Podcast Summary: B2B LinkedIn Ads Playbook: What Works (and What Doesn’t) in 2025

Introduction

In the May 5, 2025 episode of B2B Marketing with Dave Gerhardt, host Dave Gerhardt is joined by Danielle, Head of Content at Exit 5, along with two esteemed guests: Tag Bozied from Docebo and Anthony Blattner, one of North America's nine LinkedIn Certified Marketing Experts. The episode delves deep into the intricacies of leveraging LinkedIn Ads for B2B marketing in 2025, exploring effective strategies, common pitfalls, innovative ad formats, and methods to measure success.

Key Discussion Points

1. Common Mistakes in B2B LinkedIn Ads

   Tag Bozied highlights targeting as a primary area where B2B marketers often stumble. He emphasizes the importance of researching and understanding the correct industries and job titles to ensure ads reach the right audience. Tag advises:

   "Go analyze a couple of your customers or top prospects' pages to reverse engineer your targeting."
   [06:21]

   Anthony Blattner adds that early campaigns often focus too heavily on bottom-of-funnel actions like demo requests without establishing brand awareness first. He suggests adopting a value-first approach to engage users effectively.

2. Effectiveness of Thought Leader Ads and Best Practices

   The guests discuss the rising success of Thought Leader Ads—boosted posts from influential individuals within a company. Tag explains:

   "They get much higher engagement rates and dwell time than company page ads."
   [10:22]

   Best practices include leveraging visible leaders such as CEOs or founders and ensuring the content is high-quality and relevant. Anthony emphasizes the necessity of setting content guidelines to maintain quality and consistency.

3. Metrics of Success: Dwell Time and Connected TV Ads

   Traditional metrics like click-through rates (CTR) are increasingly being supplemented with dwell time, which measures how long users engage with an ad. Tag notes:

   "Dwell time allows you to see how long people are actually looking at your content across different formats."
   [16:52]

   Additionally, Connected TV (CTV) Ads are introduced as a novel way to reach audiences outside of LinkedIn, providing guaranteed full-view impressions and enhancing brand visibility.

   "CTV ads are unskippable and boost your dwell time significantly."
   [17:00]

4. Budgeting for LinkedIn Ads

   Determining the right budget is crucial, especially for niche audiences. Tag recommends:

   "For testing, a starting budget of around $3,000 is effective, but you can start with as little as $10 a day."
   [25:22]

   Anthony suggests aligning budgets with historical CPM costs and audience size to optimize impressions and frequency.

5. Reporting ROI for Top of Funnel Campaigns

   Demonstrating ROI for brand awareness initiatives can be challenging. Anthony shares Docebo’s approach:

   "We built a brand tracker that includes both organic and paid impressions to gauge our brand’s growth over time."
   [32:53]

   Tag complements this by mentioning LinkedIn’s built-in tools like the Revenue Attribution Report and integration with CRM systems to provide comprehensive reporting.

6. Little-Known Targeting Features

   The guests reveal advanced targeting options available on LinkedIn, such as:

   • Synchronizing CRM lists (e.g., from HubSpot) with LinkedIn campaigns.
   • Targeting members with a single open job to refine audience accuracy.

   "If you're using HubSpot, you can sync your target account lists directly to LinkedIn."
   [43:05]

7. AB Testing Best Practices

   Effective AB testing strategies are essential for optimizing ad performance. Tag advises testing significant variations rather than minor tweaks to gain meaningful insights:

   "Test big differences to discover what truly resonates with your audience, rather than just changing button colors."
   [44:58]

   Anthony shares a successful AB test where a single controversial sentence dramatically increased engagement:

   "Changing one sentence from generic to a more provocative statement resulted in a 5x increase in engagement."
   [46:08]

Insights and Conclusions

The episode underscores the evolving landscape of B2B marketing on LinkedIn, emphasizing the need for strategic targeting, creative ad formats, and comprehensive metrics to measure success. Thought Leader Ads emerge as a powerful tool for enhancing engagement and brand visibility, while innovative metrics like dwell time provide deeper insights into ad performance. Budgeting strategies tailored to audience size and leveraging advanced targeting features can significantly optimize campaign effectiveness. Additionally, robust reporting mechanisms and thoughtful AB testing are crucial for demonstrating ROI and continuously refining marketing efforts.

Notable Quotes

• Tag Bozied on Targeting Mistakes:

  "Go analyze a couple of your customers or top prospects' pages to reverse engineer your targeting."
  [06:21]

• Anthony Blattner on Brand Awareness:

  "Educate first, deliver value first. Don't let your content speak to your goals, just deliver value to the user."
  [07:35]

• Tag Bozied on Thought Leader Ads:

  "If you have a visible founder or a well-known founder, those ads have been crushing it."
  [11:37]

• Anthony Blattner on Dwell Time:

  "Dwell time helps us assess how long people are really engaging with our content."
  [14:43]

• Tag Bozied on CTV Ads:

  "CTV ads are great because people only spend a certain percentage of time on LinkedIn each day."
  [19:42]

• Anthony Blattner on ROI Reporting:

  "Understanding influence versus trigger is key—our brand awareness influenced 80% of our pipeline."
  [37:32]

• Tag Bozied on AB Testing:

  "Be sure to test big differences to truly discover what resonates with your audience."
  [45:58]

Conclusion

This episode provides a comprehensive playbook for B2B marketers aiming to harness the full potential of LinkedIn Ads in 2025. By avoiding common pitfalls, leveraging innovative ad formats like Thought Leader and CTV Ads, and adopting sophisticated metrics and reporting practices, marketers can significantly enhance their LinkedIn advertising strategies. The insights shared by Tag Bozied and Anthony Blattner offer valuable guidance for optimizing ad performance, demonstrating ROI, and ultimately driving meaningful engagement and growth in the competitive B2B landscape.