LinkedIn retargeting is a powerful way to reconnect with professionals who’ve already shown interest in your brand. By focusing on warm leads – like those who visited your site or engaged with your content – you can boost conversions and build stronger relationships. Here’s the key to success:
- Set clear goals: Focus each campaign on one objective, like lead generation, demo bookings, event registrations, or brand visibility.
- Prepare essentials: Install LinkedIn Insight Tag, map content to audience segments, and plan a budget (starting at $25–50/day).
- Segment smartly: Use website behavior, LinkedIn engagement, and firmographics to create precise audience groups.
- Personalize deeply: Tailor messages using AI tools to match each prospect’s unique needs and journey stage.
- Leverage multichannel outreach: Combine LinkedIn ads with email campaigns for higher engagement and response rates.
- Track and optimize: Use metrics like click-through rates, conversions, and ROI to refine your approach continuously.
LinkedIn Ads Retargeting Tutorial 2025 (Step by Step) Full Setup Guide
Setting Up Your Campaign Foundation
Before jumping into LinkedIn retargeting campaigns, it’s crucial to establish a solid foundation. This groundwork ensures your efforts are organized and effective, providing the structure needed for long-term success.
Define Your Retargeting Goals
The first step is to clearly define what you want to achieve. Your retargeting goals should align with your overall business objectives but also be specific enough to measure and refine.
For B2B campaigns, lead generation is often a top priority. This could involve gathering contact information through gated content, newsletter sign-ups, or resource downloads. For instance, you might target visitors who browsed specific product pages but didn’t convert, offering them a whitepaper or case study that speaks to their challenges.
If you’re in SaaS or a service-based industry, demo bookings and sales meetings are common goals. Retargeting can bring back users who visited your pricing page or watched a demo video but didn’t take the next step. Personalized invitations or limited-time offers for consultations can nudge them forward.
For companies hosting events like webinars, virtual conferences, or product launches, event registrations are key. Retargeting campaigns can re-engage users who showed interest but didn’t sign up.
Finally, brand awareness and thought leadership campaigns help keep your company visible to decision-makers. This approach is especially useful for industries with long sales cycles, where multiple touchpoints are needed before prospects are ready to engage.
The golden rule? Focus on one primary goal per campaign. Trying to achieve too much at once can dilute your message and confuse your audience. Run separate, focused campaigns for different objectives to maintain clarity.
Once your goals are set, make sure your campaign meets all the necessary technical and logistical requirements.
Campaign Prerequisites Checklist
Before launching, ensure you’ve checked off these essential steps for a smooth start.
- LinkedIn Company Page access: You’ll need admin or content admin rights for your LinkedIn Company Page and Campaign Manager.
- LinkedIn Insight Tag installation: This tracking code helps you build custom audiences based on website behavior. Install it on all relevant pages via tools like Google Tag Manager. Allow 7-14 days to gather enough data, keeping in mind LinkedIn requires a minimum of 300 members in your retargeting audience. For better results, aim for audiences of 1,000+ members.
- Content mapping: Match your audience segments to the right materials for each stage of the buyer’s journey. For example, someone who only visited your homepage will need different messaging than someone who explored your pricing page or downloaded a resource. A simple spreadsheet can help you organize this.
- Budget planning: LinkedIn’s minimum daily budget is $10, but most successful campaigns start at $25-50 per day for each audience segment. Be prepared to allocate extra funds during the testing phase to optimize performance.
- Tracking and attribution setup: Install conversion tracking pixels for key actions like form submissions, demo bookings, or purchases. Connect your CRM to track how retargeted leads move through your sales funnel.
- Creative assets: Prepare multiple ad variations for each audience segment, including different headlines, descriptions, and visuals. Having 3-5 creative options ready allows for A/B testing right from the start.
- Team alignment: Make sure everyone involved understands their role. Sales teams should know which leads are coming from retargeting, marketing teams need to coordinate messaging across channels, and leadership should have realistic expectations about timelines and results.
With these elements in place, you’re ready to start building and targeting high-quality audiences.
Building High-Quality Retargeting Audiences
The key to successful LinkedIn retargeting lies in precise audience segmentation. By targeting the right groups, you can deliver more relevant messages, boost engagement, and ultimately drive better conversions. Below, we’ll explore actionable strategies to refine your audience segmentation, setting the stage for personalized messaging.
Using Website Audiences with LinkedIn Insight Tag
Website audiences form the backbone of effective retargeting efforts. Once the LinkedIn Insight Tag gathers enough data, you can create segments based on user behavior.
- URL-based segmentation: Target users based on the specific pages they visited.
- Time-based targeting: Focus on how recently someone visited your site.
- Engagement depth segmentation: Identify visitors who spent more time on your site or viewed multiple pages, as these behaviors often signal higher intent.
Another useful approach is page sequence targeting, which looks at the order in which users navigate your site. For instance, if someone views your pricing page but skips the contact or demo booking pages, they may need additional information or assurance before moving forward.
It’s also smart to create exclusion audiences – for example, exclude users who have already converted. This keeps your budget focused on potential leads and ensures your messaging remains relevant.
Creating Engagement-Based Audiences
LinkedIn’s engagement data offers another way to build effective retargeting segments, capturing professional interactions that go beyond website behavior.
- Video engagement: Differentiate between casual viewers and those who watch entire product demos.
- Lead form interactions: Identify users who started but didn’t complete a LinkedIn lead form, signaling potential interest.
- Content engagement: Target users who frequently like, comment on, or share your posts. These individuals often respond well to educational content and softer sales tactics.
You can also re-engage specific groups, such as company page followers or event registrants who didn’t attend. These audiences are already familiar with your brand and may just need a nudge to take the next step.
Implementing Layered Audience Logic
To refine your targeting, consider layering multiple behavioral signals and timing factors for a sharper focus.
- Sequential layering: Align your messaging with the customer journey. For example, early-stage visitors might see awareness-focused content, while more engaged users receive tailored follow-ups.
- Behavioral scoring: Combine on-site actions with LinkedIn profile data to identify high-value prospects. This allows for more personalized outreach.
- Timing-based exclusions: Prevent message overlap by excluding users who have recently interacted with your campaigns.
- Firmographic layering: Tailor messaging based on company details like size, industry, or job roles, even for users with similar online behaviors.
For a unified approach, use cross-channel audience synchronization to align LinkedIn segments with email campaigns or CRM data. Additionally, employ negative audience stacking to refine exclusion lists – start by excluding current customers, then expand to disengaged users to avoid over-targeting.
Begin with simple audience groups and gradually incorporate more detailed criteria as you gather performance insights. These strategies lay the groundwork for advanced retargeting frameworks that can elevate your LinkedIn campaigns.
Designing Personalization Frameworks
Once you’ve nailed down precise audience segmentation, the next step is taking personalization up a notch. This means turning those segmented groups into highly engaged prospects by tailoring your approach even further. Incorporating persona and firmographic overlays can help refine your retargeting efforts, making your messaging resonate more deeply with the right people.
Take LinkedIn’s AI-powered Accelerate campaigns as an example. These campaigns combine firmographic details (like company characteristics) with engagement data to pinpoint the audiences most likely to take action. On top of that, tools like Factors let you get super specific with your segmentation. You can break audiences down by geography, industry, company size, revenue, or even engagement behaviors, such as how many pages they’ve viewed or how far they’ve scrolled on a site. This level of granularity makes your outreach much more precise and impactful.
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Executing AI-Personalized Multichannel Campaigns with Closely
Once you’ve set up your advanced personalization strategies, it’s time to put them into action with AI-powered campaigns. Closely simplifies this process by transforming your segmented audiences and persona data into automated campaigns that run seamlessly across LinkedIn and email.
Configuring AI-Personalized Outreach
Closely’s AI takes the guesswork out of crafting personalized messages by analyzing prospect profiles, company details, and past interactions. This ensures your outreach feels tailored, even at scale.
The AI personalization engine evaluates factors like recent activity, job title, company size, and industry to determine the best messaging approach. For instance, if someone from a 500-employee SaaS company has recently visited your pricing page, the AI might highlight challenges they’re likely facing at their growth stage. This level of customization has been shown to increase response rates by 35% [1]. The secret? The AI weaves together multiple data points to make bulk messages feel like one-on-one communication.
To get the most out of Closely’s personalization features, integrate your segmented audiences with its dynamic message templates. The platform adapts tone, industry references, and value propositions based on each prospect’s firmographic data and engagement history. This means a message to a C-suite executive will have a different tone and focus than one sent to a mid-level manager.
Building Multichannel Campaign Steps
An effective multichannel campaign requires a thoughtful strategy that blends LinkedIn and email interactions. Closely’s unified dashboard makes it easy to design campaigns that transition smoothly between platforms based on a prospect’s engagement.
Start with a LinkedIn connection request that references a prior interaction, followed by a personalized message addressing their interests. If there’s no response within a set timeframe, the campaign automatically shifts to email outreach using verified business addresses found through Closely’s data enrichment tools.
Smart delays and triggers ensure your timing is on point. For example, if a prospect engages with your LinkedIn post or views your profile, Closely can send a follow-up message within hours to capitalize on their interest. Combining LinkedIn and email outreach has been shown to double reply rates [2], making this approach especially effective for re-engaging warm leads.
Your campaign should align with the buyer’s journey while respecting the norms of each platform. Use LinkedIn for relationship-building and sharing insights, while email is better suited for delivering detailed resources, case studies, or scheduling calls. With Closely’s unified inbox, you can manage responses from both platforms without missing a beat.
By adopting a multichannel strategy, you can achieve up to 70% more engagement compared to relying on a single channel [2]. Automating these sequences also frees up time for meaningful conversations with prospects who respond.
Tracking and Optimizing Campaign Performance
Closely’s dashboard offers real-time insights into your campaigns across LinkedIn and email, tracking metrics like connection acceptance rates, message opens, email clicks, and replies.
Pay attention to how different audience segments respond. Campaigns targeting website visitors may perform differently than those aimed at content engagers or event attendees. Closely’s analytics tools help you tweak your messaging to suit each group.
The platform’s lead scoring feature prioritizes prospects based on their engagement and likelihood to convert. This allows you to focus your manual outreach on high-potential leads while keeping others in automated nurture sequences. On average, users save 10 hours per week per team member by leveraging Closely’s automation and optimization features [1].
Behavior-based triggers ensure your messages reach prospects at just the right moment, while unified reporting helps you refine your strategy over time.
"Closely is a powerful tool for anyone looking to enhance their sales engagement. The platform is user-friendly and easy to navigate, making it accessible even for those who are not tech-savvy." – Antonio D., Digital Strategist & Coach
Regular optimization is key. Experiment with different message variations, adjust the timing between touchpoints, and refine your audience segments based on performance data. Users who actively monitor and adjust their campaigns with Closely’s analytics see a 45% increase in pipeline opportunities [1]. These insights are essential for fine-tuning your LinkedIn retargeting efforts and scaling engagement.
Let the data guide your decisions for each audience segment, and watch your campaigns perform at their best.
Optimizing LinkedIn Campaigns for Retargeting Success
To make the most of LinkedIn retargeting, it’s essential to align your campaign objectives, creative formats, and budgets with each stage of the buyer’s journey. Here’s how to fine-tune your approach for better results.
Choosing the Right Campaign Objectives
Your campaign objective should match the behavior and intent of your retargeted audience. For example:
- Conversion objectives work best for prospects who have already shown interest by visiting key pages or downloading resources. These campaigns encourage direct actions like signing up or purchasing.
- Engagement objectives are ideal for reconnecting with users who have interacted with your content but might still need nurturing. Use these campaigns to share insights, industry reports, or thought leadership to keep your brand at the forefront of their minds.
- Lead generation objectives shine for mid-funnel prospects. People who attend webinars, read blogs, or engage with events are often receptive to exclusive offers or consultations via streamlined lead forms.
On the other hand, objectives focused solely on brand awareness may not deliver the specific actions retargeting campaigns aim to drive. Once your objectives are clear, the next step is to match creative formats to the buyer’s journey.
Optimizing Creative Formats by Funnel Stage
The type of ad you use can significantly impact how effectively you guide prospects through the funnel:
- Video ads work well for top-of-funnel engagement. Keep them short and include captions to grab attention quickly.
- Single image ads are great for mid-funnel clarity, offering straightforward messaging and visuals.
- Document ads (like case studies or whitepapers) can deepen interest and provide valuable information for decision-making.
- Lead forms simplify the process for conversions, making it easy for prospects to take action.
- Carousel ads can be used sparingly, as simpler formats often perform better in terms of engagement.
By aligning your creative formats with the buyer’s journey, you can guide your audience smoothly through the funnel. But to maximize success, you also need a thoughtful budget and measurement strategy.
Budgeting and Measuring ROI
Start with small daily budgets to let LinkedIn’s algorithm collect data without overspending. Once you’ve identified winning combinations of targeting and creative, scale your budgets gradually to maintain consistent performance.
If click costs rise, consider experimenting with manual bidding to control expenses. This can signal issues like overly narrow targeting or underperforming creative, both of which may need adjustment.
For a complete view of performance, supplement LinkedIn’s metrics with UTM tracking. Use your existing conversion tracking tools to monitor ROI, but be aware that standard attribution windows may overlook longer sales cycles. A custom attribution approach might be necessary for more accurate insights.
Here are a few additional tips to refine your budget strategy:
- Regularly review your cost per lead and adjust audience size, creative, or lead capture steps as needed. Smaller audience segments often lead to higher costs due to limited ad inventory.
- Monitor ad frequency carefully. Overexposing the same audience to your ads can cause fatigue, reducing their effectiveness. Use frequency capping tools to limit how often your ads are shown and adjust campaigns if needed.
Conclusion: Scaling Engagement with LinkedIn Retargeting
The key to successful LinkedIn retargeting lies in thoughtful personalization. The most impactful campaigns focus on quality by combining high-intent audience behaviors – like visits to pricing pages or case study downloads – with LinkedIn engagement signals, such as 50% video views or lead generation form completions[4][3].
By carefully segmenting your audience, you can refine every stage of your retargeting process. A well-structured strategy should guide prospects through a sequence of content that starts with education, moves to proof, and ends with an offer. This approach ensures your messaging is relevant and boosts conversion efficiency. For example, if someone watches a cybersecurity video, you could follow up with a related case study and, later, a consultation offer – each step building on the previous interaction.
Expanding beyond LinkedIn can further enhance your efforts. Since 92% of first-time website visitors don’t convert right away[5], integrating other channels like email sequences, YouTube videos, and community invitations can reinforce your message. This multichannel approach is especially effective for nurturing prospects who need more time before making a decision.
AI tools can help you scale this process without losing the personal touch. By using dynamic variables – like a prospect’s firmographics, recent activities, or persona – you can craft messages that feel individually tailored. For instance, referencing a recent webinar they attended in a follow-up message can make your outreach more engaging and relevant. This precision also helps allocate budgets more effectively.
When it comes to budget allocation, align your spending with your funnel priorities. A good starting point might be to allocate 40% toward mid-funnel content like case studies, 30% to bottom-funnel offers such as demos or trials, and 30% to educational content like videos. A monthly budget of $3,000–$10,000 across 2–3 sequences allows for adjustments based on performance metrics like cost per qualified lead and overall pipeline contribution[4].
To measure success, focus on key performance indicators that matter. For example, aim for click-through rates (CTR) of 0.6–1.5% on single image ads and 1–2% on carousel ads[4]. Strive for meeting rates of 15–30% from retargeting leads and sales-qualified opportunity rates of 10–20%. Most importantly, track pipeline dollars generated per ad spend – strong programs typically deliver 3–6× pipeline returns within 90 days.
Here’s a practical next step: within the next seven days, install the LinkedIn Insight Tag, create three engagement audiences of at least 1,000 members, and launch one topic-led sequence per core persona. Use a tool like Connect Closely to align AI-driven outreach with your LinkedIn campaigns, and review your results after 14 days to fine-tune your budget and strategy.
FAQs
How can I use the LinkedIn Insight Tag to improve my retargeting campaigns?
To get the most out of the LinkedIn Insight Tag for retargeting, start by setting it up through your Campaign Manager. Head to the ‘Analyze’ section, click on ‘Insight Tag,’ and follow the instructions to add the tag to your website. This tool monitors visitor activity, allowing you to build custom audiences based on specific page visits or user actions.
You can set a retention period of up to 180 days for your retargeting audiences, helping keep your campaigns timely and impactful. Plus, you can share access to the Insight Tag with your team, offering either full or view-only permissions. Using this data, you can craft targeted retargeting strategies that enhance engagement and increase conversions.
What are the best practices for using AI tools to create personalized LinkedIn retargeting messages?
To craft impactful personalized messages for LinkedIn retargeting, start by aligning your outreach with the recipient’s interests, actions, and professional background. AI tools can assist in creating tailored content that feels both relevant and conversational, helping your communication stand out.
Set clear guidelines for personalization, such as tone, context, and key details like job titles or recent achievements. This ensures the AI-generated messages stay on track with your objectives. Look for platforms that enable personalization at scale while still preserving a genuine, human-like tone – this can significantly improve response rates and foster stronger connections.
By blending the precision of AI with thoughtful, tailored messaging, you can create interactions that truly resonate and encourage meaningful engagement.
How can I use multichannel strategies with LinkedIn retargeting to boost engagement and drive conversions?
To increase engagement and boost conversions, pair LinkedIn retargeting with a multichannel strategy. This means coordinating your efforts across platforms like email, Google Ads, and social media to create a cohesive experience. For instance, you can start by using LinkedIn ads to focus on high-value accounts, then back this up with email campaigns or ads on other platforms to reinforce your message.
Leverage tools like the LinkedIn Insight Tag to track user behavior and build dynamic audience segments. This allows for more tailored retargeting efforts. By maintaining consistent and relevant messaging across all your channels, you’ll enhance your brand’s visibility, keep your audience engaged, and improve your chances of driving conversions.