In B2B, attention is harder to get than the Wi-Fi password at a neighbour’s house party.
And that’s exactly what makes LinkedIn Video Ads a great investment for your brand: they capture attention, educate at scale, and speak directly to the people holding the budget.
The platform’s precision targeting by job title, company size, seniority, and industry means your videos don’t only get ✨views✨; they get seen by decision-makers who actually care.
Look, video is no longer just ‘trendy’, it’s reshaping the way we consume content and transforming the way B2B marketing works.
Today’s buyers are younger, video-focused, and consuming more streaming content than ever. The question is: How will you reach them? LinkedIn’s Video Ads… which, by the way, have seen an engagement rate increase by 44% year-on-year. So, you’ve got a direct line into the minds of your ideal buyers.
If you’re running high-ACV deals, trying to shorten the sales cycle, or looking to stand out in a crowded category, video ads on LinkedIn are a performance lever you can’t afford to ignore.
Why LinkedIn Video is the Right Match for B2B Demand Gen
1. Video content is what people want to see
According to benchmark data, videos get 5x more engagement than static posts on the platform. Furthermore, according to Forrester, 71% of buyers are now Millennials or GenZ, and video content is their preferred format. According to recent research from Forrester, 71% of B2B buyers are now Millennials or Gen Z. These generations grew up immersed in video content, which has become their preferred way to consume information. In fact, just this past May, streaming officially surpassed traditional television for the first time.
To back that up, 93% of marketers also say that video has a direct impact on their ROI, as per LinkedIn’s Internal data (2025).
That means if you're looking to:
- Educate your market at scale
- Build trust with high-value accounts
- Humanize your message while showcasing ROI
...there’s no format more effective than video on LinkedIn.
2. Your video ads reach real buyers, not just scrollers
With LinkedIn’s targeting precision by job title, company size, industry, seniority, skills, and firmographics, you’re not just running ads to get views. You’re getting seen by the right set of buyers.
Compare this with Meta or YouTube, where even with interest filters, a large chunk of your budget can go to students, bots, or non-decision-makers.
Why Choose LinkedIn Video Ads over Static Ads?
Video ads drive significantly higher engagement than static ads, capturing attention more effectively through motion and storytelling. They also allow brands to communicate more information quickly, making them ideal for awareness, education, and recall.
Let’s look at some data:
- Enhanced viewer attention:
LinkedIn video ads capture attention 3 times longer than static image ads, providing a greater opportunity to convey your message effectively.
- Increased interaction rates:
Video posts on LinkedIn drive 5 times higher interaction rates compared to text or image posts, leading to more likes, comments, and shares.
- Boosted conversion rates:
Implementing video ads can lead to a 30% increase in conversion rates, making them a powerful tool for driving actions like sign-ups and inquiries.
On a side note, organic video is also having its moment!
It’s not only Video Ads that are growing… organic videos are growing, too!
Organic video content continues to gain momentum among business leaders on LinkedIn, with a 44% year-over-year increase in video uploads by C-suite executives. Notably, video posts generate 1.4x higher engagement than other content formats, highlighting their growing impact on B2B communication and thought leadership.
Campaign Planning
The best-performing video ads aren’t chasing likes or trying to ‘go viral.’ They’re engineered to move high-intent buyers from scroll to sales call.
Step 1: Start with a pipeline-aligned objective
Your objective is a strategic choice that shapes the creative, the CTA, and how you measure success. Let’s break down how to choose the right objective, structure it by funnel stage, and tie each to a real business outcome. So, the first question to answer is:“What stage of the funnel is this campaign meant to impact?”
Here’s how to choose the right campaign objective and pair it with the right kind of video:
Choosing the right objective by funnel stage:
LinkedIn Ads offer three primary objective types: Awareness, Consideration, and Conversion.
Here’s where each one fits and what kind of video makes sense for that stage.
Now, paired with your funnel table and metrics, this quote gives readers a reality check about choosing the objective type more carefully.
Step 2: Choose metrics that match the stage
Don’t fall into the trap of obsessing over CTRs when your goal is trust-building, or over-optimizing form fills at the top of the funnel.
💡 Top of funnel metrics tell you what’s working. Bottom of funnel metrics tell you what’s worth scaling. It’s best to monitor both.
Side Note: Your Targeting Strategy Directly Impacts CPV
Your cost per view isn’t just about geography or bid type, it’s shaped by who you’re trying to reach, how competitive that audience is, and how well your creative holds their attention. In other words, targeting drives CPV.
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
Let’s break down what drives your cost per view:
💡 Auto-bidding isn’t just easier, it’s 2X as cost-efficient. Based on 17M+ video views, the average auto-bid comes in at just $0.09, compared to $0.18 for manual bidding or cost caps. That’s budget you could be using to scale faster, test more creatives, or win more impressions at the same cost.
Step 3: Assign one north star metric per campaign
Every campaign should have one success metric (not five). Here’s how you can align your video type to their metric:
💡 Set one metric. Track it ruthlessly.
Step 4: Interpreting what performance actually means
Don’t confuse a bad click-through rate with a bad video.
Here’s how you can diagnose performance signals:
“If 100 people watched 75% of your video, that’s 100 warm leads, click or not.” That’s the thinking top growth marketers use to plan next steps.
Final Thought: Video ads aren’t instant noodles
Here’s what a typical B2B journey looks like:
Watches your video → Doesn’t click → Remembers you later → Googles you → Reads your email → Books a demo
So track the full arc of buyer behavior:
- Use view-through attribution
- Add self-reported attribution
- Sync LinkedIn CAPI with your CRM
Or better yet…
Creative Strategy: How to Build Video Ads That Actually Convert
LinkedIn video is a high-intent, scroll-breaking format that, when done right, can compress months of nurturing into 45 seconds of screen time.
But most B2B brands overinvest in production and underinvest in strategy. And high-performing LinkedIn video ads aren’t ‘TV commercials shrunk for feed.’ They’re surgical tools built for mobile-first, distracted professionals with zero time and infinite tabs open.
💡Download LinkedIn’s exclusive guide to building your brand through LinkedIn videos. So before you hit record, make sure you give the guide a read.
The Base: What Makes a LinkedIn Video Ad Work?
Forget polished commercials with fancy budgets. Great LinkedIn videos feel native, personal, and purposeful. They work because they respect how distracted and skeptical buyers are.
Types of Video Ads on LinkedIn
- Video Ads
Great for sharing your brand’s take on industry news, product demos, and customer success stories. Video Ads humanize your brand and deliver your message in an engaging format. - Connected TV Ads
Show up in living rooms via streaming services, where people are more relaxed. Connected TV Ads keep decision-makers thinking of you even off the clock. Since many B2B buyers watch CTV in their spare time, it’s a strong way to reinforce your message outside traditional work hours. - Event Ads
For many B2B marketers, live events are a priority. With Event Ads, you can use video to reach buyers at scale and drive registrations for live events or webinars. Tease the agenda, speakers, or special content to build excitement and attendance. - Thought Leader Ads
Spotlight company leaders or industry experts. Videos centered on thought leadership build credibility and help your community get to know the people behind the brand. Promote this content and extend your reach with Thought Leader Ads. - BrandLink
With BrandLink, brands can partner with trusted publishers and creators to run in-stream, pre-roll video ads next to contextually aligned, high-quality videos, delivered directly in targeted members’ LinkedIn newsfeeds.
How to build LinkedIn Video ads for people who actually watch them:
1. Hook Viewers Within 2 Seconds
If we haven’t already established it, the scroll is brutal. You have two seconds to stop the thumb.
Start with:
- A bold stat or unexpected insight (“78% of sales teams still do this manually…”)
- A pain point framed as a question (“Tired of chasing no-show demos?”)
- A clear visual motion (zoom-in on product UI, person speaking straight to camera)
Avoid:
- Long branded intros
- Slow fades or logo splash screens
Basically, come to the point within the first two seconds.
2. Design for Sound-Off Viewing
79% of users watch LinkedIn videos on mute. Your video must make sense without sound.
Always include:
- Native captions, not just YouTube-style auto-subtitles
- Bold text overlays to highlight key phrases or data
- Visual metaphors that reinforce your point (e.g. lagging bar graphs, ticking clocks)
Think of every video as a ‘moving carousel post.’
3. Keep It Concise
Attention spans aren’t shrinking; they’re just more expensive to earn.
💡If you need more than 60 seconds to say it, you probably need a landing page, not a video ad.
4. Strong, Single CTA
Every video should have one goal. Not three.
Use CTAs like:
- See it in action
- Watch full demo
- Grab the report
- Book a consult
Avoid:
- Learn more (too vague)
- Click here (too 2006)
Position your CTA in:
- Text overlay (mid-video + end screen)
- Video description
- Companion creative (e.g., headline or button)
Technical Specifications (Keep These Handy)
💡Tip: Use 1:1 or 4:5 formats for mobile-first audiences, they take up more feed real estate and consistently outperform 16:9.
The Anatomy of a Scroll-Stopping LinkedIn Video Ad
B2B Creative Formats That Actually Work
Here’s what demand gen teams do:
1. Founder POV or Product Manager Cameo
- Quick, unscripted clips recorded on Loom or Riverside
- Personal, high-trust, credible, and personal, feels like a DM, not an ad
- Best for: Bottom-funnel or account retargeting
- Record straight-to-camera “here’s what we’re seeing in the market.”
- Works well with warm audiences and in BoFu campaigns.
- A 30s iPhone clip of your founder saying, “Here’s why we built this…”. Such videos add instant credibility and perform great in retargeting.
For example: Blackstone featured Michael Zawadzki, Global Chief Investment Officer for Blackstone Credit and Insurance talking about private credit, a relatively technical topic.
- Why it works:
- Personal and trustworthy tone
- Helps viewers understand niche topics
- Builds brand credibility

2. Mini Product Tour
- UI walkthrough synced to a real pain point
- Subtle overlays to highlight key metrics or features
- Best for: Consideration stage (especially SaaS)
- Show real UI, not just abstract motion graphics.
- Narrate why each feature matters, not just what it does.
- Works great when retargeting high-intent visitors.
- Record a short Loom showing how your product solves one specific use case. Add captions and upload. Done.
For example: Descope, a no-code identity platform, used a 51-second demo video of the Descope SSO Setup Suite.

3. Customer Proof Clips/ Testimonials
- User clips saying: “We switched from [x] to [you] and here’s what happened”
- Cut it raw and subtitle it manually
- Best for: Warm retargeting, social proof, and expansion
- Raw > Polished. Shoot over Zoom or phone.
- Focus on transformation: “Before we used X → Now we [save 10 hours/week].”
- Use customers your audience aspires to be.
- Record a 1-min Zoom call with a happy customer. Ask them: “What changed after using us?” Crop, caption, publish.
For example: Salesforce for Small Business ran a testimonial-style Thought Leader video ad featuring users describing the ‘aha’ moments they experienced after using the platform.
- Why it works:
- Higher emotional resonance and relatability
- Short, punchy cuts keep watch time high
- Clear CTA at the end: “Start your free trial now”

4. Category Storytelling
- Frame the market gap
- Create urgency or FOMO
- Position your solution as the only one that “gets it”
- Best for: Top-of-funnel awareness
- ‘Here’s what no one tells you about hiring engineers in APAC’
- Use stats, frameworks, or mental models your ICP can steal
- Position your brand as a category authority, not just a product
- Turn an existing deck into a motion video using Canva or Animoto. Narrate with an engaging voice-over or add text overlays.
- Combine a clear script, basic animation, and stock clips (from Pexels/Unsplash). Ideal for top-of-funnel explainer videos.
For example: Testimonial Hero launched a 54-second explainer video showing the product’s offerings and use-cases.
- Why it works:
- Motion graphics were universally appealing (no language barrier)
- Focused on the benefits and the product
- CTA drove users to visit the website to learn more

💡Don’t aim to just ‘tell your story.’ Aim to help your viewer tell a better story at their next team meeting.
📖Good Read: Create Video Ads for LinkedIn using Canva
Creative Format Guide (by Funnel Stage)
💡 Tip: For retargeting flows, create a video series. Ad 1 = Problem. Ad 2 = Product. Ad 3 = Customer proof.
A/B test these variables:
It’s important to test thumbnails, but that’s not where the tests should end. Keep the structure, script, and even the effect of silence versus narration, in mind.
- Hook formats: Problem-first vs. Question-first
- CTA language: “Try free” vs “See it in action”
- Voiceover vs. caption-only
- Raw founder selfie vs. studio animation
- UI-first vs. use-case-first
Benchmark across:
- View-through rate (50%+ watched)
- CTR
- Down-funnel lead quality (SQLs, not just form fills)
Here are some tools you can use to create videos without a studio:
Common creative mistakes (and how you can fix them)
A great video doesn’t just ‘look good.’ It also converts.
Like I’ve said above, the best-performing LinkedIn video ads aren’t made for film festivals. They’re built to earn attention and move buyers one step closer to conversion, all in the span of 30 to 60 seconds.
Side Note: You Don’t Need a Hollywood Budget to Run Video Ads
One of the biggest misconceptions about LinkedIn video ads is that they’re expensive to produce. The truth? It’s all about creating something of high relevance.
Some best-performing video ads are shot on webcams, edited on free tools, and filmed in under an hour. What matters is that the message lands fast.
Pair Paid with Organic for Maximum Reach
Don’t silo your video content. What works on organic often works better on paid, especially if it has already shown strong engagement signals (likes, comments, shares).
- Run founder videos as organic first, and then boost the best performer as a paid ad
- Turn a popular carousel post into a short explainer video
- Use paid to extend the shelf life of webinars, roundups, or case studies
💡 If your post resonated with your audience organically, it’s already algorithm-tested.
Audience Targeting for LinkedIn Video Ads
You can have the perfect video with an intriguing hook, flawless CTA, and a founder cameo that could win a ‘Webby’, but if your targeting’s off, the entire campaign falls flat.
LinkedIn has the most powerful B2B targeting stack of any paid channel, but it’s only as effective as the clarity of your ICP. The goal isn’t to reach everyone. It’s to reach the right people, often, with relevant messaging, at the right stage of their journey.
Here are a few things that you need to add to your targeting toolkit:
- Job Titles / Job Functions:
Keep it broad, ‘Marketing + Director +’, is often better than targeting ‘VP of Growth’ alone. - Industry & Company Size:
Ideal for segmenting based on go-to-market motion. (Enterprise vs Mid-Market vs SMB) - Seniority Levels:
Use this to reach decision-makers without over-relying on job titles. - Skills & Interests:
Underused but powerful for reaching cross-functional roles (e.g., people who follow “Product-Led Growth” or “Demand Generation”). - Company Names (ABM):
Upload account lists to run 1:1 or 1:few campaigns to your highest-value targets.
💡 Pro-tip: Start wide, narrow down with creative and funnel logic, not oversegmentation.
Retargeting: Where video ads pay off
Video gives you behavioral signals that static can’t. Every view becomes a retargeting trigger.
This is where the real leverage is. Every video view gives you a new way to re-engage.
💡 Use sequential retargeting to tell a story over time:
Video 1 → Video 2 → CTA offer → Form fill → SQL
💡 Want to level up your intent-based targeting? With Smart Reach, you can control how many times an account sees your ad, dialing up frequency for engaged accounts and avoiding ad fatigue for warm prospects.
Summing up targeting tips
- Start with high-intent accounts, not just interest-level filters
- Avoid hyper-targeting, LinkedIn works best with 50K+ audience size
- Use warm actions (50% video views, demo page visits) to power mid-funnel
- Segment campaigns by persona + funnel stage for relevance and scale
💡Pro Tip: Segment Campaigns by Persona and Funnel Stage. If you’re unsure how to do that, Book a Demo and explore how AdPilot can help you!
Packing Up
Video is no longer a top-of-funnel experiment; it’s a full-funnel performance lever.
On LinkedIn, where attention is costly and every impression matters, well-structured video ads let you educate, qualify, and convert your audience, all within the feed.
You don’t need cinematic quality. You need:
- A sharp message.
- A clear viewer path.
- And a targeting + optimization system that respects your budget.
If you're already running image or document ads, video is your next step forward. If you're not advertising on LinkedIn yet, video is your fastest way in.
💡Download: LinkedIn’s guide on how video can transform your B2B marketing strategy and elevate your brand on LinkedIn.
About Factors & LinkedIn AdPilot
Running B2B ads shouldn’t feel like guesswork. Yet most marketers still juggle multiple platforms, disconnected insights, and uneven reach. Factors changes that.
It brings your ad data, audience insights, and performance signals into one smart system, so you can see what’s working, scale what’s converting, and finally prove ROI across every touchpoint.
From identifying high-intent accounts to optimizing where your budget goes, Factors’ AdPilot suite helps you run LinkedIn and Google Ads with the precision (and calm) your spreadsheets wish they had.
AdPilot Features That Make Every Ad Dollar Count
1. Audience Builder
Start by knowing who really matters. Audience Builder helps you identify anonymous accounts already engaging with your brand, whether they visited your site, clicked an ad, or explored your content. You can then segment the sales-ready ones based on how active they’ve been across different channels. Once you’ve got your dream list, syncing it to your LinkedIn or Google Ads takes just a click. So your targeting is sharper, your budget is smarter, and your message lands exactly where it should.
2. SmartReach
Sometimes, the top 10% of accounts hog most of your ad impressions, leaving the rest of your audience barely touched. SmartReach fixes that imbalance. It gives you more control over how often each account sees your ad, helping you spread reach evenly and make every dollar go further. The result? Better visibility, more awareness, and a healthier pipeline.
3. Power Boost
When a high-intent account starts showing interest, say they’re responding to sales emails or visiting your site, Power Boost steps in. It automatically increases ad frequency for those accounts, keeping your brand top of mind while they’re in decision mode. Because the faster you stay visible, the faster they convert.
4. Campaign Automation
Let your campaigns move at the speed of intent. AdPilot’s automation engine redistributes impressions in real time based on signals from your CRM, G2, or website. That means your ads automatically follow where the interest is, without manual tinkering. More relevant exposure. Faster deal velocity. Less wasted spend.
5. TrueROI
Most people won’t click your ad, but that doesn’t mean your ads didn’t work. TrueROI shows the full picture of impact with view-through attribution, combining ad views with engagement data from across channels. It helps you measure what really matters: how your LinkedIn campaigns influence awareness, intent, and pipeline, not just clicks.
Book a Demo to see it in action.
💡Read More: LinkedIn Ads 101: A B2B LinkedIn Ads Guide
💡Read More: LinkedIn Ads Strategy for B2B SaaS Growth
💡Read More: Types of LinkedIn Ads
💡Read More: LinkedIn Ads Targeting Best Practices & Strategy Guide
💡Read More: LinkedIn Ads Targeting & Campaign Strategy for Enterprises