Lowering LinkedIn Ads Costs

Look, I get it – LinkedIn ads can feel like highway robbery. A few clicks and your budget’s already in the red. The good news is, you don’t need to abandon LinkedIn for cost concerns. Instead, you can pair it with cheaper channels to get the best of both worlds.

In this article, I’m giving you a simple framework for combining LinkedIn’s precise firmographic targeting with Meta’s budget-friendly remarketing. You’ll see how to keep your brand in front of the right people without setting your wallet on fire.

By exploring each step of this method, you’ll discover how to steadily guide B2B prospects from total strangers to warm leads. If you’re sick of pricey clicks on LinkedIn, stick around to learn a more efficient, scalable approach.

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Why Lower LinkedIn Ads Costs Matter

We’re all working with limited budgets, but if your audience hangs out on LinkedIn, there’s no better channel for zoning in on the exact companies and job titles that fit your ICP. That’s because LinkedIn’s firmographic targeting is one-of-a-kind, letting you cherry-pick by company size, industry, and role. The precision is priceless, but you pay for it.

While that power is game-changing, it also means you can see your ad spend skyrocket before you even hit your stride. That’s why I love combining LinkedIn for cold awareness with cheaper remarketing on other platforms. As Kev and I discussed,

You might catch them on LinkedIn once a week, but there’s a good chance they’re on Meta daily. By mixing the two, you can lower costs and still get in front of decision-makers when it counts.

Use LinkedIn for Cold Awareness, Not Constant Conversion

As we’ve said, LinkedIn gives you the targeting capabilities to ensure that your budget is spent getting in front of the right people. That’s why it’s a favourite of ours in the ‘cold layer’ of our advertising i.e. reaching out to people who haven’t previously engaged with our brand. LinkedIn charges you a premium for this traffic, but it’s absolutely worth it.

However when allocating your remarketing budget, we like to test shifting it to other cheaper platforms like Meta. Particularly if you know your audience ‘hangs out’ there quite often. We know that sales cycles in B2B can be long, and a lot of the game is staying top of mind until someone is ready to enter a buying cycle. So we may as well find a more efficient way of doing that.

Shifting Audiences from LinkedIn to Meta

In order to target the ‘right’ people on Meta with remarketing, you need to do your best to shift audiences from LinkedIn to Meta. One way to do that is to use LinkedIn Ads to push your ICP to your website. At this point your Meta Pixel will pick them up on your landing page, and you can then remarket to them on Meta.

Depending on the volume of traffic you’re sending to your website, you can further segment audiences by things like time on site or pages visited. If you use UTMs in your LinkedIn Ads, you can also capture that audience and segment it to reuse on platforms like Meta.

Another way to do this is to capture an email address with a lead form on LinkedIn Ads, and then to upload that to Meta as a list for retargeting. I don’t recommend this method as much given that:

• It’s generally easier to get someone to click to your website than fill out a form
• The match rates with email list uploads can be quite low

Keep the ‘Five Stages of Awareness’ Front and Centre

As always, we recommend you should use our demand gen framework (The 5 Stages of Awareness) as a guide for what content to push in front of your ICP.

How you use those stages can change depending on the platform.

On LinkedIn, where ad costs are high, stick to the first three stages of awareness:

• Unaware → Educate them on a pain point.
• Problem-Aware → Help them understand why the problem exists.
• Solution-Aware → Show them what solutions are available.

This means running top-of-funnel ads focused on education – think insightful LinkedIn carousels, short videos, or engaging blog posts. By keeping LinkedIn focused on awareness and education, you avoid paying LinkedIn’s premium for conversion-focused ads that don’t perform well with cold audiences.

Then, move the conversation over to Meta. Since Meta’s ads are much cheaper, this is where you can introduce stages 4 and 5:

• Product-Aware → Position your product as the best option.
• Most Aware → Give them a reason to act now.

At this stage, Meta remarketing ads should push high-intent actions – case studies, testimonials, product comparisons, and calls to action. Since Meta lets you stay in front of prospects for a fraction of LinkedIn’s cost, it’s the perfect place to run lower-funnel conversion ads without breaking the bank.

So if budget is tight, leverage LinkedIn for discovery and education, Meta for retargeting and conversions – that’s how you make the Five Stages of Awareness work for your ad strategy while keeping costs under control.

Important Note: You should still use Meta to push stages 1-3 content to your audience. We don’t know exactly where people are at in their buying journey, and they can bounce around. So also use it for education!

Turn LinkedIn Into a Smarter, More Cost-Effective Growth Engine

If you’ve been pouring money into LinkedIn ads expecting direct conversions, it’s no wonder your budget disappears fast. LinkedIn is still one of the best platforms for reaching your exact audience – but only if you use it strategically. By combining LinkedIn’s precise targeting with Meta’s lower-cost remarketing, you can stretch your ad spend further while staying in front of high-quality prospects.

Here’s how to put this into action:

• Use LinkedIn for awareness, not conversions – Target cold audiences in stages 1-3 of awareness (Unaware, Problem-Aware, Solution-Aware). Run ads that educate and engage rather than pushing for demos too soon.
• Refine your LinkedIn targeting – Go deep on firmographics. Job title, company size, and industry must align with your ICP to avoid wasted spend.
• Drive engaged traffic to your site – Optimize your LinkedIn campaigns for clicks, video views, or engagement—not lead gen. You’re building an audience, not closing deals.
• Retarget on Meta for a fraction of the cost – Once a LinkedIn visitor lands on your site or watches 50%+ of your video, hit them with remarketing ads on Meta. Here, you can cover all five stages of awareness, including direct conversion plays.
• Leverage automation and audience expansion – Use your CRM or tools like HubSpot to sync lead data between platforms. If needed, test lookalike audiences to scale beyond your original lists.

When you stop treating LinkedIn as an instant lead generator and instead as a high-quality audience builder, everything changes. You get more value out of every ad dollar spent, your prospects move through the buying journey more naturally, and your conversion costs drop.

Now, it’s time to put this into action. Start by auditing your LinkedIn campaigns – are you speaking to the right stage of awareness? Are you optimizing for engagement, not just leads? If not, it’s time to switch gears and make LinkedIn work for you, not against your budget.