Global Demand Generation at GetAccept | Paid Ads & Growth Advisor | Prove the impact of running LinkedIn Ads by identifying influenced deals and revenue with Fibbler 🦁

Hey! 

I’m Adam. Dad, marketer, and full-time founder.

Right now, I’m building Fibbler, the future of Paid Ads Attribution for SMBs. We’ve grown to 400+ paying customers in our first 20 months, fully bootstrapped.

If you’re into LinkedIn Ads, founder-led growth, brand building, or just want to see me try to build this company without external capital while competing with VC giants, follow along here on LinkedIn.

Adam Holmgren

Every time I go to an event like LinkedIn for Marketing's B2Believe, it hits me again. LinkedIn is the most powerful B2B platform in the world.

Nothing else even comes close.

And I don’t say that because I run an attribution tool for LinkedIn Ads.

I say it because every day I see how it works in real life.

The people here already know your brand.

They’ve seen your posts.
They’ve watched your ads.
They already trust you before any sales call even starts.

You can’t get that on any other platform in B2B.

The combination of targeting, mindset, intent and professional context is something you can’t recreate. 

That’s why I always tell companies to stop treating LinkedIn like a direct response channel and start treating it like the place where trust is built.

If you show up here consistently.
If you mix paid and organic.
If you focus on value instead of tricks.
…you will win.

Being here, meeting people who already knew Fibbler before we even talked… it reminded me why I love this platform so much.

Here’s a small clip from an interview I did.

#B2Believe #linkedin #linkedinads

Co-founder & CEO at Fibbler | Building the future of Paid Ads Attribution for SMBs | 10+ years in B2B marketing

I’ve been invited to LinkedIn’s HQ in San Francisco to come down and film some content. 🥹🥹🥹

Honestly, I don’t even know where to start with this one.

Over the last few years I’ve been fortunate enough to do some really cool things in the B2B world.

But the way 2026 has started… wtf?? 🤣

You all know how passionate I am about LinkedIn Ads, and that was the reason Fibbler was created in the first place.

But this isn’t about that.

This is about founder-led growth.

I’m there to share learnings from building a company on LinkedIn with other startup founders and marketers.

And honestly, this is something that came very naturally once I started building in public.

I was very fortunate to already have spent a few years building a relevant audience on LinkedIn, and that became the start for the founder-led playbook I’m running today.

What’s still crazy to me is how often I hear this during demos or support tickets:

“Wow, I didn’t realize I would get to speak directly with the founder.”

There’s real power in that.

Especially when, like me, you’re a marketer selling to marketers (so basically selling to someone just like yourself)

So yeah, as you might understand, I’m insanely excited about this trip taking place between February 23rd and 26th.

And yes, a dream I’ve had for years has been to visit the tech mecca that is the Bay Area.

Now I finally get to do it with a real purpose.

Ruby James & Emma Heiden, I won’t let you down!!

PINCH MY ARM.

2026 HERE WE GO.

We launched Fibbler in April 2024 with just $2,500 of our own money.

Our first paying customer came the same month, and I still remember it like it was yesterday.

By September 2024 we had reached 50 customers, and by December 2024 we hit 100 customers and $10,000 in MRR.

At that point we were still running everything on the side of our full-time jobs, squeezing in work during evenings, weekends, and whatever time we could find.

By the time July 2025 came around, we had reached 250 customers and $27,000 in MRR.

That’s when our CTO decided to go all in on Fibbler full time, and honestly, everything changed from there.

We were suddenly shipping features much faster, fixing issues quickly, and supporting our customers in minutes instead of hours.

And people noticed.

Customers started writing about Fibbler without us asking, and we somehow ended up right in the middle of this wave of signal-based tools that started to take off.

At some point even LinkedIn noticed us, and saw Fibbler as a great fit for their SMB customer base, which led to us becoming an official marketing partner in the attribution category.

At that point, it felt like things were just moving on their own.

Maybe this was the product-market fit we’d been looking for?

Around that time I began thinking seriously about going full time myself, and what could happen if we both focused fully on Fibbler.

Six months later, here we are.

Both co-founders are now working on Fibbler full time, we’re at 400+ paying customers, and we’ve just crossed $50,000 in MRR.

2024 was about proving that Fibbler solves a real problem.
2025 was about finding our first true product-market fit.
2026 will be about building a multi-channel product and scaling our GTM properly, with me now fully focused on this journey.

To say that I’m excited would be a massive understatement.

𝗙𝗜𝗕𝗕𝗟𝗘𝗥 𝗜𝗦 𝗚𝗢𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗧𝗢 𝗡𝗬𝗖 🇺🇸🗽

A bit surreal to even write this.

New York is actually the city where we have the most Fibbler customers in the world (!!)

Which still feels a bit crazy.

We’re heading over partly to join the Annual Summit for LinkedIn Marketing Partners, but also to meet customers and hang out with as many great marketers as possible.

𝗪𝗲’𝗹𝗹 𝗯𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝗡𝗬𝗖 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝟭𝟬𝘁𝗵 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝟭𝟯𝘁𝗵 𝗼𝗳 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵.

So a few questions to my network..

Who’s up for grabbing a coffee and talking marketing, LinkedIn Ads, and startup growth?

Who might want to host two slightly lost co-founders in their office for a day?

And the most important question of all…

Who wants a pink lion? 🦁

We’ll pack one for anyone that reaches out.

See you soon, NYC.

Last week was the biggest challenge I’ve had since becoming a full-time founder.

The kind of thing you dread the most.

𝐀𝐬 𝐚 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭.

Both my kids (1.5 and 4 years old) got the flu.

High fevers up to 40°C (104°F).

And it just kept going all week.

I started feeling symptoms myself, but we decided I’d stay home with the kids the first half of the week, and my partner would take the second.

Those first 2.5 days were the longest of my life. 😅

Trying to squeeze in support replies during naps.

Then I finally made it into the office.

And that’s when my partner started getting sick too.

Suddenly I felt extremely guilty for being away, even though I needed a few focused hours to keep the business moving. 

In the end, I stayed home on Friday as well to help out.

This is the reality of being a full-time founder and a parent to two small kids.

But we’re on the other side now.

The kids are back at daycare.

We’re both healthy again.

P.S. It’s usually not this messy at home… but we were in full survival mode. 😅

We’re FINALLY starting to show up in relevant AI overviews and LLM queries 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘄𝗲 𝗱𝗶𝗱 𝗶𝘁.

As you probably know by now, I’ve never been super passionate about SEO. 

So towards the end of last year we brought in Sam Dunning and his team at Breaking B2B.

With everything going on as a solo marketer, and everything else I do 😅, I needed help with execution.

Luckily, we already had a really solid domain rating from the start. 

So there was a lot of potential in climbing rankings and showing up on the right queries quickly.

WHERE DID WE START

Pretty early on it was clear that we needed to show up more with the right context next to the bigger players in the attribution category.

The good thing is that over the last few years I’ve used most of these platforms myself. 

That makes it much easier to do an honest comparison.

That part matters a lot to me.

I want to talk about all these players in a respectful way. 

I admire them a lot (especially Dreamdata and how they carry themselves with so much grace).

But at the same time I wanted it to be very clear where Fibbler stands in relation to them, no matter when or where people are looking.

So I started by just dumping all my thoughts and knowledge into a Google Doc.

The team at Breaking B2B then did their own research and started writing the actual content.

After that, I spent a lot of time on each piece editing it. Making sure it matched my POV and actually sounded like me.

RESULTS SO FAR

We’ve pretty quickly started showing up in the AI queries we listed in the initial plan.

Not always as the first option. But always with the right narrative. That we’re a LinkedIn first attribution software for companies that believe that’s enough.

Our organic traffic has already 2x’d in the last two months, excluding brand.

But the most important part is this.

Now that I’ve started taking more demo calls, people have mentioned several times that they’ve read this narrative and they understand exactly where we stand compared to the others.

And that’s the whole point right now.

It’s time to announce our second influencer and this time it’s one of the brightest LinkedIn Ads voices in Europe.

Over the last 15 months, we’ve had incredible people openly sharing how they use Fibbler without ever getting anything in return.

At the same time, as we’ve grown, I’ve always known we wanted to create something more formal. 

A way to give back to those people while also helping their ideas and experiences reach a wider audience.

In other words, a small influencer program.

Last week, we announced our first US-focused influencer.

Now it’s time to announce our second influencer to get better coverage of the European market.

And without further ado…

🥁🥁🥁

Please welcome Philip Ilic to the Fibbler troops.

They’ve been using Fibbler at scale for his agency 𝐊𝐢𝐢𝐧 and have already shared some great content showing how it fits into their workflows and reporting.

But most importantly, the transparent way Philip shares LinkedIn Ads playbooks with the world, without making them overly complex, is something I really align with. 

That’s one of the main reasons I started following him in the first place.

Stay tuned for early results and additional roster introductions!

I lied to everyone.



I told you that I would never run brand ads on Google for Fibbler…

Because you’re basically paying for traffic that would find you anyway.

That was my belief.

Until last week…

For some random reason, I searched for Fibbler on Google.

And to my surprise, I saw two companies consistently appearing at the top of the results.

At this point, I was still determined to not run brand ads. It just felt like a waste of money.

Then I noticed something else.

They were using the Fibbler name all over the place. Sometimes even as a standalone.

If someone searches quickly and just scans the page, it would be very easy to click by mistake.

That is when my mindset shifted.

I spent some time setting up a simple brand campaign.

$25 daily budget.
$2 max CPC.

And I am already at more than 90% impression share. With a really solid top of page rate.

So I will keep it running for a bit.

At least until Google removes their ads for trademark reasons (they have already been disapproved in a few markets luckily 😬).

So yes. 

I lied.

I said I would never bid on my own brand.

Hopefully this is only temporary..

P.S. I’m really proud to say that we now have more than 2,000 branded searches for Fibbler every month, and it’s clear that others see that as valuable.

#googleads #brand

107 engagements.
2,886 impressions.
12 months of campaigns.

The deal?

Attributed to organic search.

Of course it was.

This is the most common journey in B2B:

Someone sees your ads on LinkedIn.
They don’t click.
They lurk.
They remember.

Weeks later they Google your brand.
Click a result.
Submit a form.

Boom.

“Original source: Organic search.”

Perfectly clean report.

Also completely wrong.

That deal didn’t start with Google.

It started way earlier.

With your paid campaigns.

And your organic LinkedIn presence reinforcing them.

Paid created awareness.

Organic search captured it.

They work together whether your attribution model likes it or not.

But most reports still force everything into one bucket.

That’s why we built Customer Journeys in Fibbler.

So you can see:
✅ Paid touches that created awareness
✅ Organic touches that reinforced trust
✅ How both combined to influence pipeline

Not paid vs organic.

Paid + organic.

Because people don’t buy in straight lines.

And attribution shouldn’t pretend they do.

P.S.

Fibbler helps you see which companies view or engage with your LI Ads, tie them to pipeline and revenue in your CRM, and alert sales when it’s time to reach out. Try it free for 30 days at https://www.fibbler.co/.

This is Fibbler’s MRR growth throughout 2025 and what we’re projecting for 2026:

January: $11k
February: $12.5k
March: $14k
April: $18k
May: $20k
June: $22k
July: $25.5k
August: $26k
September: $30k
October: $36.5k
November: $42k
December: $43k

As you can tell, it’s far from linear.

January, August and December were the slowest months for us.

A mix of fewer new paid customers and higher churn.

Then September to November happened.

Around 40% MRR growth in just a few months.

What’s interesting is that nothing major changed during 2025.

Same spend. 
Same channels. 
Same level of activity.

What did change was time.

Brand growth compounded over the year.

We started with below 1,000 brand searches per month. 

Now we’re at over 2000.

To me that’s a strong signal.

That our narrative is starting to resonate with the right people.

That we have a product people actually love using.

Yes, we probably could have grown much faster by raising money and spending more.

But we’re ending the year with around 25% profit margin.

Our fate is fully in our own hands.

There’s something very powerful about that.

𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝗳 𝘄𝗲 𝘄𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲:

At a minimum, I think we’ll grow at roughly the same rate.

Again, brand compounds over time.

On top of that, we’re going to add a few add-ons for other channels, like Google Ads and Meta Ads, which should increase ARPA slightly.

So my guess is that we’ll end the year at…

🥁🥁🥁

𝗔𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 $𝟭𝟮𝟬𝗸 𝗶𝗻 𝗠𝗥𝗥, 𝗼𝗿 𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝗹𝘆 $𝟭.𝟰𝗠 𝗶𝗻 𝗔𝗥𝗥.

With only two people on the team.

That’s about $720k ARR per employee (!!!)

Let’s see how right or wrong I am. 😬

Regardless, I’m just so excited about putting my full time into something I’m genuinely passionate about.

#saas #startup

It’s time to introduce our third influencer that I’m genuinely excited to work with.

One thing I didn’t fully appreciate when we started Fibbler was how many smart people would start sharing their experiences with the product, completely on their own.

As the company has grown, that’s something I’ve wanted to protect.

And also find a way to give something back.

That’s how this small influencer program came to life.

We’ve already started building coverage in the US and Europe.

Now it’s time to expand further. 

🥁🥁🥁🥁🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷

I’m very happy to welcome Sheila Coque to the Fibbler roster.

We actually first connected in the comments on LinkedIn.

Her replies always stood out to me. 

Thoughtful, authentic, and coming from real experience.

When I later started following her content more closely, it carried the exact same energy.

I’m really looking forward to building something together and starting to grow our presence in Latin America with her.

More soon. 🦁

THE FIBBLER FAMILY IS GROWING


And no, it’s not a baby...

Or another colleague...

I was simply sitting down one evening, thinking about how we could stand out a bit more.

As you do.

How to do something different.

How to do something fun.

Something that could represent Fibbler when we show up at events and meet-ups. 

And somehow we ended up with the biggest pink lions we could possibly find. 😅

They are huge.

Like… way bigger than we imagined when we ordered.

These lions aren’t just going to sit in a corner and collect dust though.

They’re coming with us.

To conferences.
To meet-ups.

To places where a giant pink lion probably shouldn’t be… but absolutely should be.

𝗡𝗼𝘄 𝘄𝗲 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘃𝗲 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘁𝗶𝗻𝘆 𝗱𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗹.

Has anyone here actually tried bringing giant stuffed lions on a plane before? 

Because I’m pretty sure this will raise some questions at security.

Asking very seriously.

Most teams don’t struggle with LinkedIn Ads because of budgets or targeting. 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗴𝗴𝗹𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗱𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲.

If the message and creative don’t connect, nothing works, no matter how much budget you put behind it.

What’s changed recently is how that content gets distributed.

Thought leader ads have made it easier than ever to distribute content through people instead of brands. 

And that matters, because people listen to people, not logos.

But the core question hasn’t changed. 

𝗪𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗺𝘆 𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲?

And this is why many companies still hesitate to run thought leader ads. 

Not because the format doesn’t work, but because it quickly reveals whether the message is strong enough or not.

At the same time, when teams do get this right, I haven’t seen any other format on LinkedIn that comes close in terms of attention and engagement. 

𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗴𝗮𝗽 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗼𝗻 𝗜’𝗺 𝗱𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘄𝗲𝗯𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗿 𝗼𝗻 𝗝𝗮𝗻𝘂𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝟮𝟴𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗼𝗴𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 Casper 𝗮𝗻𝗱 SparkForce.

We’ll walk through real examples, showing ads that clearly moved people and others that didn’t, and talk through what actually changed the outcome.

We’ll also cover why paid and organic can’t be treated as two separate things anymore, and how that disconnect is often the reason campaigns feel off.

This is a practical session for B2B marketers who feel like engaging their audience shouldn’t be this hard.

#linkedinads

thought leader ads that influenced €3.1M on LinkedIn

You’re spending $5K on paid ads and it works. You scale to $50K and it doesn’t. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺 𝗶𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗮𝗱𝘀…

You know that feeling when some of your paid programs are finally working?

You’re spending around $5K per month.

Awareness is building.
Engagement looks solid.
Pipeline is starting to show up.

So you do the obvious thing.

You scale.

$10K.
$50K.

And that’s when it gets weird.

The numbers don’t follow the spend anymore.

Costs go up.
Quality feels off.

And suddenly you’re wondering if something broke, even though nothing really changed.

That’s the part most teams get stuck in.

At lower spend, you can focus on a few things that work really well and just double down on those.

When you start scaling, that simplicity disappears.

You add more formats.
More channels.
More experiments running in parallel.

And suddenly it’s not about one campaign working anymore, it’s about how all of it fits together.

𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘅𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗼𝗻 𝗜’𝗺 𝗱𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘄𝗲𝗯𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗿 𝗼𝗻 𝗙𝗲𝗯𝗿𝘂𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝟭𝟮𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗼𝗴𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 Matthis Janssen, Tim Rath 𝗮𝗻𝗱 YOYABA.

This is something you don’t want to miss if you’re scaling paid ads this year.

👉 Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/ehdwxUbK

No alternative text description for this image

This is what my weekly calendar looks like when running a product-led startup. 𝗜𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝘃𝗲.

Most days aren’t packed with meetings.

That space is where the work happens.

Once you start finding some real fit in the market, something changes. 

The product starts doing the selling for you. 

You don’t have to explain every feature or convince people why it matters.

They already know the problem.

One thing I’ve really noticed over the last 15 months is how tech savvy marketers are. 

Most of them know exactly what they want. 

If the product is clear and works well, they’ll figure it out on their own.

I see a lot of startup content that makes a full calendar look like success. 

In reality, being busy and making progress aren’t always the same thing.

I don’t know if this is the right way forever.

But right now, it feels like the right way to build.

#saas #startup

𝗜’𝘃𝗲 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 $𝟳𝟬𝗸 𝗼𝗻 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗲𝗱𝗜𝗻 𝗔𝗱𝘀 in the last 12 months, and it completely changed how I think about what actually works on LinkedIn.

For a long time, we treated paid and organic as two completely separate things.

We ran ads.

And then we posted organic content.

But it doesn’t work like that anymore… and there’s three major shifts I’m seeing right now:

1️⃣ 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗳𝘁 𝗵𝗶𝘁 𝗺𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗜 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗿𝘂𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗱𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗮𝗹 𝘄𝗮𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗱𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘁

Organic content is no longer a nice to have.

For me, organic is a testing ground. I post ideas, see what resonates, and then only put money behind the content that already works. 

2️⃣ 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗳𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗜 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗮

There is so much hype around third party intent tools, while some of the strongest signals are already sitting in your own data. 

When someone has seen your content multiple times and interacted with it, they are more likely to remember you when they are ready to buy.

3️⃣ 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗱 𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗳𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗮𝗯𝗹𝘆 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗮 𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗽𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗲, 𝗖𝗥𝗠 𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗯𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝘆𝗲𝗿 𝗷𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘆𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘀𝘆

People see ads for months.
Talk to peers.
Google you multiple times.
Consume content across channels.
And only then convert into a demo.

And the CRM gives all the credit to whatever happened last (or first).

That pushes companies to over invest in capture and under invest in brand. And then a few months later they wonder why pipeline slowed down…

I go much deeper into all of this in the full video and explain how I think about LinkedIn Ads after spending $70k of my own money on them.

#linkedinads

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗲𝗱𝗜𝗻 𝗮𝗹𝗴𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗺 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿. I made it my mission last year to figure out how to make it work anyway.

Before I get into what I changed, here’s some context.

Last year I reached more than 500k people, generated over 2.5M impressions, saw around 50,000 engagements, and grew my follower base by 12,000 people.

Those numbers look great now. 

But early 2025 was… not that good haha.

My posts slowly stopped getting the same traction. Reach went down, engagement was terrible, and at the same time LinkedIn started filling up with more and more AI content.

That was the moment I realised I couldn’t blame the algorithm anymore.

It was on me to start creating content people actually wanted to read.

So I did something I’ve never done before.

I sat down and defined how I wanted my writing to feel.

I went through my old posts that had actually worked and asked myself a few simple questions:

Why did this post resonate?
Are there any traits that show up over and over again?
Which parts sound like me, and which parts feel too polished?

That process led me to two words that now guides almost everything I post.

𝗔𝘂𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴.

I want people to feel like they’re coming along with me. Into a decision, a mistake, a realization, or something that actually happened. 

Not just scrolling past another tactic or success story.

After that, I rebuilt my content pillars.

LinkedIn Ads, brand building, and building a startup in public became the three big ones.

Those two changes are what made 2025 the best year I’ve ever had on LinkedIn. 

And a big reason why Fibbler even got off the ground in the first place.

To make it clear.

It’s easy to blame the algorithm.

But if you put in the work to actually find your voice, I’m almost certain you’ll see results.

#linkedin

Justin Rowe

Founder/CMO @ Impactable - B2B LinkedIn Ads Agency | Acquired in 2021 | 2x Acquisitions in 2024 | Making things up as I go

From Restaurant Hustle to LinkedIn Agency Founder → Acquired → Now Scaling the #1 LinkedIn Ads Agency

I went from serving tables to serving over 1,000 clients in 30+ countries - and building an agency that was acquired in an all-cash buyout.

Starting in the restaurant industry, I had a hunger for something more (pun intended). I turned to LinkedIn to document my journey and connect with people. That content led to job offers, investor conversations, and even a deal to co-launch a restaurant franchise.

I saw the power of LinkedIn firsthand and started helping others. That side hustle turned into Linknlearn, a global lead gen agency built entirely through Upwork and LinkedIn outreach. I became the #1 ranked LinkedIn expert on Upwork, launched a $500 website, and scaled the agency internationally.

In 2021, we were acquired. We pivoted to LinkedIn Ads, launched new tech tools, and Impactable was born.

Today, I lead Impactable — a LinkedIn-Centric B2B Marketing Agency and creators of DemandSense, our proprietary LinkedIn Ads platform. We’ve been recognized by LinkedIn, invited to speak at their Indie Agency Summit, and continue working toward deeper partnerships with their team.

💡 What I’m Focused On Now

👉 Helping B2B brands scale with LinkedIn + Google + Programmatic full-funnel campaigns
👉 Working with clients spending $5K–$200K/month in ad budget to scale high-value pipelines
👉 Building smarter offers, audiences, and funnels through our 90-Day Validation Sprints
👉 Empowering internal marketers with DemandSense: ad scheduling, audience testing, and signal tracking for LinkedIn Ads

🧰 Resources (Free & Paid)

🎯 Free Strategy Resources & Templates
→ linktr.ee/justin_rowe

🛠 LinkedIn Ads Toolset (DemandSense)
→ https://impactable.com/dgp-linkedin-ads-tools/


🎥 LinkedIn Ads + B2B Demand Gen on YouTube
→ https://studio.youtube.com/channel/UCATGD6P27kWXDVuaAZeZBuQ/videos

📈 LinkedIn Ads Agency (Done-for-You)
→ https://impactable.com/

💬 Want to Collaborate?

→ Send me a DM if you want to:

Test your audience + offer fit on LinkedIn

Migrate from Google to multichannel demand gen

Build a scalable paid strategy with a trusted partner

Chief Executive Officer

Impactable is a Linkedin Ads Agency that specializes in Linkedin Marketing for B2B companies. We were acquired in 2021 by a data-heavy investor and made a strong pivot into Linkedin advertising. Impactable now manages over 150+ B2B brands with Linkedin advertising being our core focus. 

Other capabilities include website visitor identification, automated Linkedin lead generation, and a few saas tools we are working on.

I've now removed 6,100+ connections in the last 4 months and have 3,500+ more to remove (in this round). Here's why 👇 

Short version:
1. Your networks engagement with your content helps determine reach
2. Much of my network was created early on when I had a career in restaurants (FYI I used to be part owner of 4 restaurants 😜 )

3. I'm all about controlling the things I can control and not complaining about the things I can't. 

I used Sales Navigator to slice and dice my 1st connections and realized there are 7000+ connections that are likely not on LinkedIn any more, wouldn't find any value in my content, and who I should likely just disconnect with. 

LinkedIn has been great for me - it's led to:
1. Connecting with investors that led me to becoming restaurant owner
2. Starting a side-hustle that helped pay for the extra costs of our first son (named Lincoln...which he asks if it h as anything to do with LinkedIn)
3. Turning that side-hustle into an agency that was acquired
4. Continuing to power pipeline for an agency pushing toward 10M ARR

So I understand the power of LinkedIn both organically and on the paid side...and my top advice?

1. Build your network strategically - send 15 connection requests a day and be picky what requests you accept
2. Be clear about your target audience, their pain points, and produce valuable content they'd regularly save and share
3. Spend 5x more time engaging and commenting vs posting
4. Use sales navigator to see ICP profile viewers and send them connection requests
5. Turn your top organic posts into evergreen retargeting ads with thought leadership ads

That's it for today : )

Website LinkedIn Ads Agency: https://lnkd.in/guEafPKk
B2B Strategies and Guides: https://lnkd.in/gB-WQ82f
Impactable YouTube Channel: https://lnkd.in/emYVDn_T

Founder/CEO @ Impactable | B2B LinkedIn Ads Partners | Paid Ads + Demand Gen + B2B Audience Experts

Short Post - LinkedIn Ads Experiment - Manual Bidding vs Impression Bidding for Video Retargeting. 

Early into this but sharing - I recently looked through our own LinkedIn ads campaigns and thought we just were not getting the results we used to from our retargeting layer. 

Main things I look at:
1. Penetration + frequency - are we reaching the whole audience and at a frequency that will move the needle to action?

2. What assets are working/not working and do we need something fresh in rotation

3. What's our CPC/CPM and are we getting decent price for distribution here. 

I'm starting to look at CPM way more than I ever used to because the more I lean into custom lists and really believe in my targeting...the main thing I care about is just distribution at an affordable rate. 

I don't really want/need LinkedIn to try to figure out which pocket of my target list to show/not show my ads to...in fact I'd rather it turn it's brain off and deliver my ads to the target I've set. 

Manual bidding has been and I believe still today is the gold standard...the gold standard Impactable has set (we are still the largest LinkedIn ads agency with the deepest partnership with actual LinkedIn company)...but even our standards need challenged because things change. 

So I notices while we are getting an ok CPC on these ( for video that is) the CPM  looked wild...$300+ CPM for a warm audience...didn't make a ton of sense other than LinkedIn was just being too selective with my list and just showing it to the highest value (in their mind) targets vs just distributing my assets to this list. 

So I switched to bidding by impresssion and then set a lower CPM threshold.

And like magic..2x impressions, 2x clicks, half the CPM. 

So just like manual bidding on CPC...starting to walk down bid for CPM and see where this goes but it's crazy to me the difference. 

I think though for this to be something you can steal/use you have to have a healthy budget of at least $75/day because just like with manual CPC bidding you can't have a daily budget less than your bid and with CPM bidding it might not make sense to be bidding $10-$50/day in most cases because typical CPM might be $50-$150 so daily budget should match as well. 

Well, that's it for today - just sharing what we are learning and how things are shifting.

Website LinkedIn Ads Agency: https://lnkd.in/guEafPKk
B2B Strategies and Guides: https://lnkd.in/gB-WQ82f
Impactable YouTube Channel: https://lnkd.in/emYVDn_T

Shocking study - only 1 in 50 apps that were “vibe coded” by LinkedIn creators 3 months ago are still being used in any way shape or form today.

And this includes the 38,000 people that commented “vibe” to get access to said vibe coded apps. 

None of those people are actually using any of these apps.

But it felt cool in the moment yea? 

I’ve learned over the years that there is a pretty massive difference between what LinkedIn creators say they are doing… and what actual reality is.

These fantasy funnels that look amazing but have never actually been used/tested.

Ai army of 50 agents that replaced a non existing 500k team… even though the poster is a solo founder who’s never even led a team of 10 yet.

Vibe coded apps that saved the poster “hundreds of hours” when really it cost them a hundred hours to make and saved them 30 min on a task they then only used the app for 3 times….

Reality is that it’s still a brutal proving grounds in the market and these “hacks” won’t save you.

Sorry to break it to you but here is the “hack”

1. Know what makes you actually different / unique - own it 

2. Know your targeting - and map out what pockets of that you have to r biggest advantage 

3. Leverage paid search and LinkedIn as a core motion to create and capture demand - google for in market traffic and LinkedIn to qualify and convert that traffic and layer intentional account targeting and insights 

4 organic + paid is where it’s at. LinkedIn organic amplified by thought leadership paid side is soooo powerful 

Don’t sleep on the demand gen motion - it’s a powerful inbound motion 

5. Use AI to amplify and save time from your current activities before trying to do anything crazy or super new 

6. Its not your job or of any benefit to you or anyone else to go around flagging posts written by ai - I’m more worried about all the posts written by morons

Stay tuned for more hot garbage tips

Website LinkedIn Ads Agency: https://lnkd.in/guEafPKk
B2B Strategies and Guides: https://lnkd.in/gB-WQ82f
Impactable YouTube Channel: https://lnkd.in/emYVDn_T

Founder & CEO @ Impactable | B2B LinkedIn Ads Partners | Paid Ads + Demand Gen + AI + Audiences

Marketing leaders should have HILLS THEY DIE ON. 

If you don't have strong POV's worth fighting for...you're an order taker not a marketing leader which is ok, but let's just be real. 

I know this might sound tough but as an agency owner and someone who's worked with hundreds of marketing leaders and have seen soooooooooo many marketing leaders fired....certain patterns emerge. 

1. Companies that play it safe with marketing are wildly less efficient than they could be. It's strange in marketing but being "safe" is often the most dangerous thing you could do. 

If you're a marketing leader who's faking it till you make it and your goal is to mimic what bigger players are doing..you've already lost and your org and your career will suffer. 

If you as a marketer don't like to have strong opinions or make constant strategic bets...that's fine - settle into a mid-level support role and support someone with a strong POV. 

Most ogs can't win by playing the same game massive orgs do...they have to create space and advantages where they kind find it and take some risks/bets on messaging, positioning, channels, audiences. 

Making bets and then tracking data to prove/pivot is what great marketers tend to do. 

2. Who's responsible for the results?

If you're an order taker, and can't/won't override leaderships opinion on marketing paths...then just make it very clear (and in writing preferably) that you are not responsible for marketing results..just project management. 

Problem is no org would ever accept this...the marketing leader owns results...which means if you order take and go down the wrong path..you get fired...as you should honestly.

I say this from personal experience from being fired (as an agency) dozens of times when we made the mistake of letting clients dictate strategy and then being fired for the poor result. 

As we should have been fired...clients should go to an agency either for pure execution and clear ordertaking (staff aug model) or they should come for a strong POV and guidance...and then actually take that advice or wrestle with it together so we can test/bet/learn together. 

That's how great marketing seems to get done. 

Pressure builds, leaders either shrink in the shadows or step forward with their bold bet....they take the chance to seize glory....and own the responsibility to own failure...to learn from it, and make the next move. 

The good ones fail fast and are constantly learning/growing/testing. 

And honestly...if you're in a place where you can't be bold/creative or take risks without support or feeling like you'll be fired...start looking for another role

Just another fun marketing rant from my view looking in. 

I have a ton of respect for marketing leaders on the battlefield in 2026...it can be brutal, and fun, and exhausting, and rewarding.

Website LinkedIn Ads Agency: https://lnkd.in/guEafPKk
B2B Strategies and Guides: https://lnkd.in/gB-WQ82f
Impactable YouTube Channel: https://lnkd.in/emYVDn_T

Here's how to PROVE LINKEDIN ADS ROI to Leadership
5 ways Marketing Leaders can prove LinkedIn Ads is working 👇 

First, the reason a post like this is even needed is that LinkedIn probably the hardest channel to show value to leadership and often thought of as "a hard nut to crack". 

Here's why:
1. Last click attribution will never give LinkedIn enough credit because all the demand that LinkedIn creates is often finally captured by google organic or paid search when they are ready to buy and LinkedIn won't get credit

Meaning - Someone could come in through paid search click, then see 27 ads on LinkedIn over 90 days and interact 15 times and then search for your company by name when it's time to convert...and google will take the credit. 

2. Hubspot and most CRM's are viewed by leadership as "source or truth" but are terrible attribution tools and mostly credit last touch or direct UTM paths only. 

Meaning...in the example above they originally entered your website via google UTM and then interacted natively with LInkedin ads and then came back to the website via google organic...so LinkedIn won't get credit in most org models. 

Example 2 - Say the LinkedIn ads work really really well and they convert directly..sort of. Typically they'd click on the company logo on the ad, check out your company page, then click "visit website" from there entering into your website in what looks like direct traffic (going to company page remove the Linkedin ads utm so it now just looks like direct traffic no paid ads utms)

3. LinkedIn is where you build trust and accelerate deals...not capture intent. 

This is a big distinction - It's a fundamental flaw to try to compare SEO and paid search by the same metrics right?

Google ads is transactional
SEO is long-term momentum building play

LinkedIn is more like SEO - it's not some transactional channel  capturing demand that already exists..it's the channel that helps create, accelerate, and channel demand...and that can't be tracked the same way as google. 

So how do we actually defend it instead of just rolling over and killing the channel we know is likely working. 

A. CAPI + Conversion Tracking - fight like hell for channel attribution. 
-Setup up conversions for key page views, form submissions, and call bookings. You can't rely on CRM or traditional tools to track LinkedIn ads influence

-CAPI (LinkedIn's conversion API) is a great way to funnel offline events back to LinkedIn 

B. LinkedIn native company hub - big upgrade last year from LinkedIn- you can now see the exact accounts exposed to and engaging with your ads. 

See actual accounts in your funnel, gaining influence, and penetration/heatmap of your ABM upload. 

But tell me...how do you prove LinkedIn ads ROI???

Website LinkedIn Ads Agency: https://lnkd.in/guEafPKk
B2B Strategies and Guides: https://lnkd.in/gB-WQ82f
Impactable YouTube Channel: https://lnkd.in/emYVDn_T

Marketing Leaders and Founders are getting SCAMED by AI SEO tools/agencies right now - Here's my short educational PSA

1. First of all - 9 out of 10 LLM tools are just monitoring tools. Take a look as you're evaluating them.  Most will have some cool looking chart that shows how many impressions and clicks to your website you're getting from LLM. 

A. Note - your basic free Google analytics will show you this for free. (no joke, it's just there for free)

B. Almost all of these tools are just showing you the numbers...there is basically nothing there for you to actually improve the numbers...and again you can see that for free in your basic web tools you already have. 

2. 7 out of 10 AI SEO experts are posting on my feed saying that they have a list of things that seem to work but the rankings change weekly , it's not stable enough to actually predict, and the sites being pulled from is shifting dramatically from month to month. 

A. This means most seem to just have best guesses - mostly best of lists, comparisons, and publishing accross more channels like reddit, LinkedIn, website, youtube etc.  (so you know..the basics of content distribution)

B. Moving away from traditional blogs and pivoting to using articles to answer real humans questions and in a real human way vs keyword chunking for the robots...ok so big pivot here is stop writing for robots....any one who was still doing this last year was likely headed to the graveyard anyway and AI should'nt have been the catalyst for this change. 

3. Another cool shift I'm seeing is that 3 out of 5 AI SEO experts on my feed are also now just saying AEO is basically not a thing and that it's just SEO, Brand, and Distribution... really just creating more questions than answers. 

4. Traffic trade off - Another fun fact just to keep in mind. 100% of companies who had strong organic traffic and SEO now have traffic from LLMs. 

SEO traffic dropped by 40%
LLM Impressions appeared

These are not two separate things you realize right?

LLM traffic isn't exactly a net new touchpoint that didn't exist before...the same article you published a year ago lost organic impressions and gained LLM impressions - the same user is searching for the same thing and finding your content in a different way in many cases. 

That's a big distinction. 


Here's my advice

1. AEO is real but it's new and evolving and I'd be very skeptical of any tools/experts you are thinking about hiring - most don't actually have it figured out and will actually tell you that when you ask how they can prove action to result. 

2. Don't worry about LLM traffic if you don't have basic SEO foundations and content distribution in place. 

If you think you should skip SEO and go straight for LLM visibility...just no...that's not how this is going to work. 

The #1 best way to show up for LLM is still just having foundational SEO and content distribution (and content written for humans).

How to PROVE LINKEDIN ADS ROI to Leadership - Part 2.
(See yesterdays post for part 1)

Short version of yesterday's post. 

A. Last click attribution will never give LinkedIn enough credit 
B. Hubspot and most CRM's are viewed by leadership as "source or truth" but are terrible attribution tools 
C. LinkedIn is where you build trust and accelerate deals...not capture intent. It's a middle and bottom of funnel hero and signals command center

Now to the good stuff...how can you prove value of LinkedIn ads to leadership? Where to look??

1. Channel attribution - fight like HELL to get conversion tracking and CAPI (conversion API to upload offline conversions )
-Key page views - leading indicators
-Form fills on site
-Call booking (use CAPI)

Frustration of course is you won't be able to match back to the actual person...but knowing/seeing the channel influence can help

2. LinkedIn Company Hub - Props to LinkedIn for rolling out this great update in 2025 - you can now see the EXACT ACCOUNTS exposed to and engaging with your LinkedIn ads. 

Go in there and filter by uploaded list or by campaign and sort by highest impression/clicks to give leadership a heat map of the accounts LinkedIn is influencing and touching..if these look like great accounts and they are moving through stages from unaware to aware to engaged...that's a great thing to show. 

3. CRM Sync to see LinkedIn ads influence on pipeline deals - there are a few tools on the market for this. My favorite is DemandSense - basically taps into the LinkedIn API and looks up ad exposure to any deals in your pipeline so you can see (image below what that looks like). 

This is great for closed won deals and current pipeline. 

This ads a great data point for leadership to connect ad efforts to tangible deals. 

Bonus if you can then prove/show that the deals with higher Linkedin influence close faster, are better quality deals, and have bigger deal sizes/value (which tends to be the case). 

4. Self-Attribution - feels old school now but it's foundational - for every call booking/demo ASK THEM HOW THEY FOUND YOU. 

Make it a required ask and leave it open ended (not multiple choice). 

It's crazy to me how many times the CRM will say web, search, google...but prospect says it was LinkedIn. 

That's something no leader can ignore. 

5. Other metrics to track on a macro level

The above are data points but a few things tend to consistently happen when running a good LinkedIn ads program in your ecosystem and a smart marketer can track this and prove on a marketing mix level of what's improving. 

When LinkedIn ads are running correctly
A. Deal velocity tends to improve 
B. Show up rates to calls improves 
C. Close rates improve
D. Deal sizes increase 
E. Cost per qualified or quality lead/demo

What did I miss??

Website LinkedIn Ads Agency: https://lnkd.in/guEafPKk
B2B Strategies and Guides: https://lnkd.in/gB-WQ82f
Impactable YouTube Channel: https://lnkd.in/emYVDn_T

If you can't reply to all your own post comments and spend 30 min/day engaging in your home feed.....POSTING MORE WON'T DO ANYTHING. 

One thing you really don't hear enough from the LinkedIn influencers is that posting isn't actually how they get followers and engagers. 

Posting is like 20% of the equation....

So why is that what the influencers focus on the most when they talk about growing on LinkedIn...

Because it's easier to sell...you. 

Said another way....if they were honest with you...you wouldn't give them your money to "build a personal brand". 

So what's the truth?

And this is just my humble/human/flawed/100%correct/jk/ opinion

Here's the secret LinkedIn formula. 

1. 60% engagement 
2. 10% posting quality
3. 10% posting consistency
4. 10% sending targeted connection requests
5. 10% sending targeted dms

The vast majority of what actually helps you become visible, create an engaged following, and drive actual eyeballs to your posts...engaging with others like this is a networking event. 

Rules to live by
A. 90% of those who send you connection requests are trying to sell you...be selective with who you accept. 

Either build your own network (send requests) or get built into everyone else's network (accept requests)

B. Send 10-15 targeted connection requests per day to strategically build your network. 

Start with warm ICP fit profile visitors + company page followers (use Sales Nav to see this)

C. Spend 30 min a day if you can engaging in your home feed and removing anyone who's posts will never give you value (and takes away valuable time you could be spending engaging with those who might have value). 

This does a few things..leans into the human nature of quid pro quo (this for that), and it also tells the algo that those engaging with eachother might want to see the next post published so it increases the number of people your posts show up at top of feed. 

D. Send intro messages to new ICP fit connections - nothing crazy..just introduce yourself and how you could help if/when they have a need. After that just go back to adding value with posts + engagement

E. Use organic to test and then use LinkedIn thought leader ads to amplify and guarantee distribution of your best content to your best warm prospects (website visitors, company page visitors, current pipeline etc)

Just a little hot garbage tip (stole this from minecraft movie...I have a 6 year old) for Linkedin today - nothing special. 

P.S. Stop worrying about if you should even post and if anyone cares..and about all the bigger influencers on here so why bother.....truth is if you have 1k connections and they are actually targeted (you sent the invites)....90% of them have less than 500 connections and their feeds are DEAD...to them..YOU ARE THE MOST VISIBLE EXPERT

Your feed is not their feed

You're not competing against the influencers in your feed.
Your connections don't even know who they are...

IT's IN YOU HEAD. 

Create your own targeted ponds ; )

What happens if you SHUT LINKEDIN ADS OFF TODAY? 
Here's exactly what would happen for most... 👇 

I know a lot of marketing leaders who end up having to defend their LinkedIn ads budget or leadership forces them to shut it down..and they don't quite know how to fight that battle. 

And I get it - LinkedIn Ads is one of the harder channels to prove ROI/Influence to leadership. 

So part of what I think is healthy to understand is what happens when you shut it off...since they don't think it's doing anything or maybe not enough...

Here's what really happens. 

• Immediate (1–2 weeks): committee reach drops. Fewer titles in target accounts see your messaging, so sales gets fewer “warm” conversations and more cold, noisy inbound.

-Small drop in conversions/demos and in quality but that won't be fully visible for weeks more.

• Delayed (4–12 weeks): Google and other high-intent channels convert less efficiently. Demo conversion rates and win rates fall as buyers lack prior exposure and trust.

Cost per conversion start to creep up on Google and ROAS starts to slip. 
You'll also notice in google analytics that your returning visitors numbers starts to drop. You're still attracting new visitors..just not getting the right ones to return as much. 

• Hidden (weeks → months): sales blames search or creative, not the missing upstream influence. Deal size, velocity and pipeline quality degrade subtly and are misattributed.

Why?

 LinkedIn is the upstream qualifier and committee builder: it turns anonymous clicks into identified, fit accounts and builds coverage across decision makers. 

So how can you position/prove this to leadership if needed?

Where to look to prove the effect (and what leadership will actually accept) These are great things to track anyways..sometimes just knowing the direction these are going on a macro level helps us know if we are headed in a good/bad direction. 

• Decision-maker reach in your TAL: % of target accounts where a decision maker was reached.
• TAL penetration: % of target accounts with 3+ impressions or engagements.
• Branded search lift: volume or share of branded queries while LinkedIn is live.
• Qualified conversations / meetings booked that map to engaged accounts.
• Pipeline created or influenced for warmed accounts.


Most of this can be found either in native LinkedIn company hub and dashboard and in a tool like DemandSense that syncs with CRM's like hubspot to show LinkedIn influence on pipeline. 

And all of this is actually only true if you are using LinkedIn retargeting frameworks properly to actually qualify and convert your Search and Website traffic to actually make it an ROI enhancer like it's supposed to be. 

Hopefully this helps someone confidently talk about the value of LinkedIn Ads.

Website LinkedIn Ads Agency: https://lnkd.in/guEafPKk
B2B Strategies and Guides: https://lnkd.in/gB-WQ82f
Impactable YouTube Channel: https://lnkd.in/emYVDn_T

Linkedin ads shut off

I could almost GUARANTEE ROI of adding LinkedIn Ads if these are true....
And I'll explain why...and exactly how I'd build it. 

Not to toot my own horn but I believe our agency (Impactable) is responsible for introducing more B2B orgs to LinkedIn ads than any other agency in the world. 

Bold claim I know but I think it's true. 

So much so that LinkedIn even noticed and...

A. We've been invited to attend and speak at multiple LinkedIn Agency Summit's in their New York Office
B. Gotten access to more than $200,000+ in LinkedIn ad credits from our partnership
C. Set to be the first LinkedIn CAPI (conversion API) certified agency in the world. 
D. Participated in LinkedIn's customer advisory board
E. On track to be the first every agency to become agency + ad tech partners of LinkedIn (via our tech arm in DemandSense which is easily the #1 LinkedIn ads optimization tool on the market)

I say all this because introducing B2B advertisers to LinkedIn is something we've gotten damn good at...and part of that is knowing who should NOT be running LinkedIn ads and who should be. 

So here's the simple list and short why

1. Strong Paid Search - 10k+/mo in paid search spend
-This is a strong indicator that you've got high-intent and in-market traffic that you could be doing more to convert

2. Strong organic and/or SEO foundation 
- another warm audience pocket and fuel for LinkedIn middle of funnel plays and intel

3. Website that actually converts some 
- signal that paid traffic won't be a complete waste of money

4. LinkedIn Company Page has 5k+ followers
-Another warm audience pocket to work with
-Signal that your audience is active and reachable on LinkedIn

5. Strong sales motion with SDR/BDR support
-These are bigger deals with longer sales cycles...many orgs find it hard to realize the ROI of LInkedIn leads that require some actual manual effort to convert and stay in front of

Those are the top 5 traits I'd look for...if you have 3+ of these...I'd pretty much guarantee you can get a positive ROI from deploying LinkedIn ads (if done right). 

And honestly...no additional spend. 

Slide 20% of your Google budget to LinkedIn and watch the following happen. 

-Google CPA improve by 15%
-Number of conversion on Google +15%
-Quality of conversion +10%
-Time to close -10%
-Show up rate of leads to demo call +20%
-Close rate of active pipeline +15%
-CAC -10%

Read the full newsletter where I also then show what the 6-month rollout looks like and give away the 20+ deck for the 6-month build...steal it, run it, thank me latter 

Honestly - if you're a marketer looking to introduce LinkedIn to your org and you want a badass launch plan that leadership will buy into...

Shoot me a DM and my team can help build it out for free and help you make the case with your actual numbers.

Website LinkedIn Ads Agency: https://lnkd.in/guEafPKk
B2B Strategies and Guides: https://lnkd.in/gB-WQ82f
Impactable YouTube Channel: https://lnkd.in/emYVDn_T

Most B2B companies should not start with LinkedIn Ads. Yes..I'm aware I run one of the largest LinkedIn Ads agencies out there but also why I'm able t

Open article: When LinkedIn Ads Is a No-Brainer (And When ROI Is Almost Guaranteed) by Justin Rowe • 7 min read

When LinkedIn Ads Is a No-Brainer (And When ROI Is Almost Guaranteed)

In B2B Marketing...Humans are still very much influencing big deals (shocker right?)

That was a big takeaway from my conversation with Gabe Larsen, CRO of Signals.

When everything starts to look the same, especially in the age of AI, buyers stop comparing features. They start asking people they trust.

Gabe shared that more and more buying decisions are happening before a demo ever takes place. 

People are leaning on their network, not review sites or feature checklists.

That’s why trust has to be built upstream.

Through real conversations, visible leadership, and showing up consistently where your buyers already spend time. 

The demo just confirms what they already believe.

#B2BMarketing #TrustBasedSelling #ThoughtLeadership #PersonalBrand #Impactable

New Marketing Leaders - Here's Exactly When and How to add LinkedIn Ads to your ecosystem - Time to get that Promotion (or maybe just not get fired)

First thing's First - Who should be running LinkedIn ads or when can you add it and it be pretty low risk/high chance of success? (because no marketing leader wants to strike out with their ideas). 

Quick “LinkedIn Ads Perfect Fit” checklist:
1+ years in market (trust + PMF more likely present)
5,000+ monthly website visitors (warm audience 🔥 )
SEO or organic driving inbound conversions (at least some consistently)
$10k+/mo in paid search or similar paid channels (in-market trafffic to work with)
5,000+ LinkedIn company page visitors (audience active and reachable on LInkedIn)
Conversions happen on the site and you have a sales team + CRM
Willing to run a 90 day test with a minimum test budget

IF some or most of these exist...LinkedIn ads is likely one of the highest impact moves you can make to see quick wins, improved funnel metrics and usually higher ROI for same spend by simply moving weaker pockets of google spend over to LinkedIn. 

In this weeks newsletter I go over the exact criteria that I call the perfect storm that make LinkedIn ads super low risk and then exactly how I'd approach introducing LinkedIn ads and the logic that helps explain it to leadership. 

Take a read and ask any questions!

Website LinkedIn Ads Agency: https://lnkd.in/guEafPKk
B2B Strategies and Guides: https://lnkd.in/gB-WQ82f
Impactable YouTube Channel: https://lnkd.in/emYVDn_T

I've noticed a very specific pattern where companies fit a certain criteria that I'm kind of calling "the perfect fit for LinkedIn ads" and when this 

Open article: A Marketing Leader's Field Guide to Launching a Profitable LinkedIn Ads Motion by Justin Rowe • 10 min read

A Marketing Leader's Field Guide to Launching a Profitable LinkedIn Ads Motion

AI ad image + copy analysis AND image variations in less than 60 seconds?????
I'm damn impressed by this. 

This is what I've just got my hands on and am testing - but this is pretty crazy. 

One of the things AI is allowing us to do is aggregate and cross-reference data better and faster and wield it like more powerful weapon than ever before. 

At Impactable we have launched and managed thousands of LinkedIn ad campaigns and that data is now being weaponized to inform on copy and design and it's absolutely going to be a secret sauce of ours and a competitive advantage. 

Our amazing team also has an AI agent that can do competitor research on LinkedIn ad campaigns by visiting their LinkedIn ad libraries and combing through all of their ads and comparing and contrasting all the variables vs benchmarks and top industry performers to spot patterns that would take the best humans weeks to do. 

This is something that got me very excited!

Shout out to some of our Impactable AI OGs - Nemanja Jovanovic Nikolay Titov Anna K. Branko Jovanovic Vladimir Ilić 

We have some big plans in 2026 to use AI responsibly but to weaponize our POV, strategies, frameworks, and aggregated campaign data to fuel better/faster insights for our clients. 

Check yourself before you wreck yourself 😉

If your positioning is off, no channel will fix it.

That was one of the strongest points from my conversation with Oleg Kovalev, CMO of Aspect Health.

Yes, channels still matter. 

But success on any platform comes down to clarity, not activity. 

Oleg is a great example of that. He was able to build meaningful momentum and grow his audience quickly by being clear on who he was speaking to and why his message mattered.

But his bigger point was this.
Channels and assets are secondary. 𝗣𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘀 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴.

He’s seen more startups fail because they didn’t clearly define who they were for and why they mattered, not because they picked the wrong channel or ran out of budget.

Get the positioning wrong and no channel will save you.
Get it right and almost any channel can work.

#B2BMarketing #Positioning #StartupMarketing #LinkedInGrowth #Impactable

Some of the best B2B marketers didn’t start in marketing at all.

That was clear in my conversation with Oleg Kovalev, CMO of Aspect Health.

Oleg started his career in B2B sales, not marketing. 

Within a few years, he moved from sales rep to leading retail sales, helping grow revenue nearly fivefold. 

Eventually, sales and marketing merged into one department under his leadership.

That’s where he fell in love with marketing.

What stood out to me is how much that sales foundation shaped his perspective. 

When you’ve carried a quota, led teams, and driven revenue firsthand, marketing stops being abstract. It becomes deeply connected to outcomes.

Seventeen years later, that blended background still shows up in how he approaches his role today.

#B2BMarketing #MarketingLeadership #SalesAndMarketing #CareerJourney #Impactable

Most orgs think "they have plenty of strategy" - Spoiler alert...they don't
A comment I made to a post saying Orgs just need faster execution from agencies. 

The original post - super smart man who's built multiple businesses and makes the point that orgs are giving this feedback. 

-Agencies move to slow and just want to focus on "stratetegy"
-The orgs believe they have "plenty of strategy" and just need faster execution
-The orgs complain that agencies are taking 3 months to make beautiful strategy and playbooks before doing actual meaningful work
-The orgs say they just need faster execution..just do the work!

Now I 100% believe this is the feedback he's getting from orgs...but let me share my perspective form the agency side. 

1. When most orgs say they "just need execution" and they "have plenty of strategy"...9 times out of 10 what the reality is more like this. 

-They are desperate for leads and are seeing a decline due to lack of great positioning or PMF or clear idea of audience/offer and they need to show leadership some "results"

So the "action" they are looking for is for the agency to throw up some lead gen ads and put the coins in the ol slot machine and get the leads out so they can save their job

But I'm looking at this like...if I do that..and shovel hot garbage leads to save your job...you're still getting fired in 6 months when sales eventually uncovers the hot mess and lack of quality/intent leads your pushing their way. 

2. I'll admin most agencies arn't really that helpful on the strategic front either. They make beautiful decks to mask lack of actual creative thoughts or business accumen. 

They think if you make the reports pretty enough it will kick sand in your eyes and distract you from the truth...that's not how an agency should operate. 

3. I'll also admit that many agencies also are super slow to get their hands in and actually start the work. 

They are often more concerned with looking good and mitigating risk and stretching out the engagement that quick starts and quick action just isn't their priority (and many arn't actually built for it either)


My advice when working with an agency?

Understand who really owns strategy and what it is. 
1. Are you actually clear about how you're unique in the market?
2. Are you actually clear about who you are targeting and why and what their real pain points are and how you uniquely solve?

3. Are you clear about the size of those audiences, what warm and 1st party data exists, and how much budget is needed to accomplish your goals for that audience?
4. Are you clear about what channels to deploy that budget and how to structure it to accomplish those goals?
5. Are you clear on how we'd measure and track progress against those goals?

90% of orgs either arn't super clear on this or have assumptions that need challenged..which means you need a strategic partner...not just execution. 

But also...agencies...get your freaking lives together...giving us a bad name lol

Actual Hot Take.....99% of "Hot Takes" are just garbage click bait with no real POV or anyone who really disagrees with you. 

Take this for example...my hot take here is clearly something you agree with and not controversial at all and yet you feel like you just want to slam the like/share button and scream "this dude get's it!"

And now that I've called it out..you're not sure if you should like this post or ignore it to "put me in my place" ...which is also something that happens here on LinkedIn. 

You see, everyone wants to support you until you actually start being successful and then they think you're overrated and nothing special....

Until you cross that line where the success is undeniable and you clearly have growing support without them...then they finally join back in as it clearly benefits them to be connected to your success and their "dis" clearly isn't negativly impacting you...

That's a crazy thought...creators on here might withhold support to "punish" those they are jealous of but give that up only when they realize they don't actually hold that sort of power. 

My advice?

Content creators on here arn't your demographic...F*k them

Do you and focus on delivering value to your ICP, develop real relationships with other founders in complimentary spaces...and don't get lost in the politics of LinkedIn (or actual politics for that matter...you won't catch me speaking on politics). 

I've been on here long enough to know the game and how to win in the long run - stick with me if you want to learn : )

AI isn’t just another tool. 
It’s becoming a coworker.

That was one of the most interesting takeaways from my conversation with Gabe Larsen, CRO of Signals.

Instead of thinking about AI as something that handles one-off tasks, Gabe is focused on what he calls cloud employees. 

Autonomous, job-based AI that works across channels and owns real responsibilities.

Think less “𝘳𝘶𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵” and more “𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘳𝘰𝘭𝘦.”

In the future, a SaaS company might not be 200 people.
It might be 200 people working alongside 200 cloud employees.

That shift challenges the idea that growth has to mean more headcount.

We’re moving from tool-first thinking to organization-first thinking.

The way companies scale is changing and the ones who adapt early will have an unfair advantage.

Website LinkedIn Ads Agency: https://lnkd.in/guEafPKk
B2B Strategies and Guides: https://lnkd.in/gB-WQ82f
Impactable YouTube Channel: https://lnkd.in/emYVDn_T


#ArtificialIntelligence #AIInBusiness #FutureOfWork #B2BSaaS #Impactable

Marketers are asked to prove impact in ways sales never are.

Sales doesn’t invent attribution.
They don’t design the system.
They don’t debate what “counts.”

The CRM already exists.
Pipeline stages are defined.
Revenue is the output.

Marketing operates very differently.

To prove impact, marketers are expected to:

Learn and master $1k/month attribution tools

Stitch together CRM, GA, and ad platform data

Create custom views and narratives leadership will accept

And somehow make it all feel objective and trustworthy

This is why attribution tools are raising hundreds of millions of dollars.
And yet… attribution is still one of the biggest problems in marketing.

Not because the data doesn’t exist.
But because the structure doesn’t.

A HubSpot report like this one is incredibly insightful - Something cool I built over the weekend looking for additional ways we can show marketing data in ways leadership will trust (and Hubspot/CRM is of course going to get accepted  more than any 3rd party tool/report). 

These reports shown break down opportunities by source (Google vs LinkedIn), then by company size and industry, tells a real story about quality, direction, and momentum.

It was really cool to see in this case that LinkedIn brought in bigger opportunities more constantly and Google search had more sporadic size over time. 

Also super interesting to see which industries seem to be showing higher levels of in-market signals (coming in via google search) vs what industries are being directly targeted on LInkedIn. 

It's possible that this could be a good signal to consider when splitting and prioritizing account lists. 

But here’s the catch:

That story only matters if the organization agrees it matters.

In most companies, marketers don’t just analyze data.
They have to create the narrative, define the rules, and convince leadership to trust it.

And if they don’t?
The marketer gets blamed.
Then replaced.
And the next marketer walks into the same environment with no trusted system to operate inside.

Same problem. New person.

This isn’t a performance issue.
It’s an org design issue.

Sales works inside a structure that already defines success.
Marketing is expected to build the structure while being judged by it.

My conviction:

Either organizations evolve to give marketing a first-class measurement system

Or agencies will increasingly be forced to fill that gap.

Not just by running campaigns, but by creating the attribution, tracking, and reporting framework the business actually operates on.

Until then, marketers will keep doing two jobs:
Driving growth.
And inventing the system that proves it.

AI agents are getting easier to build. 
That doesn’t mean they’re getting more valuable.

Anyone can spin up an AI agent trained on generic best practices from the internet. 

But if it’s trained on the same surface-level inputs as everyone else, there’s no real advantage.

In my conversation with Gabe Larsen, we talked about what actually makes an agent valuable. 

It’s not the task. 
It’s the point of view behind it.

I don’t want an AI that just knows “𝘓𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘦𝘥𝘐𝘯 𝘢𝘥𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘱𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘴.”

I want one trained on our playbooks, our experiments, our mistakes, and the Impactable philosophy.

That’s the difference between an agent that answers questions and one that becomes a trusted expert.

AI may let everyone paint, but companies will always pay for real artists.

#ArtificialIntelligence #AIStrategy #MarketingLeadership #PointOfView #Impactable

taplio

The Battle

Adam Holmgren

Justin Rowe

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreAdam Holmgren's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreJustin Rowe's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Adam Holmgren

Justin Rowe

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Adam Holmgren's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreJustin Rowe's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreAdam Holmgren's LinkedIn Performance