Targeting options for LinkedIn Ads

Last updated: 3 weeks ago

Get your message in front of the right people when they’re most engaged by targeting your ideal audience with LinkedIn advertising. Choose targeting options from:

  • Locations 
  • Audience attributes such as company, job experience, education, demographics, interests and traits
  • Custom audiences you’ve created using Matched Audiences 
Learn more about the options available to you in the sections below.

Important to know

Reach for some attributes or audiences may be limited when targeting within the European Economic Area (EEA) or Switzerland. Learn more about our best practices for LinkedIn Ads audience targeting.

Here's a tip

If you’re launching an Accelerate campaign, we automatically create an audience optimized towards your objective by using your product name and description, audience signals you select, and historical data from your account’s previous campaigns. Keep in mind, not all audience targeting facets are available for Accelerate campaigns. Learn more about targeting for Accelerate campaigns.

Location (required)

You can reach member accounts based on where they live or where they live and visit using location. You can target member accounts based on geographic location by:

  • Permanent location - Targets the permanent or long-term location specified by the member account in their profile. 
  • Recent or permanent location - Targets the permanent or long-term location specified by the member account in their profile and/or by their IP address for short-term visits.

Recent location can only target by country and continent. For example, if a member account profile lists Brasilia, Brazil as their permanent location and they recently visited San Francisco, California, recent location targeting will include: 

  • Brasilia (permanent location) 
  • Brazil (permanent location) 
  • South America (permanent location) 
  • United States (recent location, based on IP address) 
  • North America (recent location, based on IP address) 

For the location attribute, keep in mind:

  • Message ad campaigns target by permanent, long-term locations only.
  • Certain countries are part of a prohibited list and won’t be available for targeting selections.

This attribute may be limited when targeting within the European Economic Area (EEA) or Switzerland. Learn more about our best practices for LinkedIn Ads audience targeting.

Profile language

You must also select one of the 21 profile languages for your target audience. Keep in mind:

  • When you select English, your campaign will target all member accounts in the location your campaign is targeting, regardless of the language member accounts have selected on their profiles. Please note, this doesn’t apply to Sponsored Messaging.  
  • When you select any language other than English, your ads will appear to member accounts that meet your target audience criteria and match your language selection.

For Sponsored Messaging campaigns: 

  • When you select any language, your ads will appear to member accounts that meet your target audience criteria and match your language selection.

We recommend your ad copy be in the language you selected. Once you select a language and add an ad, your language selection can't be changed. Learn more about supported languages for LinkedIn Ad campaigns.

Audience attributes

Company

  • Company Category - Allows you to target companies by segments such as S&P 500.

  • Company Connections - Allows you to reach the 1st-degree connections of employees at companies you select. This is only available for companies with more than 500 employees.

  • Company Followers - Allows you to target your own LinkedIn Page followers. To use this targeting facet, your Ads account must be associated with your LinkedIn Page. When not using this facet, by default your campaigns may reach both followers and non-followers.

  • Company Growth Rate - Allows you to target companies by their rate of growth year over year, determined by factors such as employee growth or inferred data from other similar companies within the same location and industry.

  • Company Industry - The primary industry of the company where the member account is employed, as stated by the company. Additional industries may be inferred about the company and included for targeting. Company Industry targeting requires mapping member accounts, companies, and industries.  

    • By default, member account industries are derived from the member account’s current company.  
    • For more information on member account to company mapping, see the Company Name attribute.

    Company Industry primarily uses Page admin member account input via industry typeahead. The list of industries is a proprietary taxonomy developed by LinkedIn’s team. For a select number of Pages, the industry mapping uses a LinkedIn-annotated industry rather than the Page input.

    If there is no industry for a company entered from the Page admin or by LinkedIn annotation, then the Company Industry is determined by a Deep Learning Model that uses the following attributes of Company and Industry to determine mappings: 

    • Company Name 
    • Company Size 
    • Company’s Members’ Education (member field of studies/degree to infer industry) 
    • Company’s Members’ Skills 
    • Company’s Member’s Job Distribution (that is, Members’ job position/title distribution/frequency within this company) 
    • Company’s Members Past and Current Companies

    If the member account’s company doesn’t have an industry, then LinkedIn uses the industry that the member account adds on their LinkedIn profile. 

  • Company Name - The organization a member account lists as their employer. Company Names are based on LinkedIn Pages, which may be created by a Page admin or auto-generated by using third-party data sources. They are determined by Pages on LinkedIn and targeting requires mapping member accounts and Pages. Keep in mind:

    • If a member account uses typeahead to add a Company Name, then that member account is mapped to the respective Page.  
    • If a member account uses a String as the Company Name, then the member account is mapped to a Page using a Deep Learning Model. The Deep Learning Model uses the following attributes of the member account and Page to determine a mapping:  
      • Company Name - Note, in some instances, alternative Company Names are determined using a Deep Learning Model that identifies those alternative names from the company’s web page content.
      • Company Industry and Member Account Industry
      • Company Location and Member Account Location (Country, City, Region, and Postal)
      • Company Properties (is company auto-generated, logo)
      • Number of Positions Associated with Company
      • Number of Member Account’s First-degree Connections Associated with Company

  • Company Revenue - Allows you to target companies by their estimated annual revenue. 

  • Company Size - Allows you to target based on the estimated size of the organization a member account lists as their employer. Company Size is determined by the number of employees listed on the organization's LinkedIn Page.

    Company Size targeting primarily uses Page admin input data. A Page admin enters a company size, and this is used for company size targeting. If a Page admin hasn’t entered a company size, then the company size is determined by the number of member accounts associated with the Page.

    Please see the Company Name attribute for how member accounts are mapped to companies.

Here's a tip

We can’t use Showcase Pages as part of our attribute targeting. Showcase Pages are extensions of a LinkedIn Page, designed for spotlighting a brand, business unit, or initiative.

Demographics

  • Member Age - An estimation of age based on profile information.

  • Member Gender - Determination of gender is inferred, based on profile information.

This attribute may be limited when targeting within the European Economic Area (EEA) or Switzerland. Learn more about our best practices for LinkedIn Ads audience targeting.

Education

  • Degrees - Recognized degrees granted by a college, university, or other learning institution.

  • Fields of Study - The major or area of study within a member account's listed degree. Standardized from member-entered degrees.

  • Member Schools - The school, college, university, or other learning institution shown on a member account as having completed a course.

Job Experience

  • Job Title - The position of a member account within their organization. Job Title targeting uses data that is primarily member account input, with some business logic and inference. No third-party data is used. 

    • If a member account selects their position title from typeahead, then the standardized title of that typeahead is used.  
    • If the member account manually types a string as position title, then rules and inference models are used to infer the job title. 
    • The model takes the raw title string as input, and in some cases, uses a MultiLayerPerception (MLP) AI model to classify the input into job titles. The MLP AI model is trained on LinkedIn’s member account profile data. 

  • Job Function - Common tasks or activities undertaken within a job position. Member account Job Titles are mapped to Job Functions using LinkedIn’s proprietary taxonomy. Please note, no AI modeling or inference is used to map Job Titles to Job Function.

  • Job Seniority - The rank or level of influence of a member account's current role in their organization. Member account Job Titles are mapped to Seniority using LinkedIn’s proprietary taxonomy.

  • Member Skills - Highly relevant keywords found within a member account's profile and skills section that indicate expertise in a particular area. This includes member-entered skills in the Skills & Endorsements section on their profile, skills mentioned in their profile text, or inferred skills based on their listed skills.

  • Years of Experience - The years of professional experience a member account has accumulated. We exclude any gaps in experience and don’t double-count overlapping positions. Years of Experience targeting is calculated based on Job Title dates. No inferred data is used. This is a direct 1:1 match based on the start and end month and/or year of each position listed in the member account profile through today. 

Interests and Traits

  • Member Groups - Member Group targeting is based on the groups to which a member account belongs. No inferred or modeled data is used.

    Please note, LinkedIn prohibits targeting sensitive categories, please visit our ads policy to learn more. To prevent ad targeting discrimination based on protected characteristics, Member Groups may not be used in an exclusionary manner.

    Important to know

    Beginning on May 15, 2024, Member Groups will no longer be available as a targeting attribute for the European Economic Area (EEA) or Switzerland. For more information, please review our best practices for LinkedIn Ads audience targeting.

  • Member Interests - Interest categories identified by and inferred from member account actions and engagement with content on LinkedIn. Learn more about interest targeting options.

  • Member Traits - Direct and inferred traits of member accounts based on actions they take on LinkedIn, their LinkedIn profile, device preferences, and/or general (coarse, not precise) location. Learn more about member trait targeting options.

LinkedIn’s targeting solutions may not be used to target sensitive categories nor to discriminate based on protected personal characteristics like gender, age, or actual or perceived race/ethnicity. If an ad is flagged as discriminatory it will be immediately taken down. Learn more about about sensitive categories and discrimination in our ads policy and please visit our ad targeting discrimination page to learn what customers must certify when applying certain targeting choices.

When choosing audience attributes, keep in mind:

  • A maximum of 100 selections are permitted for demographic-based targeting options.

  • If your targeting selections severely limit your reach, you will be notified with an Audience Too Narrow message which prevents you from saving your targeting and moving to the next step. Increase your audience size to save your changes.

  • Please note, LinkedIn disables targeted advertising to members in the European Union that may be under the age of 18.

Predictive audiences

Predictive audiences help expand your campaign’s reach by creating an audience of people predicted to perform actions similar to those within your source data. To create a predictive audience, we apply LinkedIn’s AI to your data to automatically generate a new custom audience to use in your campaigns.

The data sources you choose in Campaign Manager should align to the specific result you’d like to accomplish. You can create a predictive audience from one of the following: 

Matched Audiences

LinkedIn Matched Audiences are custom audience segments you can use as targeting selections in your advertising campaigns. With Matched Audiences, you can:

  • Upload a list of companies or contacts

  • Retarget member accounts that:

    • Visited a page on your website
    • Engaged with your single image ad
    • Engaged with your document ad 
    • Viewed your video ad
    • Opened or submitted your Lead Gen Form
    • Opened a conversation or clicked on any conversation ad call-to-action (CTA) 
    • Engaged with your company Page
    • Responded to your LinkedIn Event

  • Integrate contacts from a third-party system

Matched Audiences created from Events or company Pages may be limited when targeting within the European Economic Area (EEA) or Switzerland. Learn more about our best practices for LinkedIn Ads audience targeting.

Here's a tip

To select a Matched Audience when setting up targeting on a new campaign, you’ll need to use Advanced Mode.

Audience size

As you select your targeting options, we show you an estimate of the audience size you'll be able to reach on the right side of the page. The minimum audience size required to run an advertising campaign is 300 member accounts. Learn more about target audience size best practices.

Learn more

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