How to advertise on LinkedIn: your first campaign in Campaign Manager

Sort these out first, because two of them can't be changed later:

• A LinkedIn Page. You must associate one with the ad account to create ads or use all Campaign Manager features, and it can't be swapped once saved. To advertise for another Page, you create another ad account.
• The right currency. It's suggested from your profile and can't be changed after the account is created.
• A payment method. A new advertiser usually starts with a credit card, and ads can't run until one is added.
• Optional, but worth doing early: the LinkedIn Insight Tag on your website, for conversion tracking and retargeting.

Sources: LinkedIn Help: Get started with setting up your ad account in Campaign Manager, checked 15 October 2026; LinkedIn Help: Associate a LinkedIn Page with an ads account, checked 15 October 2026; LinkedIn Help: Create an ad account in Campaign Manager as a new advertiser, checked 15 October 2026

On desktop:

1. From your LinkedIn homepage, click For Business at the top of the page and select Advertise.
2. If you use Business Manager, check the right account is selected in the upper-right corner, or select your profile so the ad account isn't owned by a Business Manager.
3. On the welcome screen, check the suggested account name, Company Page and currency, and click Change next to any you want to alter. If you don't admin a Page, click Add new to create one.
4. Tick the box to agree to the LinkedIn Ads Agreement and Advertising Guidelines.
5. Click Create account. LinkedIn takes you straight to ad set creation.

• You're made account manager and billing admin automatically, so you can add colleagues. LinkedIn recommends having more than one account manager.
• To add a card later: open the ad account, click Billing, then Add payment details on the Billing setup tab. LinkedIn may place a temporary hold on the card that clears within 5 to 7 business days.

Sources: LinkedIn Help: Create an ad account in Campaign Manager as a new advertiser, checked 15 October 2026; LinkedIn Help: Get started with setting up your ad account in Campaign Manager, checked 15 October 2026; LinkedIn Help: Add or update your credit card information in Campaign Manager, checked 15 October 2026

Campaign Manager has four levels, each inside the one above:

• If you set a shared objective and budget optimisation at campaign level, you don't choose objective, budget or schedule in each ad set.

Sources: LinkedIn Help: How LinkedIn's advertising tool works, checked 15 October 2026; LinkedIn Help: Get started with setting up ad campaigns in Campaign Manager, checked 15 October 2026

LinkedIn's help describes the ad set settings in this order:

1. Choose an objective. It decides which ad formats, optimisation goals and bidding strategies you can use.
2. Build an audience, or pick a saved one, to decide who can see the ads.
3. Choose an ad format. Pick flexible ads if you want to mix formats in one campaign.
4. Optionally add URL tracking parameters to the destination link.
5. Choose placements, such as whether to include the LinkedIn Audience Network.
6. Set the bid type, budget and schedule.
7. Optionally add conversion tracking, then create your ads.

• Changing the objective resets the settings you've already picked.
• The objective and ad format can't be changed once the ad set launches.

Source: LinkedIn Help: Understanding settings for ad sets in Campaign Manager, checked 15 October 2026

Match the objective to what you want people to do:

• A Talent leads objective also exists, but only for companies with an active LinkedIn Recruiter contract.

Source: LinkedIn Help: Marketing objectives available for your ad campaigns, checked 15 October 2026

Prices are set in an auction. You compete with other advertisers targeting similar people, and what you pay depends on your audience, your bidding strategy, your objective and your ad's relevance score: more relevant ads pay less.

• Bidding strategies: Maximum delivery (automated, spends your full budget), Manual (most control over the bid) and Cost cap (a maximum cost per result).
• Minimums, from LinkedIn's advertising site: $10 a day for any ad format, and $100 lifetime for a new campaign. Once it launches, the lifetime minimum becomes $10 times the days scheduled.
• With a daily budget, spend on one day can be up to 100% higher than the budget, but on a continuous schedule a week never goes above seven times the daily amount.
• A lifetime budget never goes over the total you set.

Sources: LinkedIn Help: LinkedIn's advertising cost and pricing, checked 15 October 2026; LinkedIn Ads: Making the most of your budget, checked 15 October 2026; LinkedIn Help: Campaign and ad set budgets, checked 15 October 2026

Common blockers:

Sources: LinkedIn Help: Associate a LinkedIn Page with an ads account, checked 15 October 2026; LinkedIn Help: Get started with setting up your ad account in Campaign Manager, checked 15 October 2026; LinkedIn Help: Add or update your credit card information in Campaign Manager, checked 15 October 2026; LinkedIn Help: Understanding settings for ad sets in Campaign Manager, checked 15 October 2026

Zolyp, which publishes this guide, is our own product, so weigh this section with that in mind. Zolyp doesn't run LinkedIn ads. It writes and schedules your organic company Page posts and shows their analytics, which makes it easier to see which post is worth paying to promote. LinkedIn is one of the 9 platforms it publishes to (Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Business, X, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, and Threads), and you approve the week before anything goes live. Plans that create the posts start at $29 a month, with a 3-day free trial.