You run LinkedIn ads. People click through to your website. They browse your products or services. Then they leave without converting. Sound familiar?
Most advertisers accept this as normal. After all, only 2-3% of first-time visitors actually convert. But here’s what they miss: those visitors already know who you are. They’ve shown interest. They’re just not ready to buy yet. Letting them disappear means throwing away your best leads.
LinkedIn retargeting fixes this problem. It lets you serve targeted ads to people who’ve already engaged with your brand, whether they visited your website, watched your video content, or interacted with your company page. This dramatically improves your conversion rates because you’re reaching warm prospects instead of cold audiences.
This guide walks you through the complete setup process. You’ll learn how to install the LinkedIn Insight Tag, build different types of retargeting audiences using Matched Audiences, launch campaigns with the right settings, and optimize your audiences for better performance. By the end, you’ll have a working retargeting system that recaptures lost opportunities and improves your ROI.
What is LinkedIn retargeting and why it matters
LinkedIn retargeting lets you show ads to people who’ve already interacted with your business on LinkedIn or visited your website. The platform calls this Matched Audiences, and it includes several targeting options: website visitors, video viewers, lead gen form users, company page followers, and uploaded contact lists. Each option creates an audience segment you can target with specific ad campaigns.
How LinkedIn tracks your audiences
The system works through the LinkedIn Insight Tag, a piece of JavaScript code you install on your website. This tag tracks visitors and matches them to LinkedIn profiles (when possible). LinkedIn also tracks engagement with your content on the platform itself, like video views, form submissions, and page interactions. You can then group these users into audiences and serve them targeted ads based on their behavior.
Why retargeting improves your results
Retargeting audiences convert at 30% higher click-through rates compared to cold audiences, according to LinkedIn’s pilot data. Your cost per conversion also drops by around 14% because you’re reaching people who already know your brand. Instead of introducing yourself repeatedly, you move prospects through your sales funnel with content that matches where they are in the buying process.
Warm prospects who’ve already shown interest in your business are exponentially more likely to convert than cold audiences who’ve never heard of you.
Think about your own buying behavior. You rarely purchase on the first visit. You compare options, read reviews, discuss with colleagues, and revisit sites multiple times before deciding. LinkedIn retargeting keeps your brand in front of prospects during this entire evaluation period, not just during their initial visit.
Step 1. Get your LinkedIn ads account ready
Before you can launch any linkedin retargeting campaigns, you need two things in place: a LinkedIn Campaign Manager account and the LinkedIn Insight Tag installed on your website. Campaign Manager is LinkedIn’s advertising platform where you create campaigns, build audiences, and track performance. The Insight Tag is the tracking pixel that monitors visitor behavior and sends that data back to LinkedIn. Without both of these components working correctly, you can’t build retargeting audiences.
Create your Campaign Manager account
You access Campaign Manager through your LinkedIn profile. Navigate to the Work icon in the top right corner of LinkedIn and select Advertise from the dropdown menu. If you’ve never created an advertising account, LinkedIn walks you through the setup process. You’ll need to provide your company name, link to your company page, and set up billing information.
If your company already has a Campaign Manager account, ask your administrator for access. They can add you under Account Assets > User Management and assign you the appropriate permission level. You need at least Campaign Manager access to create audiences and launch campaigns.
Install the LinkedIn Insight Tag
The Insight Tag is a JavaScript snippet that goes in the header section of every page on your website. To find your unique tag code, log into Campaign Manager, select your account, and click Account Assets > Insight Tag. Then click Install my Insight Tag and copy the code that appears.
The code looks like this:
<script type="text/javascript">
_linkedin_partner_id = "123456";
window._linkedin_data_partner_ids = window._linkedin_data_partner_ids || [];
window._linkedin_data_partner_ids.push(_linkedin_partner_id);
</script><script type="text/javascript">
(function(l) {
if (!l){window.lintrk = function(a,b){window.lintrk.q.push([a,b])};
window.lintrk.q=[]}
var s = document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];
var b = document.createElement("script");
b.type = "text/javascript";b.async = true;
b.src = "https://snap.licdn.com/li.lms-analytics/insight.min.js";
s.parentNode.insertBefore(b, s);})(window.lintrk);
</script>
Paste this code right before the closing </head> tag on every page. If you use a content management system like WordPress, add it to your header template or use a tag manager like Google Tag Manager to deploy it sitewide.
Installing the Insight Tag correctly is the single most important technical step in your retargeting setup. Without it, LinkedIn can’t track your website visitors or build audiences.
Verify your tag installation
After installing the tag, verify it works correctly. Return to Account Assets > Insight Tag in Campaign Manager. LinkedIn shows you a list of domains where it detects your tag. Your website domain should appear here with an Active status indicator within 24 hours of installation.
You can also test immediately using the LinkedIn Insight Tag Chrome Extension. Install this browser extension and visit your website. The extension icon turns blue when it detects a properly installed tag on the page.
Step 2. Build your core retargeting audiences
With your Insight Tag installed and working, you can now create Matched Audiences to retarget. LinkedIn offers several audience types, and you should build multiple audiences based on different behaviors and engagement levels. Each audience type serves a different purpose in your linkedin retargeting strategy, from capturing recent website visitors to reconnecting with older leads who went cold.
Create website retargeting audiences
Website audiences form the foundation of your retargeting strategy. Navigate to Account Assets > Matched Audiences in Campaign Manager, then click Create audience and select Website. Give your audience a clear name like "All Website Visitors 30 Days" or "Pricing Page Visitors 90 Days" so you can identify it easily later.
Under Match a URL that, you set the rules for which pages trigger audience membership. The Equals option targets visitors to one specific URL. Use this when you want to retarget people who viewed a particular product page or landing page. The Starts with option includes all pages that begin with your specified URL, perfect for capturing everyone who visited any page in a specific section like your blog or product category.
The Contains option adds anyone who visited pages with a specific word or phrase in the URL. This works well when you have multiple related pages sharing a common URL pattern. You can combine multiple rules using AND/OR logic. For example, create an audience of people who visited your pricing page AND your case studies page, indicating high purchase intent.
Set your lookback window between 30 and 365 days. Shorter windows create smaller but more engaged audiences. Longer windows build larger audiences but include people whose interest may have cooled. Most advertisers start with 90 days as a balance between size and recency.
Your website audiences need at least 300 matched members before LinkedIn allows you to use them in campaigns. High-traffic sites reach this threshold quickly, while smaller sites may need several weeks.
You need different audiences for different stages of your funnel. Create separate audiences for homepage visitors, product page viewers, pricing page visitors, and people who reached your checkout or demo request page but didn’t convert. This segmentation lets you serve different ad messages based on how far each person progressed.
Build engagement audiences
LinkedIn also tracks interactions with your content on the platform itself. Create a Video audience by selecting the video engagement type, choosing your viewing percentage threshold (25%, 50%, 75%, or 97%), and selecting which video ad campaigns to include. People who watch 75% or more of your video show strong interest and deserve targeted follow-up.
Lead gen form audiences capture people who opened or submitted forms in your LinkedIn ad campaigns. Select Lead Gen Forms as your audience type, choose whether you want people who only opened the form or those who submitted it, and set your lookback period. People who submitted forms but haven’t purchased yet make excellent retargeting prospects.
Company page audiences include anyone who viewed your LinkedIn company page or clicked your page header CTA. These people actively sought out information about your business. Select Company as your audience type and choose your engagement timeframe. This audience typically stays smaller than website visitors but shows intentional interest in your brand.
Upload contact lists
Contact list uploads let you target existing customers, event attendees, or email subscribers on LinkedIn. Select Upload a list and choose whether you’re uploading companies or contacts. For contacts, LinkedIn accepts email addresses, which it matches to member profiles. Download LinkedIn’s CSV template to format your data correctly.
Your uploaded list needs at least 300 matched members to become usable, just like website audiences. LinkedIn’s match rates vary but typically range from 40% to 60% for business email addresses. Upload your customer list to create a retention audience, your trial users to encourage upgrades, or your event registrants to drive attendance.
You can also create lookalike audiences from your uploaded lists, though this falls under prospecting rather than retargeting. Focus first on building your core retargeting audiences before expanding to lookalikes.
Set proper exclusions
Build exclusion audiences to avoid wasting budget on people who already converted. Create a website audience for your thank you page or confirmation page, then exclude this audience from your retargeting campaigns. This prevents you from showing ads to people who already bought from you or submitted your lead form.
You should also create exclusion audiences for current customers by uploading your customer list, and for people who converted through lead gen forms by creating a lead gen form audience set to "submitted." Apply these exclusions across all your retargeting campaigns to focus your budget on prospects who haven’t converted yet.
Step 3. Launch campaigns with the right settings
Your retargeting audiences are built and ready to use. Now you launch campaigns that actually convert those warm prospects into customers. The settings you choose here determine whether your linkedin retargeting efforts succeed or fail. Wrong campaign settings waste budget on irrelevant impressions, while the right configuration maximizes your return on every dollar spent.
Choose your campaign objective and format
Click Create campaign in Campaign Manager and select your objective based on what you want retargeted visitors to do. Choose Website visits when driving traffic back to your site for further engagement. Select Lead generation when you want to capture contact information directly on LinkedIn without requiring another website visit. Pick Website conversions when your goal is driving purchases, demo requests, or other high-value actions on your site.
Your ad format matters just as much as your objective. Sponsored Content (single image ads) performs best for retargeting because these ads appear directly in the LinkedIn feed where users naturally engage. Video ads work exceptionally well for retargeting website visitors who didn’t convert, letting you tell a more complete story about your value proposition. Message ads deliver personalized messages directly to LinkedIn inboxes, creating a one-to-one feeling that works for high-value prospects.
Avoid Text ads for your primary retargeting campaigns. These small sidebar ads get limited visibility and deliver weaker click-through rates. Save your budget for formats that appear prominently in the feed where your retargeted audience will actually see and engage with them.
Configure your targeting and audience settings
Under Who is your target audience, scroll to the Audiences section and select Retargeting. Click the dropdown that appears and choose which audience type to add: Website, Video, Lead Gen Forms, or another option. Select the specific audience you created earlier, like "Pricing Page Visitors 90 Days" or "Video Viewers 75%."
You can layer multiple retargeting audiences together using OR logic. Adding three separate website audiences means LinkedIn shows your ads to people in any of those three groups. This approach works when you want broad reach across different segments. You can also add traditional targeting filters like job title or company size on top of your retargeting audiences using AND logic, though this reduces your audience size.
Apply your exclusion audiences in the same targeting section to prevent wasted spend on people who already converted or took your desired action.
Add your "Thank You Page Visitors" audience, your customer list, and your lead gen form submitters as exclusions. These people already converted and don’t need to see your retargeting ads anymore.
Set your bid strategy and budget
Select Manual bidding for retargeting campaigns instead of LinkedIn’s automated options. Manual bidding gives you complete control over your costs and lets you find the lowest bid that still delivers impressions. Start with a bid at the bottom of LinkedIn’s suggested range, typically $2 to $4 lower than their recommendation.
Your retargeting audience already knows your brand, so you don’t need to win every auction at premium prices. Monitor your delivery over the first few days. If your ads aren’t showing or you’re getting minimal impressions, increase your bid by $0.50 to $1.00 increments until you see consistent delivery. This approach saves money while still reaching your audience.
Budget at least $10 per day for each retargeting campaign to give LinkedIn enough flexibility to deliver results. Smaller budgets throttle delivery too much and prevent you from gathering meaningful performance data. If you have multiple retargeting campaigns running simultaneously, allocate more budget to audiences closer to conversion, like pricing page visitors, and less to earlier-stage audiences like blog readers.
Control ad frequency and rotation
LinkedIn automatically limits how often it shows your ads to the same person, but you can’t directly control frequency caps. Instead, manage frequency by creating five different ad variations in each campaign. LinkedIn rotates through these five ads, showing each person up to five different impressions over a 48-hour period for Sponsored Content.
Select Rotate ads evenly in your campaign settings rather than letting LinkedIn optimize automatically. The optimize setting pushes budget toward ads with early strong performance, but this can be misleading in retargeting campaigns where different messages resonate at different stages. Even rotation ensures all your prospects see your full message sequence.
Create ads that tell a progressive story across those five variations. Your first ad might reintroduce your value proposition. The second could showcase a customer success story. The third highlights specific features or benefits. The fourth addresses common objections. The fifth delivers a strong call to action with urgency or incentive. This sequence moves prospects from awareness to decision rather than hammering them with the same message repeatedly.
Step 4. Optimize and scale your audiences
Your campaigns are live and generating data. Now you shift focus to improving performance and expanding your reach. LinkedIn retargeting success comes from continuous testing, refinement, and scaling of what works. You need to monitor specific metrics, adjust your audiences based on actual behavior, and invest more budget in segments that convert.
Monitor your audience performance metrics
Track click-through rate, conversion rate, and cost per conversion for each retargeting audience. Access these metrics by selecting your campaign in Campaign Manager and filtering by audience in the performance dashboard. Your pricing page visitors should show higher conversion rates than homepage visitors because they demonstrated stronger purchase intent. If an audience underperforms after 30 days and 1,000 impressions, pause it and reallocate budget to better performers.
Compare your retargeting audiences against each other rather than against cold prospecting campaigns. A retargeting audience with a 2% CTR might seem weak compared to a prospecting campaign getting 3%, but that retargeting audience probably converts at double the rate. Look at your cost per acquisition across all audiences to identify your most efficient segments.
Set up conversion tracking in Campaign Manager under Account Assets > Insight Tag > Conversions to measure actual business outcomes. Define conversions for key actions like demo requests, purchases, or trial signups. This data shows which audiences generate revenue, not just clicks.
Your best retargeting audiences should deliver cost per conversion at least 30% lower than your cold prospecting campaigns while maintaining similar or higher conversion quality.
Refine audiences based on behavior
Narrow your website audiences to target only high-intent pages after reviewing which URLs drive conversions. If your blog visitors rarely convert but your case study readers do, shift budget from the blog audience to the case study audience. Create a new audience specifically for people who visited multiple pages in one session by using AND logic to combine audiences for your homepage, features page, and pricing page.
Adjust your lookback windows based on your sales cycle length. Products with 30-day sales cycles work better with shorter 60-day windows, while enterprise software with 6-month cycles benefits from 180 to 365-day windows. Test both options and measure which delivers better results for your business.
Scale winning audiences
Increase daily budgets for audiences that consistently hit your target cost per acquisition or better. Double your budget when an audience maintains performance for two consecutive weeks, then monitor closely for the next week. If performance stays strong, increase again. If costs rise or conversion rates drop, return to your previous budget level.
Expand audience reach by creating lookalike audiences from your best-performing segments. Navigate to your top retargeting audience in Matched Audiences and select Create a lookalike. LinkedIn builds a new prospecting audience matching the characteristics of your converters, letting you find similar prospects who haven’t visited your site yet.
Key takeaways
LinkedIn retargeting transforms your cold website visitors into converting customers by keeping your brand visible throughout their buying journey. Install the Insight Tag first, then build multiple audiences based on website behavior, video engagement, and form interactions. Launch campaigns with manual bidding starting low, create five ad variations that tell a progressive story, and exclude anyone who already converted. Monitor your cost per conversion across audiences and scale what works. The platform delivers 30% higher click-through rates and 14% lower costs compared to cold prospecting when you follow this process. Ready to target active buyers more precisely? Discover how AI-driven targeting identifies consumers at every stage of their purchase journey.
