10 key metrics to keep in mind to measure success on LinkedIn Ads campaigns

We have talked a lot about the importance of LinkedIn for every B2B marketing strategy, and we have talked about how to measure success on a general approach. But what about measuring success on LinkedIn campaigns?

We often receive reports with lots of numbers, and sometimes it’s hard to understand those numbers or what importance we should give to each. So here we will share with you the most important metrics you should keep an eye on and what they will tell you about the performance of your campaign.

Impressions

As the name says, this is the number of times your ad was printed on a user’s screen. It is essential to understand if we are getting enough volume for our ads: if we are not getting impressions, be sure that we won’t get clicks or leads either. It’s usually analysed in relation to other metrics: CPM, reach, frequency, and even the size of your audience. 

Reach

Often mistaken as a synonym of impressions, the reach is the number of unique users we have impacted with our ad. It’s essential to understand the relation between these two metrics: you want to have more than one impression for each user, but you don’t want to impact the same audience over and over because they will get tired of your ad. 

Frequency

An easy way to understand the relation between Impressions and Reach is to look at the frequency. It is the result of a straightforward calculation: Impressions/Reach. Of course, it depends on each campaign, but usually, you want it higher than 1.5 and lower than 4.

Clicks

This metric is key to having a quick understanding of where the problem might be in any given campaign. For example, if you are getting a good volume of clicks but not converting, the problem is probably in the lower part of the funnel. But if you’re not getting enough clicks, the problem with your campaign is at the top of the funnel. 

CPC (Cost per click) 

We’re getting clicks, but at what cost? That’s the fundamental question that this metric will answer. So having a benchmark to understand the range where we want this number to be is very useful. So, for example, the model could be from a similar campaign we ran before. 

CPM (cost per mille)

This concept means the cost per thousand impressions. How much are we paying to get the volume of impressions that we want? This metric should be analysed in relation to others, such as CPC or CPL. If we’ve got a high CPM but we’re getting lots of clicks at a reasonable price, we might not care about paying a little extra. 

CTR (click-through rate)

How many of the people that see our ads click on them? This is the question that this metric answers. It is the key to understanding how our creatives are working because if we are getting a low CTR, it means that they are not attractive enough to our audience. 

Leads

This metric is the most important number you will look at. Are we getting leads? This metric needs no explanation, but for a deeper analysis, you will also have the CPL and the conversion rate in mind to understand if your number of leads is good enough.

CPL (cost per lead)

If you divide the investment by the number of leads, you will get the cost per lead. So, how much are we paying to get one lead? 

Conversion rate

Although it is not as famous as other metrics on this list, this is a very relevant number to understand if we can optimise the lower part of the funnel. This number represents the percentage of people that converts from all the clicks we get. If our conversion rate is low, we may guess, for example, that we’re having a problem with your landing page or conversion form or that the message is not consistent throughout the buyer’s journey.

Now you have 10 key metrics to understand how to evaluate your LinkedIn campaign and where you can optimise your results. Finally, you are ready to take your LinkedIn strategy to the next level!