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A
Foreign. Exciting for me. I get to host Anthony Blattner, the founder, the managing partner of Speedwork Social. Speedwork Social does LinkedIn ads. Organic and social and paid and all kinds of fun stuff. LinkedIn from his agency based in Austin, Texas. Anthony, welcome to liftoff.
B
Hey, Keith, thanks for having me. Excited to be here?
A
Yeah, it's great to have you here. And you're a guy that's responsible for helping companies get true lift off. And not like this sputtering, little slow lift off. We're talking, you know, jet fuel. That's what you're about at LinkedIn. And you also, by the way, have been very hard to pin down. I think I've had heads of state, easier to schedule and book. So I know your business is hot. Look, you do lift off campaigns to drive leads, to drive quality leads to companies in the SaaS, enterprise tech world, mostly, right?
B
Yes. Yeah, that's what we focus on.
A
Okay, so let's get right into it and forget the, forget the backstory and all the politeness. How do you get it done?
B
How do you get it done? So, you know, a new company getting started, you know, crawl, walk run on LinkedIn number one, just get yourself and your team posting. That's going to get you much more traction than anything on your company page. So get your people posting, take advantage of the free impressions, and then as you build that up, the next step after that is go boost and add ads on top of that and build yourself a funnel on LinkedIn, you know, boosting your content, driving traffic, driving leads, making conversions. So that's the big picture. There's a lot more into all those stages there. But that's the crawl walk run, you and your team posting and then boost it with ads.
A
And that's interesting. So everybody on the team, like everybody just start posting. Or do we start having a couple people post and the other people like and comment?
B
Yeah. You know, typically most companies will start with like owner, founder, CEO and then executive team. And then it's nice if you can get the rest of the people posting, but usually leadership that starts, starts to train. That said, if you can get everyone on board, like, there's a lot of good data out there that the more people you get on board, the more you take advantage of everyone's networks and you're just leveraging LinkedIn in the way that it's meant to be leveraged and you get a lot more voices out there. So at the very least, yes, definitely want employees to be like, liking commenting, resharing that content that like that kind of like kickstarts your content because no one wants to be the first person to like your comment. So gets a kickstarted and then it's off to the races from there.
A
And then the type of content, Anthony, again, we're not trying to steal your entire playbook. I want you to have a business after this interview. But the type of content, like, I just had a baby, I'm going on a vacation. Look at the picture of my vacation. What I mean. And then you don't want to be too salesy. Always everybody hammering on, try my product. Right. So what's the right balance in terms of having an authentic voice, but also a practical one, a valuable one.
B
Yeah, definitely there is balance to it where at some points you do need to be salesy to deliver the CTA and drive traffic and convert an offer. But so as I think about. So lately we've been talking a lot about thought leader ad funnels. So I'll give some context here. On LinkedIn, you can now boost posts from people. It's called thought leader ads. Sounds fancy, but it's just boosting posts from people. But they are performing much better than any company page ads that you can run. And it's just because people will always engage with people more than companies. So these boosted posts for people get much higher engagement rate and therefore much cheaper costs on LinkedIn. So we do a lot of these boosting posts from people. So very effective ad format. What works best for them is across the board, it tends to be case studies. They work for almost everybody. There's lots of, lots of stuff that can work well. But across the board, if you're like, what, what should I start with? Start with a case study and then add some other content on top of that. Because that's why the case study can
A
be kind of dry. Anthony. Excuse me.
B
So don't take it like the boring version. Not a boring version. More like a tips and tricks version.
A
Okay.
B
You know, if you. Why do people go on LinkedIn? It's to hear what other people are up to. To learn something.
A
Yeah.
B
That they can take back to their job and their company. So if you. So your case study should be like, here's how we achieved XYZ and how you can do it too. And what you can learn from this. That's how you get people, you know, to read your content and then continue reading your content. You don't want the we're so awesome case study. You know, that can come later as a retargeting ad maybe. But yeah, save that for later. But hey, tips and tricks case stud on like how, how other people can do stuff like this. That's why people are on LinkedIn. That's what they're going to read and then that gets your whole process started.
A
I like that. Yeah. Cool. I guess the other thought is having video vs text vs graphics vs PDFs vs download this. I mean, where are you in all of that type of content?
B
Yeah, you know, at the end of the day, all of the above is good because different people engage with different formats. But that said, there are definitely some winners that we see in different areas. And it also depends on the business and the type of content you have and you're promoting. Some people can create some really flashy, enjoyable PDFs, they can build humor into it and people will actually read it. But across the board, like, there's a few things that we think about. Number one, LinkedIn is pushing video very hard. But it's to be determined if the business community wants to watch video as much as everyone thinks that we're trying to push video for, you know, of course on other social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, we watch lots of video. So people do watch videos if they're good. But that said, do people really want to watch a lot more business videos? Maybe. So what we see across the board is that at the end of the day, it does tend to be the text posts that get the most dwell time, which is a metric that LinkedIn reports on. So you can see, you can see and track and analyze that. Yeah, text only posts get the most read time because it seems the least like marketing to the reader. So as soon as you have an image or a video or anything else, someone's like, you might be trying to sell something to me, I might scroll past this to the next thing.
A
Okay.
B
It's just what we see in the data. So to start your funnel, start with your tips and tricks. Post as a text only post and that's how you're going to get readers started reading your content. And then from there you can retarget them with images, videos, PDFs, whatever it's going to be. And then at the end of the day, yes, video is a good, effective format. You can convey a lot of information. Somebody can get to know you by watching your video. And it's FaceTime is gold. So the more FaceTime you give, the prospects, that's, that's great. But people tend to watch more video when they already know who you are. So again, lead with Those text posts and then retarget with your video posts,
A
you know, those are such subtle points, but they're so critical. I know that from my own experience. So Anthony, help me. I got a startup company I want to get going with LinkedIn. I've done a bunch of organic posts because I like free. But now I'm ready to bite the bullet because my business is starting to cook and I'm ready to do paid. What do most people screw up when it comes to converting that organic thing and start running paid campaigns?
B
Yeah, so the main thing that people mess up is actually in just like the pure setup and configuration of the campaign. A lot of the default settings are not perfect for a company getting started. So most people just click through the interface and click launch and then so
A
they're not targeting their customer, they're not putting in the ice.
B
No. Even with the best of efforts. So the couple settings that you want to change when you're getting started, like I've looked at so many accounts and it's just always the case that people. The default settings are. There's always this audience expansion option that's, that's enabled and it's always enabled on Google and Meta as well. But they're better, you know, their algorithm works a little bit more. LinkedIn's could use some more data. So anyways, audience expansion is always on the start. You want to turn that off so that it actually uses the targeting that you're setting. Otherwise it's going to go outside those bounds. Turn audience expansion off and then number two is Audience Network sounds very similar, but it's different. Audience network shows ads on third party websites just like Google Display network and stuff like that. But the problem is when this is enabled and it's enabled by default, 99% of your impressions are going to go on this network and then suddenly you're spending your money on ads that aren't even showing up on LinkedIn and it's on like I don't know, wall. I don't know if people think they're going to read a blog post or
A
something and yeah, all of a sudden I'm getting inquiries from only fans or something.
B
I mean, hey, you might, hey, if you can convert that, if you can convert that traffic. Keith, you got a good business in front of you.
A
I don't know, it's. I, you know, I could hope, right? I can hope.
B
Good side hustle there. So yeah, that's the basic thing. I see everyone mess. A lot of people mess up. So get that fixed the right way and then from there it's, it is about the content itself. So we talked about those text posts and those video posts. Start by boosting the posts from your people. If you're doing a lot of organic, you probably have a feel for what's working, what gets the most engagement, what are people commenting on? Those are the best candidates of posts to start with.
A
A lot of founders that I've worked with over the years have posted, they have good posts, but they still suffer
B
from small
A
feedback or small like and comment and share kind of metrics. What can you recommend to be something to help move that up a notch?
B
Yeah, so that can happen. Like the more niche your business is, maybe the harder it is to find the exact right people organically. And at the end of the day also don't be totally concerned if you're not seeing like if you know the content's good and if you say have people who send you an email or a DM based on what they're seeing you post, then those are the signals you want to watch for because it is, you know, sometimes the more niche your business is and the more niche your topic is, maybe there's not a lot of people that are going to comment or like on that, but when you find that one person in your ICP who does have that problem, they might then just send you a DM or they might just send you an email.
A
Do you think of LinkedIn more for demand gen or lead gen then?
B
LinkedIn's definitely more top of funnel demand gen just in the pure fact that it's a social media platform, it's a discovery platform, you can definitely do Legion and you know, you should build the full funnel to try to capture and drive some of those leads. But LinkedIn as a platform definitely sits on more top of funnel demand gen side of things.
A
When you talk to people about ROI. And I know you're a little biased toward LinkedIn as a platform, but it can get expensive. All of a sudden your, your LinkedIn bill is four figures and five figures. Then I don't know, you've seen them all run up. Are they getting the return? What, how do I think about my spend in there?
B
Yeah. So first, so two things. First, first there's like, it doesn't work. It's not for everybody LinkedIn ads, there's a few qualifications that make a good fit. And then number two, and I'll talk about those, number two is you have to, you have to know how you're going to set up your reporting to see the ROI. Because B2B sales takes a long time, so it's probably just not going to be in a pure conversion number. You're going to see a convert, you know, conversion on LinkedIn. It could happen three, six months, a year down the road. And cookies and conversions aren't going to track down. So to start, you know who, who's a good fit for LinkedIn? One is for LinkedIn, ads for advertising and paying money for ads on LinkedIn. Number one, your audience is on LinkedIn and active. That's a given. You know, are you selling to salespeople or are you selling to construction workers who are actually out in the field? So just number one, are they on LinkedIn? Are they active there? And then number two is, is your LTV high enough to drive an ROI at the end of the day versus the amount of money you're going to spend on ads? Now, a lot of this comes down to your sales process and I've seen some lower ticket offers work on LinkedIn, but it just takes a really good sales process or funnel. Our rule of thumb is usually you want your LTV to be at least 15k in what you're going to be, you know, making off that purchase or customer so that the ads you know will eventually drive an roi. Because yes, you will be paying for a little bit higher. You'll Pay for higher CPMs and CPCs on LinkedIn versus a Facebook. But the targeting is there, so you should be reaching the right people. So it isn't for just selling small widgets, it's more for enterprise software, professional services. You're selling bigger things.
A
Right? So what's a system look like a paid acquisition system look like? You're setting up funnels. So give me an, give me a picture.
B
Yeah, it's a funnel like this and it starts with so like an ideal funnel. And like we do this for lots of companies. If you can, if you have the people who are posting, you can boost that. That is the best to start your funnel with. It's the easiest to break into your audience because of those engagement metrics that we talked about. So lead with your boosted post from people. Once people start engaging and reading, getting to know your people, then retarget them with your company page ads and then they are getting introduced to your brand, they're making it to your website, they're taking those next steps and then also that's when you can start to retarget people to offer them a demo, a free trial, a free consultation, whatever. It's going to be there so at the very top, you want to be giving value sharing those tips and tricks getting people interested. It doesn't have to be a white paper or ebook. Lots of companies do do that. But tips and tricks teach people something, get them interested in what you have to offer. And then, and then it's starting, you're starting to build your retargeting funnel. So it does take usually several touch points for somebody to know enough and to trust you enough and to, you know, hey, this guy has, I've seen him talking many times, he knows his stuff. I'm kind of interested what else he has to talk about. So I'm going to go check out his website. So it takes lots of touch points. So you need to have those retargeting campaigns running to stay in front of those people. So cold ads running. And then you have your set of retargeting ads running and then you have your set of again retargeting ads to your company page. And then either those ads can offer a lead form to opt in to request a demo or a trial, or you're going to send somebody to your website to do so.
A
How do you, when you get right down to it, you're sitting across the table from a client. How do they evaluate success? How do you, how do you coach them into reviewing the, the business?
B
Yeah, so there's a few different ways and end of the day it's going to be sales and pipeline. So we want to make sure that we're seeing those metrics happen. Lots of companies do have a very long sales cycle. So you just have me to have the tooling and the expectations in place for what's going to happen. You know, at the very basic level, yes, you should have conversion tracking in place. So are these people going to your website, are they submitting forms there? Are you capturing leads? Then you want to have lead grading in place. So are those leads good or are those leads not good? And then have your sales team or whoever it is grading those leads and tracking people down the funnel. So companies should, would benefit from having a CRM in place so that you can track all that. But then end of the day, because sales cycles are so long, LinkedIn has, has a nice report that you can use. It's called the, it's called the Revenue Attribution Report. If you have HubSpot or Salesforce, you can plug that right into LinkedIn and then it'll tell you over, over the past year how many companies LinkedIn influenced who then turned into an opportunity and then closed so it's more company level reporting but for big companies it's often, you know, that's how you're going to report. You're going to be reaching lots of people, the buying committee and you want to track company level reporting, not just individual. So how many of these companies did you influence to get into the pipeline? How many of those closed? And then you'll see some metrics there. It is a one point of view system, so it only knows what LinkedIn can see. So that's a free report. Anyone can set it up. If you have Salesforce HubSpot, you should definitely do that. But then to get more sophisticated with it, there's new third party tools out there that you can then plug in LinkedIn and Google and email and whatever else you're using. And then it puts the journey together for you and tells you that report
A
a complete attribution report of in performance across all channels. Yes, I didn't know that was available. So good to know you're giving me
B
more of those to. If you're going to do a search, go check out Factors or Fibler or Dream Data are kind of the best platform for that right now. But there's always new tools and stuff coming out.
A
Speaking of new, Anthony, have you heard of this thing called AI? It stands for artificial intelligence.
B
I have heard of that.
A
You have? Okay, good.
B
Because I've seen all the comments of AI spam that are on LinkedIn and that they're working on getting rid of. That is probably the worst part about AI right now. But otherwise AI is a very interesting space right now.
A
Yeah, I, I think it's going to be good. No kidding aside, what or how are you changing your approach using AI as you're involved in content creation, targeting optimization, all that kinds of stuff. Is AI in the LinkedIn tools you're using? Are you creating your own tools? Does that include things like AI assistants or AI agents to do the work? Where is that playing in the, in the world of Speedwork Social.
B
Yes. So all the above and I'll kind of break it down here. So on like a pure content creation side, definitely recommend using AI to generate content. You should take a human to review the content and make sure, edit it and make sure it sounds, put in your voice, add some personality to it. Because I can be bland, right? Right. It can be, could be boring. I mean some people you can just read it sometimes and be like that was definitely generated by AI so you want to stand out against that. In the rest of the feed it is getting Busier with everyone else doing this, but it isn't, it is an enabler for a lot of teams that we work with where it's like, you know, we're just trying to get your people to post to get started. Start with this. We'll generate some templates for you. You'll pass these out to the team, you'll personalize some of them for you guys. Feel free to do this yourself, but it's cool when you can start to set up workflows for this. I think my favorite one is connecting any meeting recording software to a workflow so that I'll take the transcript from your meetings, pump that into ChatGPT and say, generate me a LinkedIn post based on what we talked about here. And then you. Then it's creating a. Some candidates of LinkedIn posts from every meeting you have. They might not all be good, but hey, if you get a couple a week out of all the meetings you're having, that's worth, you know, posting. So we've been setting these up for clients and it's been, it's been a great way to get content out there. And you know, sometimes they're even surprised, like, oh yeah, we did talk about a couple of those things on a few meetings this week. And that's. Those are great nuggets to be sharing.
A
Very cool. So using AI, how about in terms of optimization?
B
Yeah. So on the optimization side. So next is like, how is LinkedIn using AI? And they are in their ads tooling, they do have some AI for like generate a campaign, generate ad Creative. But I think it still has a little ways to go. Also, what did you use within the
A
LinkedIn console that's really rocked you? Like, you go, whoa, this has been, this is a big step forward because I know Google has, has some great tools, but what. I don't know If I explored LinkedIn as much.
B
Yeah. In, in platform there isn't anything yet. But I'd say the coolest thing right now is the advancement of tools on the targeting side of things. So if you've seen Clay and what they're doing with everything is that part is the most interesting. Where Clay is. Clay is the new hub for your, your contacts and your companies you want to target. And so it's your, you're building your target account list there. You're using intense signals from other platforms. So when company, there's lots of tools out there, but company visits my website 10 times, push them into Clay, enrich them, check if they meet ICP criteria. If so, push this to LinkedIn and then I target them. So that's a way to see if, you know, capture companies who are showing intent enough intent. You can then push those to LinkedIn and make sure you're serving ads to them. So that's probably the most exciting thing right now other than content creation is using it from a targeting side of things. So, yes,
A
you are just the wealth of information and knowledge here. Let me ask you though, if, if you were to analyze your last 10 customers, what did, what, what did you see that they were doing wrong? And then what, how did you fix it? Or what, what, what did you get? What got them on the right track?
B
Yeah. So after like the configuration things that I mentioned, the next thing is, the next couple things are building a funnel. Lots of companies just run a couple ads, they just promote one or two things and you know, that's cool. But to, to really build a funnel, you need to have different steps there. You need to make sure that you're staying in front of people for the full buying cycle. So yeah, if someone only buys this once a year, you need to be retargeting for 365 days. So having that set up and then having the reporting set up so you can track and see what's going on. If you're not able to see that in what you're doing just now. So tracking reporting is big. A lot of the LinkedIn creative tends to be kind of boring. So creative is, is, is a big thing.
A
Creative does stand out on that platform. Yeah.
B
So if you bring good creative to LinkedIn, you will stand out and that has a big impact. There's a lot of data out there that the more emotion you can put back into your ads, the more memorable they're going to be. Yeah, that could be hard to do in B2B sometimes I get it. But yeah, you know, the start comes from, if you're using people to post and you're boosting it, you're just naturally going to have some more emotion that comes through with that versus a company page ad. So we're all about the thought leader ads. Those are having the biggest impact right now.
A
Yeah, I like the thought leader approach you were taking. What is it? What is the one thing they were doing wrong or what did you get them to stop doing?
B
Yeah, and into the thought leader post, it's often like the formatting of the post. You know, when you post on LinkedIn, the first few lines only show up before the read more button. So that in that those first few lines you need to have a clear hook and a clear. You need to. Clearly, it needs to be clear what your post is about, because too often do I see people are making posts on LinkedIn, but within those first few lines, you don't know what this post is about. So you're going to click. Yeah. And then you might be getting the wrong clicks because your post wasn't clear enough in those first few lines. You know, everyone knows those first few lines are important, but it needs to be clear on what the post is about and then enough of a hook to get them to click.
A
Great stuff. I'm going to ask you, just on a macro level, is LinkedIn becoming more powerful way for B2B companies to build their funnel or is it starting to diminish?
B
You know, that is a good question. I think, I think overall it's becoming more of an ecosystem. Like with the APIs that are evolving and these tools like Clay that are evolving, we're building more systems that involve, you know, the targeting of the list we're going after. But then once a company reaches a website, we want to then go find all the people we can and send emails to them. So it's becoming more of a system in that, you know, on LinkedIn we're doing the posting, we're doing the ads, but then once an account shows interest, if we can identify any of those people, we want to go be reaching out via email. So we're adding on these other components to it and it's, it's becoming more of an ecosystem that way.
A
Yeah. A sidebar to that. LinkedIn obviously wants to get me to pay, whether I'm paying. It was heavily influenced first by, you know, the job side of it, then the Sales Navigator side to it. How important is it for me as a CEO or CRO, cmo, to be on Navigator, to be a customer, to be anything else that you, that you recommend on that level. Because I don't mind writing LinkedIn a check. I'd rather do it though, to drive advertising, not to join all of their other levels. But, but maybe I need to.
B
Yeah. For most of those roles, you don't need Sales Navigator, you don't really need Premium unless you want to be. You know, I do enjoy being able to look up anybody I can on LinkedIn when I, when I can go through that.
A
So who's stalking who?
B
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's cool from that end, but unless you're like an sdr, reaching out to people, building lists, you know, Sales nav isn't as important. So yeah.
A
Ready for my quick fire round. We're at that point. Anthony, you like so much great information, but let me hit you with a couple quick questions. One, I'm starting a new company. I need you to help me with my LinkedIn. What's the first thing we would do?
B
We'd start posting. Yeah. Set the profiles, you know, make sure they're looking good and then start posting.
A
How much do I need to start to set up or do I wait a period of time until I start doing paid?
B
That's a good question. It just depends how fast you want to move. If you want to move faster, you'll. You'll start earlier. If you're more price sensitive, if you have less of a budget, you'll. You'll let the organic side. You'll start.
A
How do you go about setting a budget?
B
So setting a budget is usually a combination of what, what the company has allocated and wants to spend versus once you run it for a month or two, you'll start to see some baseline metrics and you're like, okay, we know it costs X for this many clicks, Y for this many leads. We're just going to crank it up and you know, those metrics hold for a while. So budgeting starts with what do we, what do we have to allocate? Usually we recommend. So if you're just like a very small company getting started, you can do as much as you want or little as you want, you can do 10 bucks a day. But for a really getting started, we Recommend Starting at 5k a month in ad spend and then going up from there. Less than that, you're just going to see more fluctuations, inconsistent results. Again, if you're a small company, it's fine to start smaller, but if you're a big company and you want consistent results, 5k or more is usually the, the budgeting line.
A
That's great. I. Great feedback. If you're starting a new company today, Anthony, with your background, what would you start?
B
If I started a new company today, it would probably be something, I don't know, A. I don't know. I've been diving into Claude code and like the stuff it can build and, and my mind is still in like blown mode and.
A
Are you dropping your mat? Are you dropping a Mac Mini with open claw? What setting up, Anthony, is the.
B
I haven't ordered that yet, but that might be coming soon.
A
Wouldn't it be interesting though where I talked to my agent who's going to set you guys up and we'll start testing you tomorrow. Yeah, with organic posts or with paid posts. We've used all your data, we've searched all your competitors, we've searched all your content, we've ingested it all.
B
I mean, you know, yeah, no, it's great. It's great to be able to do those things. It makes my job a lot faster.
A
Yeah, I just wonder how much the results will be the same. I know you mentioned the human in the middle, which I wholeheartedly endorse as well. Plus, I don't want us to get, you know, AI'd out of a job.
B
Right. It'll be very interesting to see what, you know, all these digital platforms turn to in a few years and yeah, I think there's be a lot of change in the next few years and we'll see what happens.
A
What has been the last question? Okay, just came to my mind. But what are people asking for you today that they didn't ask two years ago?
B
I think it is more on the systems approach just because purely this wasn't possible a couple years ago in terms of APIs that are available. So it is more of like we want to be syncing lists properly. We want to have these coordinated across different systems using something like clay to push lists back and forth. I'd say like that's the biggest thing that's changed, you know, other than just pure AI content generation. Like that's the biggest thing that's been changing. So that's my answer to that.
A
Anthony, this has been great. Thanks for taking time out that we both endured the back and forth of getting this scheduled, but Speedwork Social seemed like on fire and somebody that for all the companies out there that are looking for a next level partner in terms of building their LinkedIn is a good place to stop.
B
Yes. Come check it out speedworksocial.com or you can find me on LinkedIn. And Anthony Blattner. We also have a podcast called LinkedIn Ads Radio where we share lots of LinkedIn ads tips and tricks. So if you're getting into LinkedIn, come check us out. If you want help, let us know.
A
Ah, I should have mentioned the podcast. I'm sorry, I just didn't want the extra competition. Great talking with you, my friend.
B
You too, Keith. Thanks for having me.
Podcast: Liftoff with Keith Newman
Episode: How to Turn LinkedIn Into a Predictable Growth Channel (Without Wasting Ad Spend)
Guest: Anthony Blattner, Founder & Managing Partner, Speedwork Social
Published: April 7, 2026
Host: Keith Newman
In this episode, Keith Newman sits down with LinkedIn ads expert and Speedwork Social founder Anthony Blattner to dissect how startups and B2B companies can harness LinkedIn—not just as a professional hangout, but as a reliable, scalable engine for predictable customer and revenue growth. The conversation spans organic posting fundamentals, paid campaign landmines, content strategy, creative nuances, and the rise of AI-powered tools—all delivered with a founder-focused, actionable lens.
Timestamps: 01:09 – 04:00
Start with Organic: Get yourself and your team posting personal content, rather than relying solely on the company page.
Leverage the Team: Begin with executive leadership; the more voices, the wider your reach.
Sequence Paid Boosting: Once there’s organic momentum, start selectively boosting high-engagement employee posts using LinkedIn’s ‘thought leader ads.’
Timestamps: 02:43 – 07:07
Balance Authenticity & Value: Don’t be relentlessly promotional or only personal—strike a balance of expert knowledge, attainable tips, and subtle CTAs.
Case Studies as Lead Magnets: Real-world, teachable case studies are high-performers, especially when framed as “how you can do this too.”
Format Testing: All content types can work, but pure-text gets the most engagement and dwell time; videos/clickable assets are best for retargeting.
Timestamps: 07:32 – 09:02
Default Settings Dangers: Many founders waste budget leaving default settings on—specifically, turn OFF ‘Audience Expansion’ and ‘Audience Network.’
Start by Boosting Effective Organic Posts: Use boosted employee posts as the on-ramp to paid.
Timestamps: 09:24 – 10:25
Timestamps: 10:25 – 16:32
Demand Gen Dominance: LinkedIn is best for top-of-funnel discovery; direct response can work, but expect long sales cycles.
Who Should Use LinkedIn Ads?: Best for products/services with LTV over $15K and audiences active on LinkedIn (B2B, enterprise, professional services).
Reporting & Attribution:
Timestamps: 12:51 – 14:32
Ideal Funnel Structure:
Multiple Touches Required: “It takes usually several touch points for somebody to know enough and to trust you ... you need to have those retargeting campaigns running.” – Anthony (14:05)
Timestamps: 16:43 – 20:49
Content Generation: Use AI to draft and repurpose, but always humanize to avoid blandness.
Workflow Acceleration: Automate content generation from meeting transcripts for continual, relevant posting.
Targeting Innovation: Tools like Clay allow sophisticated segmentation and dynamic retargeting, integrating email, CRM, and web signals with LinkedIn advertising.
Timestamps: 20:49 – 23:17
Not Building True Funnels: Many only boost or run one ad—successful campaigns require full-funnel retargeting over the buying cycle, with proper tracking/reporting.
Underestimating Creative: B2B doesn’t mean boring; creative, emotional ads and strong hooks in the first lines outperform generic company posts.
Timestamps: 23:17 – 24:42
Timestamps: 25:09 – 26:46
Start Simple: Optimize individual and executive profiles; begin posting and building a culture of sharing.
When to Go Paid: Move to paid once you see sufficient organic traction or when growth needs to accelerate.
Budgeting Benchmarks: $5K/month minimum recommended for consistent results in paid LinkedIn ads for B2B/enterprise, but very early companies can start with less.
On the challenge of scheduling high-demand LinkedIn marketers:
“I think I’ve had heads of state easier to schedule and book. So I know your business is hot.” – Keith (00:39)
On overcomplicating content:
“No one wants to be the first person to like your comment. So [getting employees to like/share] gets a kickstarted and then it’s off to the races.” – Anthony (02:27)
On wasted ad spend:
“All of a sudden I’m getting inquiries from OnlyFans or something.” – Keith, joking about audience mis-targeting (08:46)
On the changing role of AI:
“You should take a human to review the content and make sure...add some personality to it. Because AI can be bland, right?” – Anthony (17:56)
On staying competitive:
“If you bring good creative to LinkedIn, you will stand out and that has a big impact ... the more emotion you can put back into your ads, the more memorable they’re going to be.” – Anthony (21:58)
| Step | Tactics/Tools | |-----------------------------|-------------------------------------------| | Organic Start | Executive + team personal posting | | Boosting | Thought Leader Ad format; case studies | | Paid Setup | Turn off Audience Expansion/Network | | Funnel Building | Cold boost → retarget → offer | | Content Mix | Start text; retarget with video/PDF | | Reporting | CRM attribution + LinkedIn integration | | Creative | Lead with emotional, clear hooks | | AI/Automation | Meeting transcript workflows, Clay, etc. | | Budgeting | $5K/mo+ for consistency |
This episode is an essential listen for any founder or B2B marketer aiming to demystify LinkedIn as a revenue channel. Anthony Blattner’s experience boils down years of trial and error into a crisp, actionable playbook—reminding listeners that predictable growth comes from orchestrated organic efforts, strategic paid boosts, creative hooks, disciplined attribution, and the strategic use of new AI and automation tools… but always with a human touch.
Find Anthony: