April 20, 2026
LinkedIn has been the safe B2B media choice for years. We’d argue almost too safe, in some cases! Is it time to move on?
It is still the platform most B2B marketers reach for when they want to target senior decision-makers, niche job functions, or named accounts. And yes, there is good reason for that. The targeting is strong. The professional context helps. For some campaigns, especially where you need precision over scale, LinkedIn still earns its place.
But being the default does not make it the best option.
Brands and agencies are throwing budget at LinkedIn because it feels like the sensible B2B move, not because it is delivering the best commercial return. And while ROAS for Linkedin is proving effective, the way we report the performance of our campaigns can get muddled…more on that later.
So LinkedIn works. Just not for everything.
If you need to get in front of a very specific business audience, LinkedIn is still one of the best platforms out there. Job title targeting, company targeting, industry filters, seniority layering. All useful. All valuable.
For high-consideration B2B offers, long sales cycles, and campaigns where relevance matters more than reach, LinkedIn can absolutely do the job.
But that does not mean it should get a free pass.
Too often, marketers stop at “the audience is there” and fail to ask the next question: is this actually the smartest way to drive business impact?
Cost of LinkedIn
LinkedIn ad spend is expensive (CFO’s baulk at it). Everyone in B2B knows it. But many still behave as though that is just the price of entry, rather than something that needs scrutiny.
The reality, at least in our view, is that it does.
A high CPC or CPL is not automatically bad if the quality is there. But too many LinkedIn campaigns are defended because the targeting looked right and the lead volume looked decent, while actual pipeline impact is somewhere between unclear and disappointing.
That is not premium performance. That is expensive guesswork.
If you are paying a premium to reach top-level audiences, you need proof that the value shows up further down the funnel. Not in-platform. Not in a neat slide with engagement stats. But In the CRM. In pipeline. In revenue.
Anything less is just social theatre…which leads us onto…
Carousel ads and document ads
LinkedIn carousel and document ads can drive strong engagement. More swipes. More opens. More interactions. Most marketers love them because they make the ER and CTR go up.
But let’s call them what they often are: busy metrics.
Someone flicking through a carousel or opening a document ad may be mildly interested, passing time, or simply responding to good creative. None of that tells you whether they are moving closer to a commercial decision.
But to caveat that – as a running theme in this blog – that does not make these formats useless.
They can work well for storytelling, message depth, thought leadership, and warming up harder-to-convert audiences. But if the reporting stops at engagement rate, you are not measuring business impact. You are measuring activity.
And activity is not the same thing as outcome.
This is where too many LinkedIn campaigns get over-praised. The format performs in-platform, so the campaign gets marked up as a success. Meanwhile, sales sees little change and the pipeline barely moves.
That should be a red flag, not a rounding error. Get your CRMs connected today.
If your UTMs are a mess, your LinkedIn reporting is probably fiction
On top of CRM connections, if you are not using clean UTM codes you are not really evaluating LinkedIn. You are just looking at a partial story and hoping for the best.
For a platform this expensive, that is somewhat reckless.
Every campaign should be trackable. This should not be optional for B2B teams – it’s a non-negotiable, and all the channels have these backend tools now.
Once you connect LinkedIn performance to actual business outcomes, one of two things usually happens: either the platform proves its value properly, or it gets exposed for relying on vanity metrics and optimistic reporting.
Both are useful outcomes and can help you tailor campaigns accordingly.
Reddit is getting harder to ignore for B2B
Big pivot from LinkedIn here – but we love Reddit. For a long time, Reddit sat outside the standard B2B paid social conversation. That is changing.
Because Reddit gives marketers access to something LinkedIn often cannot: real conversations in real communities, where people are asking better questions, sharing real frustrations, and talking in the language they actually use.
B2B brands are trying to understand pain points, pressure-test messaging, build relevance in specialist spaces, or reach audiences who are numb to polished corporate content.
Another caveat; Reddit is not a straight swap for LinkedIn. The environments are different. For some campaigns, especially those higher up the funnel or rooted in category education, community relevance, or technical credibility, Reddit may now be the better bet.
Time to stop treating LinkedIn like the default on vanilla settings.
Don’t rely on vanity metrics and connect up key tools to prove its worth. But also branch out to other platforms and test the waters.
If you need advice on how to do this, let us know!