I know a little about LinkedIn Ads | Head of Strategy @ Impactable 🧠

Most marketing teams don’t have a 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗲𝗱𝗜𝗻 𝗔𝗱𝘀 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺 -- they have a “ 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱 𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘯𝘦𝘤𝘬 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘶𝘥𝘨𝘦𝘵” problem.

If that feels familiar, you’re in the right place.

Because here’s the truth no one wants to say out loud:

You’re not being judged on “running ads.”

You’re being judged on:

– whether the targeting is signal-based (not spray-and-pray),
– whether your spend is defensible,
– whether your funnel isn’t Swiss cheese, and
– whether your campaigns make leadership feel safer, not more nervous.

That’s where I come in.

I’m JD — SVP of Revenue & Growth at Impactable, where we’ve managed $𝟱𝟬𝗠+ 𝗶𝗻 𝗮𝗱 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗱, worked with 𝟲𝟬𝟬+ 𝗕𝟮𝗕 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀, and currently support nearly 𝟮𝟬𝟬 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 across multi-channel.

Me personally?

I’ve audited, fixed, or rebuilt 𝟯𝟬𝟬+ 𝗮𝗱 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁𝘀, overseen $𝟮𝟱𝗠+ 𝗶𝗻 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗱, and on average save teams ~𝟱𝟬% 𝗶𝗻 𝘄𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘂𝗱𝗴𝗲𝘁 when I step inside their Campaign Manager.

Not because I’m magical.

Because I actually understand people.

And your pipeline isn’t an algorithm problem -- it’s a 𝙝𝙪𝙢𝙖𝙣 𝙗𝙚𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙞𝙤𝙧 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙗𝙡𝙚𝙢.

𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗜 𝗛𝗘𝗟𝗣 𝗖𝗢𝗠𝗣𝗔𝗡𝗜𝗘𝗦 𝗗𝗢

If you’re a mid-market B2B org (SaaS, IT, pro services, cybersecurity, finserv, AI, etc.) and your ACV actually matters…

I help you:
• Build audience-first programs that target based on intent signals, not job titles
• Stop lighting money on fire with bad structure, sloppy segmentation, and guesswork
• Fix the funnel so retargeting actually works
• Run multi-channel the way real buyers behave (LinkedIn → Google → Direct, not fantasy journeys)
• Prove marketing impact without resorting to vanity metrics
• Look your leadership team in the eyes and confidently say:
“Yes — this is working.”

Impactable is a 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗲𝗱𝗜𝗻 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗻𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗱𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀, but the real secret sauce is our 𝙖𝙪𝙙𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚-𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙨𝙩 𝙖𝙥𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙖𝙘𝙝 and 𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙜𝙮-𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙨𝙩 𝙚𝙣𝙜𝙖𝙜𝙚𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩. We don’t just “push buttons.” We help you avoid the political disasters that get marketers fired.

A little more human stuff
I’m married to an incredible woman.
We have 6 kids, 2 dogs, and I’m in the gym/sauna daily because… well, 6 kids.
Sour Patch Kids own me. No shame.

If you want to chat LinkedIn Ads, funnel design, or how to stop burning budget (without a sales pitch), I’m always happy to yap.

🌎 impactable.com
📨 jonathan.g@impactable.com

JD Garcia

Trevor Corcoran regretfully informed us that the "Form Fill Fairy" has passed.

If you don't believe it, answer these two questions:

1. When was the last time YOU clicked an ad and filled out a demo form immediately? (probably never)

2. When you talk to your best customers, do they say "I saw your ad and clicked it"? (No. They say "I've been following you for 6 months")

--

The "Form Fill Fairy" was the mascot of the ZIRP era.
(Zero Interest Rate Policy)

Money was cheap.
Attention was cheap.
You could run a mediocre ad and get a lead.

But the game changed.

Today, buyers are:

- skeptical: They don't trust your landing page claims
- self-serve: They will research you on Reddit, G2, and LI before they talk to you
- impatient: They want the price without the pitch

So, how do you win in a world without the Form Fill Fairy?

You stop hiding the good stuff.

Ungate your best content
Let them binge-watch your expertise without a form.

Publish your pricing (or at least a range)
Stop holding the number hostage for a meeting.

Optimize for Consumption, not Conversion
If they consume your content, the conversion will happen.

You can't force them to fill out the form.

But you can make them want to.

Be the vendor that is easy to buy from. 

The rest will follow 👊🏽

I know a little about LinkedIn Ads | SVP of Revenue & Growth @ Impactable 🧠

Impactable is now a #linkedinads CAPI Certified Partner 🥳

Still relying on a pixel and a prayer?

--

This is the missing piece of your Revenue Factory (™ Trevor Corcoran).

Here is the reality of B2B tracking today:

- standard pixel tracking is wonky at best
- between privacy updates, ad blockers, and the fact that B2B buyers are nomadic (they research on one device and convert on another), your data is incomplete at best
- you're seeing a 0 in your dashboard while a deal is actually moving through your pipeline

That’s where CAPI comes in.

It’s not just a technical setup.

It’s the bridge between your CRM and your ad spend.

Instead of just tracking a page load on your site, CAPI allows you to pipe real business outcomes back to LinkedIn:

- webinar attendees (that happened on a third-party site)
- Sales Accepted Leads (that happened in your CRM)
- Closed-Won deals (the only metric that actually matters)

LinkedIn then cross-references this data to show you exactly which impressions influenced that revenue.

It helps remove the "reasonable doubt" that gets marketing budgets cut.

I’m proud of our team for the work they put in to get this certification.

In a world of button pushers, we’re focused on being the strategic partners that actually connect engagement to pipeline.

--

Need to upgrade your infrastructure?

You know how to find us.

Open article: Impactable for B2B conversion tracking | LinkedIn Marketing Solutions by business.linkedin.com

Impactable for B2B conversion tracking | LinkedIn Marketing Solutions

Your paid media budget just got slashed.

Marketers may panic and turn paid social off.

"We can't do anything with this budget."

Wrong.

You can't play Offense (cold targeting).

But you can play incredible Defense (retargeting).

> I call this the Lifeboat Strategy 🛶 <

When the ship goes down, you don't try to find new passengers.

You save the ones you already have.

If you have a micro-budget, you don't just target "Website Visitors."

You triage based on intent.

You strictly target the people you already paid to acquire:

- Website Visitors that came via Paid Search UTMs
- Single Image Ad Chargeable Clicks (filter out the vanity engagement)
- Video Viewers at 75% to 97% completion
- Company Page Visitors (tightened to 30 days if the audience is too large)
- Closed-Lost Opps (depending on your sales cycle)

You spent months building momentum with these people.

If you cut the cord now, you waste the energy you spent getting them interested in the first place.

But you have to be careful...

Restricting your audience size this much can artificially spike your CPMs.

So you can't just set it and forget it.

You have to get smart with Manual Bidding to ensure you saturate the audience without blowing the budget on premium costs.

Even if you can't afford to grow, you can't afford to be forgotten.

#linkedinads are probably the wrong move for you right now.

Sound weird coming from a LinkedIn partner?

Probably

But if you haven't mastered demand capture, you have no business doing demand generation.

--

Here is the situation:

You've validated your product.
You know your ICP.
You’re getting referrals.

Now you want to "step out in front of people" and scale.

Your instinct is to go to LinkedIn to reach your target audience.

Don't do it

LinkedIn is a high-friction, high-cost environment.

It’s where you go to influence the 95% of the market that isn't shopping for your solution right now.

If you haven't optimized your conversion engine, LinkedIn will just be an expensive way to realize your website doesn't work.

--

Here's the "Operator" Order of Operations:

1. Capture the 5% Go to Paid Search first. 

Find the people who are literally typing "Best [Your Category] Software" into Google. These people are in "buy mode." They are the low-hanging fruit.

2. Fix the Leaks If you can't convert someone who is actively looking for a solution, you definitely won't convert someone who is just scrolling their feed. Master your Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) here first.

3. Then, and only then, go to LinkedIn once your "demand capture" engine is profitable, and use LI to create the demand for your brand that doesn't exist yet.

--

LinkedIn is the multiplier

But you can't multiply zero, homie

If you don't have a predictable way to capture the existing intent in the market, you're just lighting money on fire to build "awareness."

Awareness doesn't make payroll -- cash money does.

Harvest your chunk of the 5% first.

The 95% can wait

Yes, I blew up one of the jumping houses in the house so I could get some work done. 

No, mom doesn’t know 🤫

—

I’ve been going hard but realize I need to go harder.

But on the weekends, it’s less about tasks and more about things that are interesting to me. 

Hate me for saying this but you lose so much momentum over the weekend if you aren’t working.

I notice that when I work 7 days a week, my Monday and the subsequent week is much stronger. 

I don’t lose the momentum I built the previous week. 

Do what’s right from you. 

I’m jus saying what I notice about myself. 

Have a great weekend!

No alternative text description for this image

About a year ago, I made a strategy for one of LinkedIn's top influencers thinking it was the best starting point for our engagement...

--

This former client has a massive following.

And when we were deciding what the strategy would be, we decided to segment by geo with some light Dynamic ad content to supplement Thought Leadership efforts.

The idea was simple:

Amplify what was already working

--

By expanding the reach of the content to the *right* audience, we thought we'd pour gasoline on the fire.

Looking back, I see clearly where we went wrong.

If I had to do it all over again, here's what I do:

1. Deep analysis of the current client base to find key traits that would allow us to artificially constrain the audience.

Audience size was in the hundreds of thousands and ad frequency was low.

And while engagement was cheap, it was also... cheap.

2. Focus on the US first

We tried segmenting by regions, but we later realized that most of the sales were coming from the US.

So while "leads" were cheaper in other regions, the cost barrier for the service made the conversion into revenue much higher.

3. Not underestimating the power of a landing page testing

The client had a strong VSL that they used for organic content, but when we went to paid, the behavior changed.

(duh, right?)

Rookie error -- we relied too heavily on what had worked before that we didn't set expectations that we'd need to test this with paid engagement/traffic.

--

I learned something very important from this experience.

Past results is not an indicator of future success.

Having done this for so long, you see the patterns and can spot what starting points make more sense than others.

It's useful but can also bite you in the 🍑

--

In the end, we left on good terms.

But as a marketer, nothing is more frustrating that knowing you "should have" seen success but didn't.

Those experiences stick with you.

Did you know there's a magic button you can press in LinkedIn and Google ads to immediately start generating quality leads?

In order to push the button though, you have to:

- fix the capture mechanism
- scrub the algorithmic waste
- narrow the search universe
- focus on high-intent terms
- terminate the audience network
- kill the audience expansion settings
- prioritize intent data over vanity reach
- prune your target list until it only contains your ICP
- identify the retargeting core of engaged prospects
- move the goalpost from form fills to pipeline revenue
- transition from optimizing for clicks to qualified demos
- bridge the efficiency gap between marketing and sales
- stop making your BDRs swim upstream against cold data
- align your bidding strategy with actual business outcomes
- feed the CRM with engagement signals instead of junk leads

Once you do all of those things, the magic button appears and you can press it :D

In all seriousness, there’s no such thing as a "set it and forget it" campaign.

It takes a lot of unsexy work to plug the leaks and build a foundation that actually scales.

You have to sell the vision, align the teams, and identify every other lever you have to support the effort.

It isn't a myopic approach.

It’s an engineering approach.

And when you stop chasing the "magic" and start fixing the infrastructure, the results usually take care of themselves 📈

LinkedIn Ads Specialist | B2B Youtuber/Blogger | Rooftop Cinema Owner

I've been running B2B ads for 9 years, diving deep into LinkedIn Ads in 2020—that’s 5 years of laser-focused expertise on the platform. Since then, I’ve managed millions in ad spend for 150+ clients, helping businesses scale their demand generation, lead gen, and revenue strategies.

💡 What I do:
👉 I run Kiin, a niche LinkedIn Ads agency working with budgets up to $100K/month
👉 I help B2B companies own their demand, lower CPLs, and convert more pipeline
👉 I design and execute high-performing LinkedIn campaigns that drive real ROI

🔹 Want to scale your LinkedIn Ads profitably? Let’s chat. Book a call: https://calendly.com/phil-kiin/30min
🔹 Learn more at www.kiin.co

Philip Ilic

I had a client last year where they pushed me really hard to run 80k a month on lead gen ads.

To my surprise, it worked really well… until it didn’t.

The pressure to keep performance meant I was always testing and pushing new audiences.

I could see the quality dropping and costs spiralling, until they eventually said LinkedIn ads stopped working.

My recommendation to them, pretty much every single week (in our weekly meetings), was that we needed to re-distribute budget heavily into the middle of funnel, especially thought leader ads.

We needed more budget on demand gen, not just capture.

One reason this worked so well for so long was that we went heavy on incentive ads.

But it ended badly in the end.
This is actually quite normal.

I often like to start with this kind of strategy where we mine for in-market leads.

But it always spikes… and then flatlines without investing in the middle.

The big issue, and the reason why companies don’t redistribute budget into content distribution/demand gen with thought leader ads, is that it’s super hard to measure.

This was before I started using Fibbler.
(we are now rolling this out for all our clients)

What Fibbler does really well is reporting on influenced pipeline (among other things).

This is super useful, as now we can show and tell a compelling story on how the LinkedIn ads, many of which are designed for zero click, or just content consumption natively, are impacting your pipeline. 

LinkedIn is an amazing content distribution channel.

It often does the heavy lifting, using LinkedIn ads a content distribution channel...communicating:
– who you are
– what you do
– your social proof

This is often done with thought leader ads (which, in my opinion, is the best way to deliver this content).

Then the lead comes in later, either through branded search, direct, unknown (or your lead gen ads)

What’s cool with Fibbler is that we can now see how much influenced pipeline and revenue came from the ads.

Having this clarity makes it much easier, not only for me to sell this strategy to clients, but also for the people I work with inside these companies to show it to their superiors.

It’s honestly a major win.

If you’re running mostly lead gen ads, I think you’ll win for a while, but in the long run it’s a losing battle.

You’ll burn through all your in-market buyers, and then one day you’ll be left scratching your head wondering why the ads stopped working.

Investing in middle-of-funnel content distribution and a proper demand gen strategy is key for long-term success.

p.s. This is why I started using Fibbler. If you want to see how LinkedIn Ads influence pipeline and revenue, you can try it free for 30 days at https://lnkd.in/er3uJ9d7

LinkedIn Ads Specialist | Dm Me To Access My full LinkedIn Ads Playbooks👇 | Rooftop Cinema Owner🍿

LinkedIn Conversation ads have been some of our best-performing ad formats for a bunch of my clients. 

They are getting demo requests for as little as $120 to $350.

I used to say they were hit or miss. 

50% of the time they would work. 
50% not.

but i am finding more like 75% of the time they do if done right.
 
Cool thing is they also work really well to a cold audience. 

If you think about it they are just a cold message sent to your ICP at scale (like outbound) but with no spam filters. 

I made a deep-dive loom playbook video covering:
+ How to set them up
+ What to write in them
+ How to approach bidding (opposite of what you’d normally do)
+ When and how to use them
+ How to use incentives effectively alongside them

If you want it...
Comment 'convo' down below💪

And i'll send dm you a link. 

p.s. make sure you are connected with me otherwise i can't send it!

Not sure if it means much, but nice to be no.5 on Favikon list for Growth + Lead Gen in the UK. 

Been writing about these types of topics transparently for like 5-6 years now.

Hope it has been helpful for some people :)

Here is the content i am moving towards atm, mainly as this is what i am working more on at the mo:

1. Linkedin ads (as always been writing about this since 2019)
2. GTM outbound
3. LinkedIn content
4. Thought leader ads
5. Bigger go-to-market systems which combine different channels
6. Sales-led b2b saas type topics. 

Also shout out to the other ppl on the list...
Hannah Parvaz
Julia Danyal
Tom Hunt
Bill Stathopoulos
Timothy Armoo
Olly Hudson
Tom Pestridge
Jeremy Laight
Niall Ratcliffe

Super excited to be chatting with Kirsty Dawe from Lead Forensics about LinkedIn ads + Signals-based outbound. 

In this master class we go over...

+ Using LinkedIn Ads + signals-based outbound to drive demos.
+ Identifying the best warm and cold outbound signals.
+ Running LinkedIn account-based targeting campaigns.
+ Demand gen vs lead gen and when to use each.
+ LinkedIn content strategy to support pipeline.

Here is the sign-up link....see you there :)
https://lnkd.in/eTSmkh_7

Most people’s LinkedIn ads fail because they don’t know how to report on influenced pipeline.

If you can only see the directly attributable things such as leads + demos, then you are missing out on major superpower of LinkedIn ads.

this is the content delivery/ demand gen / how pipeline is influenced part. 

But without a way to see that the pressure to focus on demos and leads gets super high. 

And that kind of pressure pushes marketers to lean heavily on bottom-of-funnel tactics...
Things like lead gen forms and incentive ads.

These do work super well. 

but without focusing on the nurture (180 day retargeting content delivery) part, the lead gen part will flatline… and then fail.

demos = pipeline = revenue, right?
Kind of.

In my opinion LinkedIn ads’ true super power lies more in its ability to deliver content at scale to a really high value ICP.

This is the demand gen part.

We push (mostly thought leader ads) to your ICP.

We get a decent frequency and penetration rate so they see the content we want them to see.

We work hard on multiple bits of content so we deliver a full message.

This all delivers our message, things like…
+ what does your product do
+ why is it awesome
+ why is it different
+ how did people used to tackle this problem before your solution
+ Who have you worked with before
+ what amazing things are they saying about you
+ why do they think you are awesome
+ how do they use you and get massive results
+ what is your position in your general market
+ do you have an opinion on the general topic you work in

This builds trust and teaches your ICP about your product.

And then often they fill out a form or come inbound through…
branded search
or through “direct”
or unknown
or even a lead gen ad

but when you dig deeper you see they actually engaged with your thought leader ads 7 times…
clicked 4 times to your site
and had 200 impressions over the past couple months

This is 'influenced pipeline'.

The LinkedIn ads do the heavy lifting.

before the companies tab on LinkedIn there was no way to really report on this.

And this is why Fibbler is an essential tool for us at Kiin.

If we can’t report on influenced pipline we are missing out on reporting on LinkedIn’s most important metric.

How much pipeline and revenue has LinkedIn influenced.

And then when the lead gen ads fail, which eventually they do, if all your budget is focused on that, then people end up switching off their LinkedIn ads.

They say it failed. 
that LinkedIn ads suck.

Honestly this is why I love fibbler. 
It has made my job to tell a compelling story about why LinkedIn ads work much easier.

When a client can see a dashboard (see pic) with the number which states the influenced pipe / revenue it is easy to see why linkedin ads are so powerful.

Fibbler is awesome because it links the ads, impressions, engagements, clicks etc directly to your CRM.

LinkedIn content + LinkedIn ads + GTM outbound = 🔥
I feel this combo works super well together to get qualified leads/ pipeline for Sales-led B2B SaaS.

for example…

1. LinkedIn content + LinkedIn ads:
LinkedIn content and LinkedIn ads work well together because organic is where you work out what actually makes sense to people. 

Posting a few times a week forces you to get clearer with your thinking and your writing, and you quickly see which ideas land and which don’t. 

The posts that do well organically usually make the best ads too, especially thought leader ads, which are just boosted posts from personal profiles. 

Organic content gives you steady, compounding reach and inbound over time, while ads let you put that same content in front of the exact ICP you care about.

One builds trust and familiarity, the other adds control and scale, and together it’s a much more sensible system than running either in isolation.

2. Linkedin ads with GTM outbound:

With LinkedIn ads and GTM outbound, we start by uploading a carefully built list of high-quality companies.

We then use LinkedIn ads to warm that list up by consistently delivering content to the people inside those companies, aiming for strong penetration and enough frequency that the message actually lands. 

Over time, people on that list start to recognise the brand, understand what you do, and see proof that you’re credible. 

When we then go outbound to the same accounts, it’s no longer cold outreach; it’s warmbound. 

That usually means higher reply rates, more natural conversations, and better meeting quality compared to traditional cold outbound.

3. Linkedin ads + LinkedIn content with GTM outbound

LinkedIn ads and organic content do a lot of the heavy lifting at the top of the funnel, they create awareness, engagement, traffic, and, most importantly, signals. 

Thought leader ads and regular content are a really strong nurture engine, they let you consistently show up in front of your ICP, explain what you do, build trust, and layer in social proof over time. 

Outbound then does what it’s best at, starting conversations and converting interest into real meetings. 

Instead of guessing who to contact, we use the signals created by the content and ads, people engaging, clicking, watching, visiting, to tell us exactly who to reach out to and when. 

That’s signal-based outbound, using inbound behaviour to make outbound far more relevant, timely, and effective.

If you build this as one coherent system it is the best and most scalable way to get pipleine for B2B SaaS or consulting companies. 

----
p.s. we built out these GTM systems for B2B SaaS. 
DM me if you want me to walk you through this personally.

A few months back I had a client who was pushing me hard to put $50k a month into bottom of funnel ads.

It actually worked well for a while.

They were over the moon with the amount of leads coming in.

The CMO had super aggressive targets given to him.

 And that pressure got pushed onto me.

For a while it worked really well.

We were getting a ton of demo requests each month.

Things looked bright.
Until they didn’t.

What happened next is the CPL started to rise — not slowly, but really quickly.
It went from $200–300 per demo request to $600–800 in a matter of weeks. 

Then 1000 + a couple of weeks later. 

+ We refreshed creatives.
+ Tried different targeting types.
+ Expanded the ICP slightly.

But nothing kept the price down.

I kept recommending a demand gen strategy.

I could see we needed to invest a lot more in content distribution. 
Nurture. Retargeting. Education.

But they were fully on the lead gen bandwagon.

They were addicted to these leads.

I also pushed hard to get them to analyse actual pipeline and revenue generated, not just demo volume.

They never helped us get the right data for this. Or wanted to.

I have a sneaky suspicion they knew this was a downward spiral and preferred to live in ignorance.

Long story short…
The leads ended up costing $1,200+.

To be fair, their ACV was around $40–60k, so on paper it was still “doable”.

Once we eventually dug into it, after hundreds of thousands spent, the ROI was negative.

Many of the leads were low quality.
Very few converted into real pipeline.

Now I refuse to work with companies that don’t get behind the recommended strategy.

I even introduced a clause that once we present our go-to-market strategy, if we’re not aligned at the strategy level, either side can walk away risk-free. 

Money back.

It’s not worth pushing something we know will fail eventually.

p.s. If you wanna do LinkedIn ads properly, I’ll drop our full funnel strategy playbook video in the comments.

I'm about to hit 15,000 subscribers, and that’s after not posting for nearly a week.

I picked up some kind of virus, so honestly I’ve just been focused on the basics.
Sometimes posting has to take a hit.

That said, LinkedIn has brought in a huge number of clients for us over the past few years.

Part of me wishes I’d gone even harder when the algorithm was distributing posts at 20k+ impressions each, just a couple of years ago.

Now it’s a fraction of that. Thanks LinkedIn 🤔.

But either way, it’s still incredibly powerful.

If you’re in B2B, I’d strongly recommend getting yourself and your team posting consistently.

It’s one of the most underrated growth drivers out there.

p.s. no comments on 'you look rough' i already know. Still recovering.

I just hit over 4,000 subscribers on my newsletter.

It’s always been a side project. I’ve neglected it more times than I’d like to admit… sorry 😅

But when I look at it properly, it’s responsible for a really meaningful part of how I bring in new clients.

Email marketing is actually incredibly powerful.

We get 50%+ open rates on pretty much every send, even on the 8th, 9th, 10th email in a sequence. 

It means people genuinely care about what I write.

I don’t write often. But when I do, it’s usually:
• an A/B test
• real performance data
• insights from the hundreds of thousands we spend on LinkedIn ads each month

These aren’t recycled blog posts. 
They’re things we’re actively testing inside client accounts.

Maybe that’s why people keep reading, even though I’m painfully inconsistent.

Here’s why email is worth the effort:

1. You own your media

I have direct access to everyone who subscribes.

There’s no algorithm that can throttle my reach overnight.

For me, a newsletter subscriber is infinitely more valuable than a social media follower.

2. You build an actual relationship

Email, especially if you’re consistent, builds long-term trust with your ICP.

It keeps you top of mind.
+ It nurtures the 97% who aren’t in market yet.
+ It shows expertise.
+ It builds social proof over time.
+ It compounds.

3. It’s mostly free
Yes, I use LinkedIn ads, YouTube and organic LinkedIn to grow it.

But once someone subscribes, I can reach them in their inbox for free.

And if you’re anything like me, you check your inbox more than you check social media.

If it costs me $16 to acquire a subscriber who’s a VP of Marketing and they:
• read my emails
• click the links
• watch the videos

Then I can reach that person indefinitely, as long as I keep delivering value.

And from what I’ve seen, a percentage of those subscribers eventually become customers.

4. It’s a serious conversion engine

I’ve been digging into our data and comparing newsletter subscribers with sales calls and closed clients over the past year.

A large proportion of clients had, at some point, subscribed and read my emails.

Some booked calls directly from a newsletter link.

Email is massively underrated.

It’s powerful.

But it’s also a grind to build.

Still, 4,000 subscribers later, I’m very glad I stuck with it.

P.S. Why not sign up (link in the cmments)
Inside you’ll get:
• Real A/B test results from campaigns we’re actively running
• Deep-dive playbooks on LinkedIn Ads and GTM
• Loom walkthroughs breaking down strategy and performance
• A bunch of high-quality freebies, including 68 LinkedIn Canva ad templates

There is a huge discrepancy between LinkedIn ad landing page clicks and what clients see in GA4. Here is why:

A client yesterday pointed out they were seeing around 5% of clicks to landing page in GA4 vs what we report in LinkedIn.
(If you're reading this 👋)

So I went deep. 
LinkedIn docs, ad fraud studies, GA4 consent mode research, every thread I could find.

Here's what's actually happening:

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗮𝗻𝗰𝘆

Even perfectly configured, a 15-30% gap between Landing Page Clicks and GA4 sessions is normal.

Some advertisers report only 1 in 3 clicks becoming a session. 
The documented range is 5-40%.

𝟭. 𝗠𝗼𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗲 𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗯𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗹𝗼𝗮𝗱𝘀

LinkedIn counts the click the instant someone taps.

GA4 only counts after the page loads, JavaScript executes, and a cookie is set.
On mobile there's a multi-second delay. Users hit back or close the app.

Facebook's data shows GA tracking fails on 10-80% of mobile clicks. LinkedIn behaves the same way.

𝟮. 𝗖𝗼𝗼𝗸𝗶𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗯𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀

"Deny Cookies" = invisible to GA4.
A normal banner reduces recorded traffic by 10-15%. Misconfigured? The drop can hit 95%.

One study found a $1M+/quarter company underreporting by 25% because their cookie platform was blocking Google Tag Manager entirely.

If your clients are in Europe or the UK, this is likely your biggest culprit.

𝟯. 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗲𝗱𝗜𝗻 𝗔𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸

AJ Wilcox (B2Linked) analysed LAN traffic with ad fraud expert Dr. Augustine Fou.
63% was bot or suspicious. Only 37% confirmed human.

2,000 clicks paid for. ~1,000 real people showed up.

Headless bots don't process JavaScript, clicks in LinkedIn, invisible in GA.

𝟰. 𝗚𝗔𝟰 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗯𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻
If a user grants cookie consent after browsing a few pages, GA4 resets the session and marks it as "Direct."
Your LinkedIn traffic is there. 
Just under the wrong label.

𝟱. 𝗠𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗶𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗸𝘀 + 𝗮𝗱 𝗯𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗸𝗲𝗿𝘀
Click, back, click again = 2 LinkedIn clicks, 1 GA session.
Bad bots made up 37% of all web traffic in 2024. Ad blockers block GA but don't stop LinkedIn counting.

𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱:
→ Mobile bounce: 10-20% lost 
→ Cookie denial: 10-15% invisible 
→ GA4 misattribution: 5-10% 
→ LAN bots (if on): up to 63% 
→ Ad blockers: 5-10% 
→ Repeat clicks: 3-5%

Stack a few and 50-80% of clicks vanish before GA4 sees them.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝗼:
→ Turn off LAN unless there's a reason 
→ Audit cookie consent (GTM must load BEFORE the banner) 
→ Enable GA4 Consent Mode v2 Advanced + behavioural modelling 
→ Speed test landing pages — under 1 second on mobile 
→ Honest benchmarks: 15-20% = normal. 30%+ = investigate. 50%+ = broken.

LinkedIn Ads work. 
We see the pipeline. 
We see the revenue.
But tracking is always a pain in the ass.

Here’s how I get over a 5% lead-to-call ratio from gated asset LinkedIn ads.

That’s 5 phone calls for every 100 leads that come in.

My leads average £14 each, which works out to roughly £200–£250 per scheduled call.

These are calls with my ICP: senior marketing leaders from B2B tech companies.

So it is not magic, the whole thing comes down to a super strong follow-up.

Here is what i do:

1. Automated enrichment + outbound follow-up

All leads flow from beehiiv → Clay → outbound.

When a lead signs up:
· Beehiiv sends the lead to Clay
· Clay automatically enriches the email with useful fields, including a short company blurb that’s already researched and formatted cleanly
· Clay checks for ICP fit

If they match ICP:
· they go to HeyReach for a LinkedIn connection request
· the message is simple: thanks for signing up for the gated asset + a deep-dive playbook video they might find useful

Anyone who watches that video gets nurtured quickly, so I push this hard.
No selling yet.

At the same time:
· ICP leads also go to Instantly
· they receive a thank-you email plus links to more high-value playbook videos

This email contains some of my best content.

2. Email nurturing sequence
Leads receive:
· the asset delivery email
· 5 emails over 5 days (we see ~52% open rates)
· then 1 automated email per week for the next month, extending into a longer nurture sequence

What’s a little nuts is the 10th email still gets over 50% open rates.

3. Soft CTA

Every email ends with a soft P.S.

“If you ever want to chat, you can schedule a call here…”

Low pressure, always present.

4. LinkedIn retargeting nurture

ICP leads are also pushed into a LinkedIn ads retargeting audience, where they see thought leadership content that continues the nurture.

Nothing complicated.

Everything runs on autopilot, which is the cool part.

I’m about to crank up the lead gen ads and see if the ratios hold 😬

Here’s how in January we kept our LinkedIn ads CAC at £1,000 👇
In January, we spent £4,000 on LinkedIn ads for Kiin.co - Linkedin Ads Agency.

Half that spend went into one core motion, with some extra budget testing direct-to-Loom campaigns.

The core flow:
Thought leader ads ➜ landing page (email capture) ➜ strong, consistent follow-up (both marketing-led + sales-led).

Here’s what happened:
➜ £2,264 spent on traffic to the landing page
➜ 439 total clicks (403 cold, 36 retargeting)
➜ £4.86 CPC to landing page (this dropped nicely)
➜ 33.75% CVR on landing page
➜ £14.14 cost per lead (very happy with this, it went up slightly and then stabilised)
➜ 5.5% of leads turned into booked calls
➜ 1.47% of leads turned into clients
➜ £247 cost per scheduled call
➜ ~£1,000 CAC
➜ 2 new clients acquired

That 5.5% lead-to-call rate is big for me.

From what I usually see, 2–5% is normal, so being at the high end consistently tells me the follow-up is doing a lot of the heavy lifting. 
I’ll go deeper into that in another post.

The 1.47% lead-to-client conversion honestly surprised me. I’m super happy with it.

A couple of important learnings from January:
• I spent more
• I got more leads
• I still “only” closed 2 clients

But I’m confident a lot of these leads will convert down the line.

December was very quiet for me, I took a break and spent very little, and I can clearly see the impact of that now. 

Ads really are a snowball. Consistency matters more than people think.

I also invested a decent chunk this month into direct-to-Loom campaigns, which pushed total spend to £4k. 

Part of me is wondering if I should go even harder just on this one core motion and let it compound.

Although I also got a bunch of calls from the direct-to-loom campaigns. Will investigate this further. 

At the end of the day, the number everyone cares about is CAC.
£1,000 CAC for £45k–£65k LTV clients, I’ll take that all day.

#linkedinads #demandgen #leadgen

Yesterday one of our LinkedIn Ads specialists at Kiin flagged something I hadn’t seen before.

I took a look and realised the campaign was performing incredibly well.

It was a tactic we’d never tested in this specific way before, and for this client it was working extremely well.

It’s rare to find something genuinely new.
We’re constantly testing, iterating, tweaking.
So when something fresh actually works well, it’s super exciting.

I asked the team to roll it out across five more accounts as a structured test.
We’ve just done that. literally 24 hours later. 

This is one of the reasons I love running a large number of LinkedIn Ads accounts.

The cross-account learning is powerful. 
Seeing what works, what doesn’t, how different ICPs respond, how creative fatigue shows up, how bidding strategies behave, that breadth of data compounds fast.

It reminds me why having a specialist partner like us matters.

Not because we claim to know everything.

But because we’re deep in it every single day, always learning.

There are only a handful of teams who operate at this depth on LinkedIn. And i know pretty much all of them. 

Running truly current playbooks is hard.
You need volume.
You need pattern recognition.
You need the willingness to try things that aren’t in a blog post yet.

A lot of people run someone else’s framework.
We try to build and refine our own.

Ai is also freaking me out at the mo also.

But moments like this remind me we can still add a lot of value... for now at least.

That’s why I’m glad we chose to go deep on LinkedIn Ads rather than broad across everything.

#linkedinads

signal-based + warm outbound is great because it tackles two of the greatest issues with outbound:
1) timing
2) people have no clue who you are

Signals based outbound is super imperfect, but it actually does help.

for example, if someone is on your website, they’re probably considering your solution.

Or they like your post about a specific feature you’re talking about, or the problem you’re communicating in the post.
It might be that they’re thinking about that problem, or looking for a solution.

Or they just changed jobs (cold signal), these people often revamp everything (change providers, tooling, etc). 
Might be a good time to pitch why you’re an amazing solution.

From a “they do not know who you are” issue (coldness), warm outbound sorts that out because it mostly only goes outbound to companies that have some knowledge of who you are.

for example, what we do is use LinkedIn thought leader ads to warm up a list of prospects (get high frequency + penetration rates + deliver enough content).

 Then when we go outbound to the list a few weeks down the line, you’re reaching out to people who hopefully know who you are, or at least a little.

Cold outbound still works, but only if you have a super big TAM.

If your TAM is small or medium-sized, I would go warmbound + signals mostly.

#linkedinads

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The Battle

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The Battle

JD Garcia

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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);}JD Garcia's LinkedIn Performance

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