Get your message in front of the right people when they’re most engaged by targeting your ideal audience with LinkedIn advertising. Subject to members' preferences, choose targeting options from:
You can reach member accounts based on where they live or where they live and visit using location. You can target member accounts based on geographic location by:
Recent location targets by continent, country cluster, country, state, region/market area, county, and city. For example, if a member account profile recently visited San Francisco, California, recent location targeting will include:
Select advertiser accounts also have the option to target only by recent location at the city, county, region/market area, and state level. Please note, due to different location targeting methods, you might see different results in reporting when using a third-party tool, such as Google Analytics. This feature is currently in testing, and might not be available to you at this time.
For the location attribute, keep in mind:
Profile language
You must also select one of the 21 profile languages for your target audience. Keep in mind:
For Sponsored Messaging campaigns:
We recommend your ad copy be in the language you selected. Once you select a language and add an ad, your language selection can't be changed. Learn more about supported languages for LinkedIn Ad campaigns.
Company
Company Category - Allows you to target companies by segments such as S&P 500.
Company Connections - Allows you to reach the 1st-degree connections of employees at companies you select. This is only available for companies with more than 500 employees.
Company Followers - Allows you to target your own LinkedIn Page followers. To use this targeting facet, your Ads account must be associated with your LinkedIn Page. When not using this facet, by default your campaigns may reach both followers and non-followers.
Company Growth Rate - Allows you to target companies by their rate of growth year over year, determined by factors such as employee growth or inferred data from other similar companies within the same location and industry.
Company Industry - The primary industry of the company where the member account is employed, as stated by the company. Additional industries may be inferred about the company and included for targeting. Company Industry targeting requires mapping member accounts, companies, and industries.
Company Industry primarily uses Page admin member account input via industry typeahead. The list of industries is a proprietary taxonomy developed by LinkedIn’s team. For a select number of Pages, the industry mapping uses a LinkedIn-annotated industry rather than the Page input.
LinkedIn also leverages a Deep Learning Model that uses the following attributes of Company and Industry to determine mappings:
If the member account’s company doesn’t have an industry, then LinkedIn uses the industry that the member account adds on their LinkedIn profile.
Company Name - The organization a member account lists as their employer. Company Names are based on LinkedIn Pages, which may be created by a Page admin or auto-generated by using third-party data sources. They are determined by Pages on LinkedIn and targeting requires mapping member accounts and Pages. Keep in mind:
Member-to-company associations are categorized into current, past, and current or past based on the position start and end dates provided by member account profile input. A position is considered current if there is no end date provided for the position. Otherwise, it’s considered a past position. If a member has previously worked at the company that they currently work at, the company will only be considered a current company and not a past company.
If a member doesn’t enter a company name, LinkedIn may derive their current company based on their public IP address at ad serving time. LinkedIn derives IP-to-company using a deep learning model. The model is trained using public IP addresses and other logged-in member’s company associations.
Company Revenue - Allows you to target companies by their estimated annual revenue.
Company Size - Allows you to target based on the estimated size of the organization.
Company Size targeting primarily uses Page admin account input data. A Page admin enters a company size, and this is used for company size targeting. If a Page admin hasn’t entered a company size, then the company size is determined by the number of member accounts associated with the Page.
Please see the Company Name attribute for how member accounts are mapped to companies.
Demographics
Member Age - An estimation of age based on profile information.
Member Gender - Determination of gender is inferred, based on profile information.
This attribute may be limited when targeting within the European Economic Area (EEA) or Switzerland. Learn more about our best practices for LinkedIn Ads audience targeting.
Education
Degrees - Recognized degrees granted by a college, university, or other learning institution.
Fields of Study - The major or area of study within a member account's listed degree. Standardized from member-entered degrees.
Member Schools - The school, college, university, or other learning institution shown on a member account as having completed a course.
Job Experience
Job Title - The position of a member account within their organization. Job Title targeting uses data that is primarily member account input, with some business logic and inference. No third-party data is used.
Member-to-title associations are categorized into current, past, and current or past based on the position start and end dates provided by member account profile input. A position is considered current if there is no end date provided for the position. Otherwise, it’s considered a past position. If a member has previously held the same title as their current title, the title will only be considered a current title and not a past title.
Job Function - Common tasks or activities undertaken within a job position. Member account Job Titles are mapped to Job Functions using LinkedIn’s proprietary taxonomy. Please note, no AI modeling or inference is used to map Job Titles to Job Function.
Job Seniority - The rank or level of influence of a member account's current role in their organization. Member account Job Titles are mapped to Seniority using LinkedIn’s proprietary taxonomy. Please note, no AI modeling or inference is used to map Job Titles to Seniority.
Member Skills - Highly relevant keywords found within a member account's profile and skills section that indicate expertise in a particular area. This includes member-entered skills in the Skills & Endorsements section on their profile, skills mentioned in their profile text, or skills derived from their job description, employer, industry, or education.
Years of Experience - The years of professional experience a member account has accumulated. We exclude any gaps in experience and don’t double-count overlapping positions. Years of Experience targeting is calculated based on Job Title dates. No inferred data is used. This is a direct 1-to-1 match based on the start and end month and/or year of each position listed in the member account profile through today.
Interests and Traits
Member Groups - Member Group targeting is based on the groups to which a member account belongs. No inferred or modeled data is used.
Please note, LinkedIn prohibits targeting sensitive categories, please visit our ads policy to learn more. To prevent ad targeting discrimination based on protected characteristics, Member Groups may not be used in an exclusionary manner.
Member Interests - Interest categories identified by and inferred from member account actions and engagement with content on LinkedIn. Learn more about interest targeting options.
Member Traits - Direct and inferred traits of member accounts based on actions they take on LinkedIn, their LinkedIn profile, device preferences, and/or general (coarse, not precise) location. Learn more about member trait targeting options.
LinkedIn’s targeting solutions may not be used to target sensitive categories nor to discriminate based on protected personal characteristics like gender, age, or actual or perceived race/ethnicity. If an ad is flagged as discriminatory it will be immediately taken down. Learn more about sensitive categories and discrimination in our ads policy and please visit our ad targeting discrimination page to learn what customers must certify when applying certain targeting choices.
When choosing audience attributes, keep in mind:
A maximum of 100 selections that includes both inclusions and exclusions are permitted for demographic-based targeting options.
If your targeting selections severely limit your reach, you will be notified with an Audience Too Narrow message which prevents you from saving your targeting and moving to the next step. Increase your audience size to save your changes.
Please note, LinkedIn disables targeted advertising to members in the European Union that may be under the age of 18.
Predictive audiences help expand your campaign’s reach by creating an audience of people predicted to perform actions similar to those within your source data. To create a predictive audience, we apply LinkedIn’s AI to your data to automatically generate a new custom audience to use in your campaigns.
The data sources you choose in Campaign Manager should align to the specific behavior you’d like to replicate. You can create a predictive audience from one of the following:
Keep in mind, if you use a contact or company list that is in Updating status, we’ll use the latest completed version of that audience to create your predictive audience. Since predictive audiences refresh every day, once your update finishes processing, the predictive audience will use that as the source going forward.
LinkedIn Matched Audiences are custom audience segments you can use as targeting selections in your advertising campaigns. With Matched Audiences, you can:
Upload a list of companies or contacts
Retarget member accounts that:
Integrate contacts from a third-party system
As you select your targeting options, we show you an estimate of the audience size you'll be able to reach on the right side of the page. The minimum audience size required to run an advertising campaign is 300 member accounts. Learn more about target audience size best practices.
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Related tasks
LinkedIn Interests and Traits targeting lets you build your audience based on members’ direct or inferred interests, traits, or professional groups they may belong to, subject to each member’s ad settings and LinkedIn’s Advertising Policies.
General interests within Interests and Traits may be based on or inferred from member actions and engagement with specific online content on LinkedIn.
Members can update their ad preferences for interest targeting in their LinkedIn account settings.
When you create a new Classic campaign in Campaign Manager, you'll be prompted to select your audience. You can use an existing audience or create a new audience.
Existing audiences include:
Learn best practices on how to set up your campaign's target audience to drive results. The right target audience allows you to focus your campaign on the LinkedIn members most likely to take action on your ads.
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Subject to members' preferences, LinkedIn Matched Audiences are custom audience segments you can use as targeting selections in your advertising campaigns. With Matched Audiences, you can: