LinkedIn matched audiences: How to get started

LinkedIn can be a difficult platform to master, but with the right combinations of targeting and messaging, brands can achieve success in generating results.

Custom audiences allow you to reach people who have been engaged with your business in some way and track lists of “dream companies” you’d like to work with.

This article provides an overview of how to get started with Matched Audiences and tactics for using them in your campaigns.

Types of Matched Audiences

LinkedIn enables a variety of first-party and third-party methods of building audiences. Here are the categories available at the time of writing this article:

• contact lists: Targeting individuals.
• company lists: Targeting anyone who works for a specific organization.
• Pixel-based retargeting: Reach everyone who visited selected pages on your site.
• Engagement-Based Retargeting: Based on in-platform activity, such as e.g.:
  • Single Image Ad Interaction.
  • Views of video ads.
  • Lead form opens/sends.
  • Commitment on the corporate side.
  • LinkedIn event RSVPs.

guidelines

The absolute minimum size for a matched audience to be served is 300. This means that after the list has been uploaded and processed, 300 people have to be matched on the platform.

You’ll likely see a drop due to the platform’s inability to match every person in your original document.

The platform will display a match rate after the list has finished syncing, so you can double-check your fields if the match rate seems unusually low.

But only because of you can Just targeting 300 people doesn’t mean you should. Larger audiences will generally see more efficient CPCs and CPAs, with a threshold of at least 50,000 people being ideal.

For company targeting, LinkedIn recommends including at least 1,000 companies.

For contact targeting, LinkedIn recommends at least 10,000 email addresses. If more than one email address matches the same user, that person will only be included once.

The maximum file size for both list types is 20 MB or 300,000 records.

When uploading a list, use the templates provided by LinkedIn. You can use just the email field for a contact list or the company name field for a company list if you want, but the more columns you can include, the more accurate you can expect the matching process to be.

Also, you must wait for LinkedIn to finish processing a list before you can target it in your campaigns. Generally, lists are ready within 48 hours, but occasionally it may take longer.

Finally, some CRMs and automation platforms allow you to sync lists directly. This compatibility, where available, can reduce the lift required to create a list while still allowing you to keep it up to date.

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layering targeting

Matched Audiences can be used in combination with LinkedIn’s other available targeting options. Think about how you can use your own audiences as well as additional levels like company size, function, seniority, title or others. Just note that you cannot combine contact lists with interests and characteristics.

For example, you can target a list of companies stratified with senior-level and higher affiliations if you want to avoid junior-level individuals.

Or you can retarget people who have visited your website and also work for companies with 500+ employees.

When setting up layers, you can use both “AND” and “OR” targeting. For example, you can reach people who are either List A or List B members and also have director-level seniority.

exclusions

Lists can also be valuable for making sure you’re not wasting money on people you don’t want to target.

For example, you can upload a list of your current customers and exclude them from campaigns to avoid reaching them. You should also exclude competitor companies so their employees don’t see your ads.

Website retargeting audiences can also come in handy when creating exclusions.

To block out job seekers, build an audience based on people visiting your “Careers” page.

If your product offers an online experience, you can exclude people who reach the login page as they are likely existing customers.

Upselling and ad sequencing

If your brand offers an opportunity to sell customers on additional tiers of service, sync lists of existing customers based on their tier or existing plans to then run ads for new products or services.

For example, CRM software users could have additional marketing automation features added to their existing plans.

You can also plan to show people different content after they complete interactions with your brand.

When you use lead forms to promote a downloadable buying guide, you can target people who have completed the guide form and promote an opportunity to request a demo.

By controlling which lists you include and exclude from campaigns, you can effectively set up ad sequencing between campaigns to stagger exposure down the sales funnel.

Lookalike targeting

Once you have created a Matched Audience, you can also create a corresponding Lookalike Audience. This will find people with characteristics similar to those on a specific list.

For example, if you upload a list of current clients, you can create a lookalike audience that includes people with similar job titles, group memberships, interests, and so on.

Be sure to test lookalikes in campaigns other than your original lists so you can segment the results, since you can’t isolate a specific audience’s performance within a single campaign.

Retrieving data from audiences

In addition to campaign targeting, LinkedIn offers some useful analytics to see details about the people in your lists.

To access this information for a contact list you’ve uploaded, navigate to the Audiences section, select an audience, and click the Insights button in the top right.

You’ll now see options for viewing the main properties, including:

• Interests
• Locations
• professional functions
• Professional Seniority
• Years of experience
• title
• companies
• company size
• Industry sectors
• birth rates

When you select a company list, you see the company engagement report, which shows details of how often people from each company:

• Busy with ads.
• Interacts organically with your business page.
• Or visited your website.

This report can also be useful to ensure your list is being matched to the correct companies.

If you’ve created website retargeting audiences, you can view similar details by navigating to Analyze > Website Demographics. You can also compare the characteristics of two different target groups.

Start testing audiences

If this article helped you identify some matched audiences that you haven’t tested yet, think about how you can implement them in your campaigns.

Whether you’re assembling lists of prospects to import into LinkedIn or starting to build engagement-based audiences to target people who engage with your brand, think about content that drives the level of people’s engagement with your brand brands make sense.

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The opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily those of Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

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