Cutting LinkedIn cost per lead by 85% against senior buyers

LinkedIn started as the most expensive line on the plan and ended up a dependable source of senior-level pipeline. Continuous audience and creative testing against VP, C-suite and Director titles took cost per lead from £441 to £68 over a two-year optimisation cycle.

LinkedIn Ads
Demand generation

Problem

LinkedIn is where the buyers are and also where budget goes to die. Early campaigns were reaching the right job titles at a cost per lead that made the channel impossible to defend in a budget review.

Approach

Treated it as a testing problem rather than a targeting problem. Narrowed audiences to VP, C-suite, Director and Partner, then ran continuous creative tests in small, honest increments: one variable at a time, enough spend to reach significance, and a standing rule that a creative gets cut when it loses twice. Moved the conversion point into native Lead Gen Forms so the drop-off from click to form stopped being the biggest leak.

The compounding part was not any single creative but the library: 478 tested variants means the next campaign starts from evidence rather than a blank canvas.

Outcome

Cost per lead fell 85% and lead form completion rose five-fold. The compounding part was not any single creative but the library: 478 tested variants means the next campaign starts from evidence rather than a blank canvas.

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