6 Ways to Reduce Waste Advertising Spend on LinkedIn

‍1. Suppress Customers, Competitors, and Partners from Acquisition Audiences

Suppressing customers, competitors, and partners is crucial for acquisition campaigns. By creating exclusion lists, you avoid wasting budget on people who are already aware of your brand. 

To implement this strategy effectively, create three separate exclusion lists specifically for customers, competitors, and partners. Upload these lists as CSV files directly into LinkedIn Campaign Manager and select them in the Audience section when setting up new acquisition campaigns. Make sure to refresh these lists every quarter to maintain their accuracy and continue driving a focused audience.

2. Consider Function/Seniority/Industry Exclusion as Well as Inclusion

Refining your audience by excluding specific functions, seniorities, or industries ensures more precise targeting. Excluding opposite parameters reduces audience overlap and minimizes the chances of targeting individuals with multiple roles. 

Start by selecting relevant functions, seniorities, and industries to include. Then, exclude parameters that may indicate irrelevant job roles or industries. 

For instance, if you are targeting "Marketing Directors" in the technology industry, exclude "Sales" function and industries like "Retail", even if you haven’t explicitly selected them in the inclusion section. This approach is most powerful for audiences over 50,000.

3. Refine Targeting with Demographic Insights

Using demographic insights to refine your targeting is crucial. Identify high-cost or low-performing segments impacting distribution costs (high CPM) or performance costs (low CTR).

Select all "Always-On" campaigns and open demographic reports to identify companies, industries, seniorities, job titles, or functions with high CPM or low CTR. Consider excluding these segments to optimize performance.

For example, if demographic data reveals that the one company is dominating your impressions, exclude it to gain more even coverage across your ICP.

4. Disable LinkedIn Audience Network (LAN)

The LinkedIn Audience Network (LAN) can increase CPCs without delivering quality results. 

While LAN offers unbelievable CPCs, advertisers have limited control over where ads are served, and targeting may not be as accurate as claimed. Test LAN only for retargeting campaigns with mid-funnel content to boost reach. Otherwise, exclude LAN from cold acquisition campaigns where precision is critical. 

5. Exclude Retargeting Segments from Cold Layer

Separating retargeting segments from cold acquisition maintains campaign clarity and ensures users complete the retargeting cycle before returning to the cold layer. 

Review each campaign individually to determine exclusions, ensuring that retargeting segments stay within the retargeting cycle. 

For instance, exclude your "Website Visitors" retargeting audience from cold prospecting campaigns to ensure you control their exposure to more appropriate middle or bottom of funnel content..

‍6. Optimize Retargeting Audiences

Optimizing retargeting audiences regularly ensures you're targeting engaged segments. 

Start with a 90-day window for new campaigns to ensure sufficient audience size, then reduce to 60 or 30 days based on engagement levels. 

For video retargeting, set the threshold to 50-75% video views to improve quality. For example, after launching a new retargeting campaign, revisit the 90-day window after a month or two and reduce it to 60 or 30 days if engagement drops.

Conclusion

Optimizing LinkedIn advertising spend is about being strategic with your targeting and exclusions. By following these six tips, you can reduce wasteful spending, improve campaign performance, and maximize your ROI.