How do I Run LinkedIn Ads for SaaS (An Expert’s Take)

In my 10+ years of experience in B2B SaaS, I’ve seen too many SaaS marketers burning their budgets because they treat LinkedIn Ads exactly like Google Ads. They are not the same. If you take one thing away from this guide, let it be this: Google is for capture; LinkedIn is for influence.

If you expect a direct “click-to-close” attribution model on LinkedIn, you will fail. LinkedIn is the bridge. It influences the decision-makers—the VPs, the Directors, the CXOs—so that when they are ready to buy, they go to Google and search for your brand specifically.

In this guide, I’m going to walk you through the exact strategies, from ABM hierarchies to technical bidding nuances, that I use to run LinkedIn Ads for SaaS and turn it into a revenue-generating engine.

Tl;DR

• LinkedIn is for Influence, Not Capture: Stop expecting immediate conversions like you get on Google. LinkedIn Ads for SaaS is a pattern-interrupt channel designed to build mindshare with decision-makers (CXOs, VPs) so they search for your brand later.
• Targeting > Keywords: Forget keywords. Success comes from strict filtering by Job Title, Function, and Seniority, combined with tiered Account-Based Marketing (ABM) lists to ensure you only pay for impressions on companies that can afford you.
• Tips for SaaS LinkedIn Ads: Always turn off the “Audience Network” (to keep ads in the feed) and avoid “Max Delivery” bidding (which burns budget). Switch to Manual Bidding to control your costs.
• Measuring success for SaaS LinkedIn Ads: Don’t rely solely on direct attribution. Measure success by looking for spikes in organic search volume and direct traffic and leads after launching your campaigns.
• Structure Your ABM into Tiers: Don’t treat every account the same. For SaaS LinkedIn Ads Use a 1:1 approach for your top “whale” prospects (highly personalized), a 1:Few approach for niche clusters, and a 1:Many approach for scaling coverage across your broader ICP list

How to Understand the Purpose of SaaS LinkedIn Ads?

To master LinkedIn Ads for SaaS, you have to understand the user journey.

When a prospect searches for “Best CRM Software” on Google, they have high intent. They are looking to buy. But an IT Director doesn’t search for software every day. Most of their time is spent scrolling LinkedIn, catching up on industry news, or networking.

This is where we come in. We use LinkedIn Ads to interrupt their pattern and plant a seed. We act as the influencer.

I view LinkedIn as a bridge between a cold prospect and a high-intent search. You might run an ad for your software, and the user sees it. They might not click immediately. But the next time they need a solution, they won’t search for a generic term; they will search for your brand name on Google. That is the win for your SaaS PPC strategy.

If you look for direct attribution on every single dollar spent, you will miss the mark.

What are the Categories of SaaS LinkedIn Ads You Can Run?

Whenever I audit a SaaS LinkedIn ad account, I look for three specific pillars. If you aren’t running all three, you are leaving money on the table.

1. Prospecting Ads: The Discovery Layer

This is straight-forward: You are targeting cold audiences who fit your demographic criteria but have zero affinity with your brand. This feeds the funnel for the more complex strategies below.

2. Account-Based Marketing (ABM)

For B2B SaaS, ABM is non-negotiable. However, I see people doing this wrong by treating all accounts equally. I break ABM down into a tiered approach:

• 1:1: This is for your “must-win” accounts. I’m talking about picking a specific company, say Zoho or Salesforce, and targeting only the decision-makers there (CXOs, VPs, Directors). You create tailored campaigns just for them.
• 1:Few: Here, I target a small set of 10 to 20 companies that share similar characteristics. If we get even one or two closures from this list, the ROI justifies the spend.
• 1:Many: This is where we scale. We upload a list of 1,000 to 5,000 companies that fit our Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).

Why do we do this?

Because LinkedIn charges you based on Impressions, unlike Google who charges you for Clicks. If you run a broad campaign on LinkedIn without an account list, you are paying for impressions on irrelevant people.

By using an ABM list, even in a “1:Many” campaign, you ensure that every impression you pay for is served to a company that might actually need and can afford your product.

3. Remarketing Ads

Remarketing as the name suggests, is where you target users who have interacted with your brand in some form. But, most marketers stop at “Website Visitors.” That is just the basics. To really drive revenue, I use advanced retargeting layers.

• Pipeline Deals:
  This is a favorite of mine. If a prospect becomes a lead and is currently in talks with your sales team, you shouldn’t leave them alone. I build an audience of companies currently in the pipeline and target the other decision-makers at those companies to keep our brand top-of-mind during their decision-making process.
• Churned Customers:
  If a customer cancels, don’t let them go easily. You can run campaigns specifically for churned accounts offering them an incentive, like an Amazon voucher or a discount on a new contract, to make them come back.
• Account Expansion:
  Your current customers are your best source of new revenue. You can target existing customers with ads about new features or product updates to drive upsells and prevent churn.
• Lifecycle Stages:
  If a lead moves to MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead) or SQL (Sales Qualified Lead) but gets stuck, I use ads to unblock them. I’ll show them case studies or offers to nudge them down the funnel.

How to Define Your ICPs Before Running SaaS LinkedIn Ads?

Google Ads relies on keywords, while LinkedIn Ads relies on Job Titles, Functions, and Companies.

Before I even touch an ad account, I sit down and define the ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) with precision. You need to understand the product deeply.

Here are the filters I consider mandatory:

1. Company Size

If you sell Enterprise software, you must filter by company size (e.g., 1,000+ employees). If you sell to SMBs, you start at 50 employees. This single filter prevents wasted spend on companies that cannot afford your contract value.

2. Job Seniority

I rarely target entry-level employees. I focus on the people who pay like CXOs, VPs, and Directors. Even if a manager is the user, the VP is often the buyer.

3. Job Function vs. Job Title

There is a difference. “Marketing” is a function; “PPC Specialist” is a title. I usually layer these. I might target the “Marketing” function and then overlay specific seniorities to ensure I’m hitting the leadership within that department.

4. Industry

Be specific here. If you sell cybersecurity software, you want to primarily target the Software/IT industry because that’s where the pain point is highest. If you sell HR software, your industry scope can be broader.

How we Fixed a SaaS Client’s LinkedIn Ad Account – A Real-World PipeRocket Digital Case Study

To make this practical, let me share a real example from a SaaS client I audited.

When I looked inside their ad account, I found two massive mistakes that were effectively setting their budget on fire.

Mistake 1: The “Spray and Pray” Targeting

They had a modest budget, enough to reach maybe a few thousand people effectively. However, their targeting was set to “Broad.” They were targeting hundreds of thousands of people. If you’re running LinkedIn Ads for SaaS, this is the easiest way to burn cash.

The Result: Their Audience penetration was abysmal at around 2%. Audience penetration is the metric that shows you how much of your target audience you’ve reached through the ad. They were showing ads but influencing none. Because they didn’t use filters for Company Size or Seniority, they were paying for impressions on irrelevant junior employees and small businesses.

Mistake 2: The Bidding Trap

They were using Max Delivery bidding.

The Result: LinkedIn spent their budget as fast as possible. It didn’t care about cost efficiency, it just cared about speed. This led to high costs and poor lead quality.

How We Fixed It at PipeRocket Digital

1. Restructured the Account: We aligned campaigns by region and product so we actually knew what was running where.
2. Narrowed the Audience: We applied strict ICP filters (Seniority, Industry, Company Size) to bring the audience size down to match the budget.
3. Manual Bidding: We switched to Manual Bidding to control the Cost Per Click and ensure we weren’t overpaying.

The Result: By narrowing down the audience and controlling the bid, we effectively increased their audience penetration rate from almost 1.70% to 19.20% – A huge 1000% increase.

Here is the before and after data:

 August and September (before we onboarded): In this data, you can see that these two months have hundreds of thousands of impressions with just 1.7% audience penetration.

October and November (after we onboarded): You can see that the impressions have reduced a lot but the audience penetration shot up to 19.20%.

This is why you should always narrow down to who you want to target while running LinkedIn Ads for SaaS.

Technical Setup: Building the Engine

Now, let’s get into the LinkedIn Campaign Manager. The structure is: Campaign Group -> Campaign -> Ads.

Step 1: Choosing the Group Objective

Your group objective dictates how the LinkedIn algorithm behaves and your campaigns in this group are locked to this objective. So, do not choose these randomly.

• Brand Awareness: Use this only if you want to announce funding or keep your brand at the top of the feed. Don’t expect conversions.
• Website Visits: Use this when you are promoting content (blogs, features, reports) and want traffic.
• Lead Generation: This is the powerhouse. It uses LinkedIn’s native forms. When a user clicks “Book a Demo,” their name, email, and job title auto-fill from their profile. Friction is zero, so conversion is high.
• Engagement: I use this for “Thought Leadership” ads. If my founder posts a great insight, I boost it with an Engagement objective to get likes and comments, keeping the user inside LinkedIn.
• Video Views: Self-explanatory. This is great for product demos.
• Website Conversion: Use this for high-intent audiences where you want them to take a specific action on your site.

Step 2: Choose Between “Classic” and “Accelerate” Campaign Modes

When creating a campaign, LinkedIn will offer you two modes: Accelerate (AI-driven) and Classic (Manual).

My Advice: Stick to Classic.

Accelerate is AI-based and currently in a learning phase. In my experience, it tends to spend budget inefficiently and doesn’t always optimize for the perfect ICP.

Classic gives you the control you need to ensure your budget is used wisely.

Step 3: Choose Your LinkedIn Ad Format

We have a variety of formats at our disposal:

• • Single Image: The standard feed ad.
  • Carousel: Great for storytelling or showing multiple features in one ad unit.
  • Video: Essential for SaaS. Show the product in action.

• Follower: This ad appears on the side while scrolling nudging users to follow a page

• • Document Ads: This is a hidden gem. You can upload a PDF (like a whitepaper). Users can scroll through a preview in the feed and download it directly. It’s fantastic for lead gen.
  • Conversation Ads: These are the “Sponsored DMs” that appear in your inbox.

• Event: You can use this format while running events like webinars or podcasts.

• Article and Newsletter: These are also ads that appear on the side while scrolling promoting an article or a newsletter.

What are Some Tips to Optimize my SaaS LinkedIn Ads Account?

I’ve audited SaaS PPC accounts where thousands of dollars were wasted on two specific settings. Here is how to avoid those traps.

1. Turn Off the Audience Network

By default, LinkedIn will try to show your ads on “Partner Attributes” or the Audience Network. This means your ad appears on third-party websites (like news sites or apps) rather than the LinkedIn feed.

My Rule: Turn this off. You pay a premium for LinkedIn’s professional context. Do not pay that premium to appear on a sidebar of a random website that you can’t even attribute or track.

2. Exclude Irrelevant Audiences

Here’s the thing with LinkedIn Ads – Say you set the filters to target VPs of companies with 200 – 500 employees specifically for the U.S. If impressions saturate in the U.S, it can still show the ad to VPs in other countries. 

So, I focus equally on who to exclude.

Even when you narrow down an audience (e.g., “Software Companies” + “Marketing Function”), LinkedIn might still show your ad to peripheral audiences.

• Always Exclude Small Companies: If you target Enterprise, exclude companies with <500 employees.
• Exclude Junior Roles: Explicitly exclude “Entry Level,” “Training,” and “Unpaid” roles.
• Exclude Irrelevant Industries: Even if the job title matches, you might not want to target Non-Profits or Retail.
• Exclude Competitors: Upload a list of your competitors to ensure they aren’t viewing your ads.

3. Bidding Strategy: Manual vs. Max Delivery

This is the one of the biggest mistakes I see while auditing SaaS LinkedIn ad accounts.

Do not use Max Delivery.

Max Delivery gives LinkedIn permission to spend your budget as fast as possible. It often results in a high CPC (Cost Per Click) and inefficient delivery.

The Fix: Use Manual Bidding.

Start with a bid. If LinkedIn suggests a range, start at the lower end. If your daily budget isn’t spending, inch the bid up by $1 or $2 until it starts delivering. This ensures you never overpay for a click.

How to Measure Success with LinkedIn Ads for SaaS?

Attribution is the hardest part of LinkedIn Ads. Because it is an influence channel, your attribution software (like HubSpot or Google Analytics) will often credit “Direct Traffic” or “Organic Search” for a lead that actually originated from a LinkedIn ad impression.

So, how do I measure it?

I look for the Lift.

I analyze the correlation. If we launch a heavy LinkedIn campaign this month, I check:

1. Did our Direct Traffic increase?
2. Did searches for our Brand Name on Google increase?
3. Did the overall Lead Count go up, even if LinkedIn isn’t claiming the credit?

Here is an example:

• Say you are only running Google Ads and are getting up to 10 leads per month.
• Now you try out LinkedIn Ads on the side, and see the monthly leads reach 13-15 consistently.
• This means your LinkedIn Ads are working.
• On the other hand, if you are not seeing any meaningful improvements to your monthly leads generated, your LinkedIn Ads are not working.

Conclusion

Running LinkedIn Ads for SaaS is not about throwing spaghetti at the wall. It requires a structured, disciplined approach. You need to shift your mindset from capturing demand to generating influence.

Start by building your ABM lists to ensure you are only paying for impressions on companies that matter. Define your ICP strictly by job title and seniority to avoid paying for eyeballs that can’t sign a check. And finally, take control of your settings—use Classic campaigns, exclude irrelevant audiences, and bid manually to protect your budget.

When you do this right, LinkedIn becomes an engine that drives awareness, trust, and ultimately, high-value pipeline for your SaaS business.

If this sounds too much to handle, we at PipeRocket Digital can manage your LinkedIn ad strategy end-to-end, so that you can focus on other pressing issues. If you want to explore how we can help you with LinkedIn Ads – reach out to us and let’s plan how to grow your pipeline.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Is LinkedIn advertising worth it for B2B SaaS brands?

In my honest opinion? Absolutely. But only if you have the right expectations. If you are selling a $20/month tool to freelancers, the high Cost Per Click (CPC) on LinkedIn will kill you. Stick to Meta or Google.

But if you are selling high-ticket SaaS with a decent Annual Contract Value (ACV), LinkedIn is non-negotiable. Why? Because your buyers—the VPs, the CTOs, the directors are on LinkedIn. You pay a premium here not for clicks, but to influence the people who actually have the authority to say “yes” to your deal.

2. I’m seeing zero direct conversions in the dashboard. Should I turn the ads off?

Please don’t. This is a attribution trap. If you judge LinkedIn solely by “Last Click” attribution, you will almost always pause it prematurely.

Remember, this is an influence channel. The CEO seeing your ad isn’t going to interrupt their scroll to book a demo instantly. They are going to remember you, and two weeks later, they will tell their team to Google your brand. Instead of panic-pausing, look at your Lift. Has your traffic or lead spiking consistently? Are more people searching for your brand name on Google? If those arrows are green, your ads are doing their job.

3. What is the single biggest waste of money on LinkedIn?

Leaving the Audience Network enabled. It’s the default setting, and it’s a budget killer.

When this is on, LinkedIn takes your ad and shows it on third-party websites to get you “cheaper” impressions. But you aren’t paying premium LinkedIn prices to have your ad show up on a news site that you can’t even track. You want to be in the newsfeed, right next to industry news. Go to your “Placements” setting and uncheck that box immediately.