LinkedIn advertising has a reputation for being expensive and costly, but many B2B customers continue to pay to advertise their business and products on LinkedIn. Is the high price point truly worth it? 

LinkedIn ads pricing model

There are three different pricing models that LinkedIn offers, depending on what is best suited for your business needs. The actual prices on these differ greatly; they change based on real-time auctions as businesses compete and bid for the ad space. 

Cost-per-click (CPC) 

This refers to how much you pay for each click on your LinkedIn ad. This pricing model is the best for businesses that are focused on generating valuable traffic and driving visitors to your website or landing page. 

Cost-per-clicks tend to be the most expensive on LinkedIn as compared to other advertising platforms. The average CPC for LinkedIn is $5.58 (USD), but can vary greatly depending on campaign objectives, countries, and target audience.

Cost-per-impression (CPM)

This refers to the cost per 1000 impressions on your LinkedIn ads. This is more suited for businesses whose objective is brand awareness, as users will notice your ad but not interact with it. CPMs cost about $33.80 (USD) for 1000 impressions. 

Cost-per-send (CPS)

Cost-per-send does not apply to regular LinkedIn ads but is the pricing model used for ads on InMail, LinkedIn’s messaging system. For InMail ads, businesses pay for sponsored ads to be delivered directly to their target audience’s email. CPS usually averages out at $0.20 (USD). 

Why do businesses still pay? 

LinkedIn ads are clearly priced much higher than other advertising platforms, especially for CPC. Despite these high price points, many B2B businesses have continued to use LinkedIn as their main advertising platform. 

LinkedIn, as a social media platform, has grown immensely over the past decade, especially during the pandemic. As people emerged out of the pandemic looking for new jobs and new ways to connect professionally online, LinkedIn was and remains the best platform for professionals to connect. 

As compared to ads on other platforms like Google Ads or Facebook Ads, LinkedIn ads are more targeted towards professionals and are best suited for B2B commerce. As such, it is much easier for B2B businesses to reach their desired target audiences with LinkedIn ads, resulting in higher conversion rates. 

Furthermore, LinkedIn ads are able to reach a whole new level of targeting, one that cannot be achieved with Google or Facebook ads. LinkedIn provides its users with rich demographic points regarding their target audience, such as job functions, industry, seniority, skills, and so much more. This allows for even more specifically targeted ads, gettings users more relevant traffic and better conversions. 

How can StraightIn help? 

However, as more and more businesses begin to use LinkedIn Ads, the cost is beginning to rise, as businesses compete and bid for remaining ad space. Furthermore, many LinkedIn users are starting to tire of seeing sponsored content on LinkedIn. 

Here at StraightIn, we help businesses with non-automated B2B lead generation on LinkedIn, allowing our clients to stand out from the crowd and connect to their ideal clients for the best leads. 

To find out more about how we can help transform your business’s lead generation strategies, reach out to us here.