponsored Content

🎯Goal: Increase brand awareness and lead generation.

In the new work-from-anywhere environment, a way to securely share files is vital. This Dropbox ad addresses that compellingly, resulting in 67% higher engagement and a more significant number of form fills than similar static campaigns. On your awareness videos, take note of DropBox’s precise way of talking about the pain points related to company-level file sharing.

11. Expert Market

⚙️Type: Sponsored Content

🎯Goal: Reach small to medium-sized businesses for brand awareness and lead generation.

People like to see the product before they buy it. This is especially true of Saas platforms or tools. Integrate high-level features or use cases concisely over high-quality POV footage of someone navigating the product, and you’re golden. This video ad saw over 53% more engagement and two times more form fills that similar static ads.

LinkedIn Inmail & Text Ad Examples

1. Florida International University

⚙️Type: Sponsored InMail Text Ad

In combination with its sponsored content ads mentioned above, Florida International University also uses InMail to target potential students. This simple campaign gained them four new enrollments in less than two weeks. When you create your Inmail campaign, avoid obvious, gimmicky mail templates.

2. AuthorsUnite

⚙️Type: Conversation Ad

Connecting with customers can be challenging. Ideally, you can start a conversation. Notice the language focuses on partnership and collaboration rather than selling and the sender’s needs. Additionally, these ads do much better when sent from organization members rather than the organization itself. It’s a personal form of communication, so make it personalized. In this case, AuthorsUnite saw a 78% increase in reply rates and over five times more conversions than other ad types. If appropriately targeted, prospects have a much higher purchase intent than a widely distributed display ad.

3. Informa

⚙️Type: Sponsored InMail Message Ad

Informa provides specialized training courses and events in project management, administration, human resource, and finance. This particular ad targeted early and mid-career HR professionals with the relevant heading, “Advance your HR Career.”

One note I do have is that the initial paragraph is a bit bulky. This is probably fine as long as you target consideration or conversion-stage prospects who have seen you before. In this case, it did work; Sponsored InMails delivered in this campaign had a 67% open rate and 11% conversion rate.

4. Upwork

⚙️Type: Sponsored InMail Message Ad

Though not the most visually compelling ad format, text ads can go a long way for brand awareness and even lead generation if you target correctly. In this example, Upwork relies on brief, compelling copy to get my attention. “Tap into proven talent” is certainly relevant to our growing team. And “In-demand talent, on-demand” is a slogan I’ll remember, especially if I see another targeted ad on my feed later on.

LinkedIn Dynamic Ad Examples

1. China International Import Expo

⚙️Type: Follower Ad

This ad is purely about brand awareness. Although simple, including a profile picture with the ad is eye-catching. Additionally, I’ve had past involvement with the Canton Fair, another import-export fair in China. This ad demonstrates that you can move people incrementally through your funnel when you target correctly and capitalize on past interest. Other brands see a lot of success with follower ads as well. For instance, AICPA increased its following by 40% with a similar campaign.

2. LinkedIn  

⚙️Type: Spotlight Ad

It’s like LinkedIn knows I’m a PPC professional… and they probably do. Specific targeting and concise copy relating to LinkedIn ad benefits get you at least a little interested in what they have to offer.

3. Weave HQ

⚙️Type: Job Ad

Short and sweet, this job ad by Weave HQ uses a question to hook me. I have to ask myself, “Am I ready for my next opportunity?” The fact is people love opportunities, including me, and it was enough to make me click through to this well-designed landing page:

This ad example also shows the importance of your post-click experience. Your job ad and landing page are part of your audition for your most talented prospects. In other words, look like you have it together. In fact, I would’ve bounced pretty quickly if Weave hadn’t provided a pretty place to land.

Invest in landing pages and the content elements your customers experience after the ad (e.g., “Life at Weave” video), and they’ll reward you by engaging more and converting later.

4. Seed Equity

⚙️Type: Content Ad

Through a variety of dynamic content ads, Seed Equity saw over a 1,200% increase in new investor signups, a 43% increase in page followers, and Dynamic ads click-through rates that exceeded LinkedIn benchmarks by five times the industry average.

Final Word on LinkedIn Ads

Big and small, many brands leverage LinkedIn ad options to achieve their goals. Here are some simple conclusions we can draw for B2B ads:

• B2B ads on LinkedIn typically receive more impressions, engagement, and ROI than on other platforms.
• Carousel ads generally outperform static image ads on LinkedIn.
• Video ads perform the best. With ads, short videos are best. AB test video length with your audience.
• Dynamic ads can provide consideration-state engagement with good targeting.
• Use Sponsored InMail campaigns to meet your target audience directly and personally. Response rates are better when delivered by an individual rather than a company.

Whether you are a SaaS company looking to reach new corporate partners, a startup seeking new talent, or a luxury carmaker selling directly to executive customers, LinkedIn has a solution for you. Just figure out your business goals and the funnel stage your customers are in first. Then, build your ad campaign to match.

Just getting started with LinkedIn ads or looking to improve? These examples should spark new ideas and illustrate how companies like yours use LinkedIn’s ad platform. Go try it out!