LinkedIn’s Advertising Cost & Bid Types

LinkedIn’s self-serve advertising allows you to control your campaigns’ cost by setting budgets and bids.

1. Setting budgets:
   • The daily budget is the maximum amount you want to spend per day. Your campaign will stop serving for the day once it reaches its daily budget. It will start serving again the following day. The ad(s) will continue serving until you have reached your total budget or end date (if you have set one).
   • The total budget is the maximum amount you want to spend for the duration of your campaign. Once your campaign hits the total budget it will stop serving and the status will change from ‘on’ to ‘completed’.
     Note: The daily budget maximum is $20,000. You’ll not be able set a daily budget any higher than. This doesn’t apply for enterprise advertisers with managed accounts.
2. Setting bids (the maximum amount you want to pay for each click or every 1,000 impressions). There are two types of bidding options:
   • Automated bid – Automated bidding utilizes machine learning to maximize budget efficiency by delivering the most results (such as clicks, impressions, video views, or conversions) based on your objective without the need to manually adjust the bid.Notes:
     • We recommend selecting automated bidding to gain an understanding of the performance potential of your entire budget (how many results the campaign is able to generate for your budget).
     • Auto-bidding charges by impression to allow for smoother campaign delivery and better budget utilization.
     • You can use the maximum cost bid option to better control cost per result and campaign spend.
   • Maximum cost bid (Manual bidding) (CPC/CPM/CPV) allows you to specify the maximum amount you’re willing to pay per click, 1000 impressions or video view:The bid amount should be defined by how much a campaign result (click/impression/lead) is worth to your business. Campaign Manager will help by suggesting a bid range. Maximum cost bid is the best option for cost-conscious advertisers.However, if the selected bid is not high enough, the campaign will be less competitive in the auction, resulting in fewer opportunities to reach your target audience. The bid will need to be adjusted manually throughout the campaign.
     • Pay-per-click (CPC): You specify the maximum amount you’re willing to pay per click (Example: $3.00 per click). Remember to also set a daily budget to identify the most that you’re willing to spend each day.
     • Pay-per-1,000 impressions (CPM): You specify a set cost for each 1,000 times your ad is shown, no matter how many clicks you receive. This is a good option if you care more about the number of times your ad is shown than the number of clicks.
     • Pay-per-Video View (CPV): You specify the maximum amount you’re willing to pay per video view.Note: The suggested bid range represents an estimate of the current competing bids by other advertisers who are targeting the same audience.

In general, the higher you bid the more competitive your ads are and more likely you will have the opportunity to quickly hit your campaign goal.

Note: Since you’re competing with other advertisers for clicks and impressions, there isn’t a set cost for an ad campaign as it’s auction-based and not guaranteed inventory.

Sponsored InMail

Sponsored InMail messages are purchased on a cost-per-send basis, which means you will pay per unit for each Sponsored InMail message delivered. Learn more about Sponsored InMail bids, budget, and billing.

Minimum costs to advertise in Campaign Manager