INFLUENCER MARKETING

LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads: How They Work + B2B Use Cases

LinkedIn is a top platform for B2B marketers. It’s where decision-makers and buying committees actively shape purchase choices. Alongside standard formats like single-image or video ads, LinkedIn now offers Thought Leader Ads.

This distinctive advertising campaign has real potential. LinkedIn reports that it delivers up to 1.7× higher click‑through rates (CTR) and 1.6× higher engagement rates than standard single‑image ads.

In this guide, we’ll look at how LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads work and how they can benefit B2B companies to raise brand awareness and generate high-quality leads.

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What Are LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads?

LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads are sponsored content that promotes organic posts from individuals on the platform. These individuals are often executives, industry experts, or content creators. These individuals are typically executives, experts, and even content creators.

Unlike traditional ads, Thought Leader Ads don’t have to be company-branded. This makes them feel more authentic while still reaching a wide audience. The format boosts visibility for both the company running the ad and the person whose post is featured.

LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads [2025 Expert Guide to Build Authority]

Want to preview one? Try our LinkedIn Ad Mockup Generator!

TL;DR:

LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads promote organic posts from individuals like executives, employees, or industry experts instead of company pages.

They deliver higher CTR and engagement than standard single-image ads due to authenticity and personal branding.

Only available for brand awareness and engagement campaigns, using text, single-image, video, article, or newsletter formats.

Require a LinkedIn company page and explicit permission from the post author.

Best suited for executive insights, employee expertise, recruitment content, event promotions, and client testimonials or case studies.

Key benefits include increased trust, humanized branding, efficient content reuse, and stronger employee advocacy.

Setup involves choosing a supported campaign objective, matching the post format, requesting content approval, defining audience targeting, launching, and tracking metrics.

Metrics to monitor include engagement rate, CTR, follower growth, profile clicks, dwell time, and audience demographics.

Costs typically range from $5–$8 CPM with CPCs often lower than traditional LinkedIn ads

How Do LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads Work?

LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads allow companies to promote content from an individual's profile rather than a company page. For example, a SaaS company may promote a post from its CEO that talks about industry trends.

These ads appear in user's feed as a regular post from the individual, with a small "Promoted by [Company]" label to indicate that it is sponsored.

To create a Thought Leader Ad, a marketer uses the LinkedIn Campaign Manager to select an organic post from an approved Thought Leader's profile (as determined by the requirements). The individual whose post is being promoted must grant permission for the ad to be run.

This approach can be highly effective because it capitalizes on the fact that people trust and engage more with content from other people than from corporate entities.

61% of users say they trust influencer recommendations. While LinkedIn Thought Leaders aren’t always full-time influencers, this format lets companies tap into that same trust.

Here’s a LinkedIn Thought Leader Ad example:

Who Can Run Thought Leader Ads?

Any business with a LinkedIn advertising account can run Thought Leader Ads if it has permission from the individual whose post it wants to promote. This individual can be an employee, an executive, or even a third-party industry expert, as long as they are a first or second-degree connection on LinkedIn.

What Are the Requirements for Thought Leader Ads?

LinkedIn has very specific requirements for Thought Leader Ads. These requirements cover who can run these ads, whose posts they can sponsor, and what kind of posts can be sponsored.

Here’s everything you need to know per the latest updates:

1. Profiles and Page Setup

You must have a LinkedIn company page or Showcase Page. Thought Leader Ads are always tied to that page, even though the content comes from individuals’ personal accounts.

The featured individual must list your brand as a current employer or collaborator on their public profile. Posts from external creators may also qualify if they’re first- or second-degree connections.

2. Eligible Post Requirements

• Only organic posts created by individuals (not company posts or reshared content) are admissible. Eligible formats include text‑only, single-image, native video, articles, or newsletter posts. Documents, polls, multi-image stories, or group-shared posts are not allowed to be sponsored as a Thought Leader Ad.
• A call-to-action (CTA) button is available for the Event format, not the image or video format. However, you can add URLs to the intro.
• Ad formats are restricted to the same as the original post (Select single-image or video based on whether the content includes that media).
• Posts that have already been shared in a group can’t be promoted.

3. Permissions and Content Integrity

• You must be a super admin, content admin, or Sponsored Content poster to create a Thought Leader Ad.
• You must request permission from the individual via Campaign Manager. They will receive a notification and confirm usage. Optionally, the author can turn on “auto-approve” for future posts to streamline the content engine.
• Once approved, the post is locked; no changes can be made to it to preserve the authenticity of the original content.
• There’s no limit on the number of requests you can send to a member to sponsor their post as a Thought Leader Ad.

4. Campaign Objective

• Only two campaign objectives are supported: Brand Awareness or Engagement. No conversions or website visits objectives are currently available.

How to Set Up LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads?

To set up and run a LinkedIn Thought Leader Ad, you need to access the Campaign Manager section through the company’s Ad account.

Let’s explore a step-by-step guide:

Step 1: Choose Your Campaign Objective & Budget

Log in to Campaign Manager and select Brand Awareness or Engagement as your campaign objective. These are the only two approved options for Thought Leader Ads. Set a daily or total budget. You can set a daily budget or a total campaign budget.

Pro tip: It’s best to start with a total campaign budget, preferably of $500, to see how it performs before moving to a daily budget format.

Step 2: Pick the Format Based on the Original Post

Campaign Manager will let you choose either “Single-image ad” or “Video ad,” depending on whether the original post contains a static image or native video. This format must match the organic post you intend to boost. So, select accordingly and proceed.

Step 3: Select and Request Permission for Content

Click “Browse existing content”, then search for qualified content creators (executives, employees, or external thought leaders) who have published relevant posts. If the person isn’t an employee, they must be a first or second-degree LinkedIn connection to receive a permission request.

Request permission directly via Campaign Manager. The post author must approve before you can proceed. Once granted, the post becomes locked and uneditable.

Step 4: Define Your Audience

With the content approved, use LinkedIn’s powerful targeting to reach your Ideal Customer Profile. You can target by industry, job title, company size, or even account-based lists.

Avoid audience expansion if precision matters, and launch a targeted or retargeting campaign as needed. In fact, Thought Leaders Ads can be a great strategy for account-based marketing for B2B brands on the platform.

Step 5: Schedule & Launch

Set your schedule and bid strategy within Campaign Manager. LinkedIn offers automated bidding according to your chosen campaign objective. Once everything is configured, hit “Launch.” The ad appears in your audience’s feed with a small sponsored tag. The rest of it will be exactly like the original post.

Step 6: Monitor & Optimize Performance

Track campaign click‑through rates, engagement rate, follower growth, profile views, and lead form completions via Campaign Manager’s analytics. Compare results to the original organic metrics (which only the thought leader can view) to measure lift accurately.

Benefits of LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads for B2B Marketing

LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads offer a powerful bridge between content marketing, expert influence, and paid distribution. They’re particularly great for delivering measurable B2B impact across brand awareness, engagement rate, and brand equity.

The numbers are simply remarkable. Compared to standard single-image ads directly from your company, Thought Leader Ads deliver much higher on key metrics, as shown in the image below.

So what makes these ads pack such a powerful punch? There are several reasons:

• Authenticity equals trust: People trust messages from individuals more than branded sources. Thought Leader Ads combine a personal touch with a wider reach, whether the content is from employees, company leadership, or industry experts.
• Humanized branding: With executive or employee content, you’re basically injecting personality into your social media strategies. The audience isn’t seeing yet another branded, salesy pitch, but something informational and helpful from a real person.
• Content engine efficiency: Instead of creating new ads, you leverage high-performing organic social media posts and repurpose them through Campaign Manager. That saves creative time and resources (except for the ad spend). Plus, content marketing is more effective for lead generation than traditional ads, according to 93% of B2B marketers.
• Great for employee advocacy: For B2B marketing, in particular, employee voices can be incredibly powerful. They can be the ones to talk about the product or service like an insider, but not exactly a salesperson (there’s a fine line between the two). In fact, 64% of buyers say thought leadership content is more trustworthy than marketing materials.
• Makes brand discovery easier, especially for new ones: 57% of buyers say that thought leadership content can be good for creating awareness for little-known brands  (same source as above). For startups with limited marketing budgets, Thought Leader Ads are often cheaper than traditional ads, making them a great option.

Max Hogan from Closing Media sums it up well:

“If marketers aren’t already using LinkedIn’s Thought Leader Ads, it’s time to start before everyone else does, for many of our clients, these are often the lowest cost, highest engagement ads, overnight.”

LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads: Strategic B2B Use Cases

Thought Leader Ads shine when used for targeted, high-trust advertising campaigns across multiple B2B campaigns. There are many strategic ways to use this ad format to maximize the impact of paid ads on LinkedIn and get quality leads, and even better, turn them into customers.

Here are some LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads examples, along with strategic ways to use them:

Create Credibility with Executive Content

When C-suite executives or content creators share insights about product launches, partnerships, or industry trends, promoting their organic posts can increase trust. Their posts provide the perfect opportunity to create credibility, mainly because of their leadership capacity.

It’s also a good way to elevate the executive’s personal brand and show them as the expert leader they are. For B2B buyers, especially those in the C-suite, the knowledge and expertise of leadership can influence buying decisions.  In fact, 70% of these leaders admitted that a thought leadership piece made them reconsider their current suppliers.

For example, Lenovo used Thought Leader Ads to promote content from their executives, resulting in a 63 % increase in mid‑funnel CTRs and dramatically stronger brand awareness through personal voices (6x increase in post engagement rate).

Show Expertise with Employees

Highlighting knowledge from sales leaders, engineers, or customer-facing staff in Thought Leader Ads humanizes your brand. It can help you position yourself as the best in the business with bright minds working behind the scenes.

It’s also good for introducing new features or perhaps how to best use what you offer, coming directly from people who helped create it.

The post doesn’t even have to be directly related to your offering. As long as it’s valuable, it can be the engine for creating brand visibility on LinkedIn with authenticity.

A perfect example of this comes from our sister’s agency client, Miro, a digital collaboration platform. They promoted their ambassador, David Pereira’s post, offering a free ‘Value Curve’ template for Miro.

Recruitment Campaign to Attract Talent

Use employee posts about company culture or career advice to power recruiting ads. When you promote posts from current employees about their experiences, projects they're excited about, or the company culture, it gives potential candidates an authentic look inside the organization.

This approach is more genuine and compelling than a typical job ad, as it comes from a peer rather than a corporate recruiter. It can help attract top talent who are looking for a great company culture and meaningful work. As it directly shows them what it's like to work there and the kind of brilliant people they would be working with.

In fact, 50% of buyers think thought leadership can be useful in attracting talent.

Event Promotions

When executives or advocates share upcoming webinar or conference content, Thought Leader Ads extend your reach. This allows you to spark early interest with authentic voices, while also capturing intent for later retargeting campaigns using LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager tools.

The event or webinar could be your own or an external one that you may be sponsoring or participating in. The post could be from an employee or connection attending or speaking, so it provides information from an authentic source. Luckily, LinkedIn allows CTA for event-related posts.

Here’s an example of the kind of post to use as an event-related Thought Leader Ad on LinkedIn:

Testimonials or Case Studies

Promoting real stories from satisfied clients via employee posts, such as a case study narrated by an account lead, helps build compelling B2B social proof. Case study posts promoted with Thought Leader Ads have the potential to do very well, as they provide value.

And here’s a key advantage when using testimonials or case studies. According to Impactable, company-sponsored ads have a 600-character limit, but regular posts from LinkedIn members have a 3,000-character limit. This gives you plenty of space to dive into the details of case studies.

For example, they ran a case study post from their CEO as a Thought Leader Ad, taking full advantage of the generous character limit to discuss inbound leads in great detail, with supporting numbers.

Best Practices for LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads

To get the most from Thought Leader Ads in your social media strategy, it’s essential to blend authenticity, precision targeting, and smart content selection to maximize engagement rate, brand awareness, and brand equity.

Follow the tips below and you’ll get the best return on investment (ROI) with these ads:

• Choose the right thought leaders and profiles: Identify individuals like executives, subject-matter experts, or content creators with a public profile and existing engagement. Encourage them to enable “creator mode” for improved visibility. According to Financial Times, C-suite profiles receive around 4× more engagement than typical LinkedIn users, with follower growth surging 39 % after posting.
• Select the most impactful organic posts: Don’t just boost the most-liked post and call it a day. Pick posts already driving engagement and have a potential for lead form completions or direct response. High-impact posts include explanations of frameworks/tools, customer successes, deep insights, or statistics.
• Compare engagement before and after sponsoring: Look at organic metrics (likes, comments, follower increases) before promotion so you can compare lift after launch. Also, look at other metrics directly available to you on these ads (more on this next).
• Keep content fresh, valuable, and/or personal: LinkedIn suggests using posts no older than 30 days to maintain relevance and recency. Blend visual formats (single-image or video) for stronger performance, with video being particularly effective. In fact, 62% of B2B buyers trust video content on LinkedIn. As for content, it should always be relevant and relatable for the audience.
• Integrate with a broader ads strategy: Make sure you're complementing these ads with other LinkedIn ad formats (such as Message Ads or Event Ads) for conversion-focused follow-up. For instance, after a Thought Leader Ad drives engagement, you can target responders with Sponsored Content or Sponsored InMail that includes specific offers or downloadable content.
• Use smart targeting and retargeting: Within Campaign Manager, start with precise targeting: job title, company size, industry, and seniority. Layer on retargeting campaigns for people who engaged with earlier Sponsored Content or visited your website. This approach can be especially helpful for B2B brands nurturing leads.

LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads Key Metrics

Thought Leader Ads on LinkedIn come with metrics that help you track performance based on your selected campaign goals in Campaign Manager. But it doesn’t stop there—you’ll also get metrics tied directly to the thought leader.

Since these ads focus on engagement, you won’t find conversion-focused metrics. Here’s what you should be tracking and why:

• Engagement rate: Captures likes, comments, shares, and profile clicks relative to impressions. You’ll see exactly how much involvement sponsoring the post generated from the target audience, which is the underlying goal of these ads
• Click-Through Rate (CTR): This measures clicks to your company page or, even better, your website. Thought Leader Ads outperform here compared with traditional LinkedIn ads. You can use our free CTR calculator to verify the numbers.
• Follower growth and profile clicks: Unique to Thought Leader Ads, LinkedIn tracks the number of new followers the thought leader gains and the profile clicks generated from the promoted post. Don’t forget to also monitor your own followers to see how many new ones you’ve gained.
• Average dwell time: This measures how long members spend viewing the ad. It’s useful for assessing the effectiveness of your creative, even if users don’t click on the ad.
• Demographics and quality of reach: Review LinkedIn’s demographic metrics (such as industry, job function, seniority) to ensure alignment with your Ideal Customer Profile. This data can also be used to compare the reach of Thought Leader Ads versus traditional ads to see if there’s a difference in your targeted audience.

Transform Your Lead Generation Strategy with LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads

If you’re a B2B marketer, LinkedIn is probably the most important social platform for you. With more than one billion active members, LinkedIn is the perfect place to hunt leads. So don’t limit yourself to organic content and traditional ads; give the unique and highly effective Thought Leader Ads a try.

As we’ve discussed, these ads bring authenticity into the mix, subtly shining a spotlight on your brand while offering something valuable to your audience.

If you’re unsure how to find thought leaders and run ads, we recommend seeking expert help. Agencies like inBeat can handle everything for you. They’ll manage all the bidding, find the right creators, and craft the perfect posts to captivate your audience and meet your engagement goals with LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads.

FAQs

How much does a LinkedIn Thought Leader Ad cost?

Thought Leader Ads follow standard LinkedIn pricing models, typically with CPMs between $5.00 and $8.00 and CPCs significantly lower than traditional Sponsored Content campaigns. For example, Metadata.io reported a CPC of $4.14, compared to $22.54 for an equivalent brand awareness campaign built using images or videos on a company Page.

Can you add CTAs to LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads?

No. Thought Leader Ads promote the organic post as-is, meaning no call-to-action buttons or additional ad copy can be added. However, CTAs will be available for event ads.

Do you need permission to run LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads?

Yes, you must request permission through Campaign Manager, and only first—or second-degree connections or employees associated with your LinkedIn Page can be promoted. The individual must approve before launch. Some users may have auto approval enabled, which means your request will be immediately approved.

Can you edit the post before promoting?

No. The promoted content must remain unchanged. LinkedIn does not allow editing of the post text, images, video, or any hyperlinks once approval is granted. This is to preserve the authenticity of the shared content.

What type of posts can you promote as a LinkedIn Thought Leader Ad?

Eligible posts include text-only, single-image, native video, Articles, and newsletter posts. Posts with documents, polls, multi-image carousels, or reshared private/group content are not supported.

Can anyone be a thought leader on LinkedIn?

Technically, anyone can be a thought leader on LinkedIn, at least for advertising purposes, provided they’re a public-profile user and you have a 1st- or 2nd-degree LinkedIn connection, or they are affiliated with your brand via your company Page. However, their status as a real ‘thought leader’ may depend on their content and expertise.