LinkedIn Ads targeting strategy based on exclusions and inclusions – Tips and tricks
The LinkedIn Ads targeting offers an extensive list of options to develop your strategy. This is a very positive point about LinkedIn, as it allows you to reach your target audience precisely. However, it can sometimes be challenging to know how to segment your audience correctly.
LinkedIn offers the following segmentation options: company, demographics, education, job experience and interests. If you want to know more about these segmentation possibilities, we recommend you check our definitive guide.
One of the most interesting features of LinkedIn segmentation is the possibility to exclude and include audiences. LinkedIn allows you to impact the correct users. But you are probably asking this: when is it better to exclude than to include, or to include than exclude? In this post, we’re going to give you an answer about this LinkedIn Ads strategy.
LinkedIn Ads strategy: exclusions and inclusions
It’s true that sometimes excluding is better than including, but not always in all cases. That’s why we recommend you test to see which option is better.
Nevertheless, as we have a large experience with LinkedIn Ads, we have been able to conclude that in specific cases, it is better to exclude than to include or vice versa. On below, we’re going to show you some key exclusions and inclusions tips and tricks.
Include LinkedIn job functions and exclude job seniorities
When developing the LinkedIn Ads campaign set-up, we usually suggest targeting job functions and job seniorities rather than job titles. As they are not compatible with job titles, we recommend launching the campaign with the mentioned options. You can also test and launch two campaigns: one with job functions and seniorities and the other one with job titles. Consequently, you will conclude which performs better.
Regarding the inclusions and exclusions, our experience suggests including job functions and excluding job seniorities. It is common that when including seniorities, you indirectly can exclude other users from your audience. This happens because LinkedIn doesn’t map every user with their seniority. However, you can try including seniorities and then excluding them, and see which gives you a higher number of members.
Exclude LinkedIn company sizes rather than including them
It’s usually better to exclude company sizes. For example, let’s imagine you want to target company sizes from 2 to 100 employees. You are probably going to include them, but some companies don’t introduce this criterion. So, you are excluding some of your target audience. In this case, you should exclude the company sizes you don’t want to impact and ensure you impact the rest.
However, as we explain this based on our experience, but this does not mean that this is the “only true”. Sometimes it is better to include LinkedIn company sizes, but this happens rarely.
Exclude job titles when doubting in functions
Segmenting by function allows you to exclude job titles. If you doubt the functions selected, exclude the job titles that you don’t want to impact. As a result, you are going to make sure you are arriving at the right audience.
Exclude your current clients through LinkedIn company names
This tip is mainly focused on decision campaigns. It is important to exclude customers from the campaign. As they are already clients, if they become a new lead, they won’t be qualified. You can upload a list with your customer through the “Matched audiences” option and then exclude it.
Optimise your campaign by including and excluding audiences
After launching the campaign, you can analyse your audience metrics through Demographics. You will be able to find audiences that were not included but have optimal metrics. In addition, there is also the possibility that you can find an audience with bad metrics and be neither included nor excluded. Therefore, we recommend excluding them from ensuring that they are not impacted again.
And, on the other hand, you will also be able to conclude which included audiences have bad metrics, so they are better to exclude.