How to calculate step-by-step the LinkedIn Ads total active audience

As a brief introduction, we first recommend running the campaign for more than one month. As a result, you will be able to calculate more precisely the total active audience on your LinkedIn Ads campaign. After saying this, here are the steps to consider:

Step 1: Take your audience size

To calculate your total active audience on LinkedIn Ads, first, you have to take your audience size. You can see this information on the right of the campaign manager. For example, let’s say you launched a LinkedIn Ads campaign two months ago. Your audience is composed by users with senior positions in the health care industry from Spain, France and Italy. Also, they work in the purchasing and operations department. So, your audience size is of 47k users, as shown below.

Step 2: Identify the average frequency

The average frequency means the average number of times users see your ad. To know this, you have to go to your campaign manager, pick the campaign and click on “Demographics”. There, you have to choose “Performance” and then “Average frequency”. The machine will give you the average and so the frequency per day.

On the below, we can see how LinkedIn campaign manager shows the average frequency.

Following the example, imagine the average frequency is 5.97. It means that your audience saw your ads 6 times approximately.

Step 3: Know the total number of impressions

The third information you need to take into account to calculate the total active audience on LinkedIn Ads campaigns is the total number of impressions. This data is provided by the campaign manager (also in the performance section). In this case, let’s say you obtained 199,831 impressions.

Step 4: Determine your active audience (%)

After having this information, it’s time to calculate your active audience in %. To do this, you have to take the total audience size and multiply it by the frequency. Then, take the total number of impressions and divide it by the previous result. The formula is as below:

Active audience (%) = Impressions / (Audience size * Average frequency)

So, following our example the active audience would be:

Active audience (%) = 199,831 / (47,000*5.97) = 71.2%

Step 5: Calculate the total active audience on LinkedIn Ads (number of users)

This is the final step to calculate the total active audience on LinkedIn Ads. Here, you need to take the active audience in percentage and multiply it by the audience size, like the following:

Total active audience (number of users) = Active audience * audience size

In our example, the total active audience would be:

Total active audience (number of users) = 71.2% * 47,000 = 33,464

As a result, you will know exactly how many users of your audience are active on LinkedIn. If the number is too low, maybe you should amplify your targeting.

To know more about LinkedIn Ads, you can check our definitive LinkedIn Ads guide!