How to create a LinkedIn ad campaign in Ad Manager

Ad Manager organizes LinkedIn advertising into a three-level hierarchy:

• Campaign Group : The top-level container.

• Campaign : Defines budget, audience, and scheduling.

• Ad : Defines creatives (media, text, CTA, forms).

This guide walks you through creating a Campaign Group and then building campaigns and ads inside it.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Step 1: Create a Campaign Group
  • Budget & Schedule
  • Bidding
• Step 2: Create a Campaign Inside the Group
  • Fields Defined at Campaign Level
  • Audience Targeting
• Step 3: Create Ads Inside the Campaign
  • Fields Defined at Ad Level
  • Creative Fields
  • Lead Gen Forms (if Objective = Lead Generation)
• Step 4: Review & Publish
• Step 5: Viewing Campaign Group Performance
• Best Practices

Step 1: Create a Campaign Group

A Campaign Group is the top-level container for your LinkedIn campaigns.

• Campaign Group Name: Choose a descriptive name (e.g., “Q4 SaaS Leads”).

• Objective Selection: Select between:

  • Lead Generation - capture leads with LinkedIn forms

  • Website Traffic drive clicks to external landing pages

• Budget & Schedule

  • Define the daily or lifetime budget for the campaign group.

  • Schedule : Set start and end dates for the campaign group.
    
    

• Bidding

  • Manual bid input for Cost Per Lead (Lead Gen) or CPC (Traffic).

Tip: Campaign Groups help you organize campaigns by business goals.

Step 2: Create a Campaign Inside the Group

Once your group is created, you can add Campaigns.

Fields Defined at Campaign Level

• Campaign Name : This will have a unique identifier.

• Media Type : Single image, video or carousel type of media.

• Language 

• Geographic location and

• Optional: Intended Audience

Audience Targeting(learn more: here)

• Mandatory: Location (include/exclude).

• Optional Filters: Job Title, Industry, Company Size, Seniority, Skills, Education, Interests & Traits.

• Logic Builder:

  • Add up to 3 attribute groups.

  • OR logic inside groups.

  • AND logic between groups.

  • Include and Exclude supported.

Example:

• Group 1 - Job Title = Marketing Manager OR Director

• Group 2 - Industry = Healthcare

• Exclude - Interns
  

Step 3: Create Ads Inside the Campaign

Each campaign can contain multiple ads.

Fields Defined at Ad Level

• Ad Name : Internal identifier.

• Media Type (chosen at campaign level):

  • Single Image Ad - Upload one image.
    

  • Single Video Ad - Upload a video.

  • Carousel Ad - Multiple cards, each with its own:

    • Headline

    • Image/video

    • Destination URL
      

Creative Fields

• Introduction Text : Up to 3000 characters.

• Headline : Up to 70 characters (mandatory).

• Description : Up to 300 characters (optional).

• Call-to-Action : Choose from LinkedIn CTA list (Learn More, Download, Apply, etc.).

• Destination URL : Required for all ads. HighLevel auto-prepends https:// if missing.

Lead Gen Forms (if Objective = Lead Generation)

• Form Name : Auto-generated, editable.

• Headline & Description : Shown prominently in the form.

• Pre-filled Fields : Up to 12 (Name, Email, Job Title, etc.).

• Custom Questions : Up to 3 (short answer or multiple choice).

• Hidden Fields : Up to 20 (UTM tags, campaign IDs).

• Privacy Section : Mandatory privacy URL + optional disclosure text.

• Consent Checkboxes : Up to 5.

• Confirmation Page : Thank-you message + optional CTA (Visit Website, Download, Call).

• Learn more about LinkedIn lead forms and how to create it: here
  
  
  

Step 4: Review & Publish

Before launching, you’ll land on the Review & Publish screen:

• Campaign objective, budget, schedule and optimization mode.

• Full creative preview (desktop & mobile).

• Validation: ensures URLs are valid, budgets meet LinkedIn’s minimums, and required fields are filled.
  
  

Step 5: Viewing Campaign Group Performance

After publishing, performance can be tracked in Statistics > LinkedIn. Learn more about LinkedIn statistics in detail in this help document: LinkedIn ad statistics

• Campaign Group Level : Spend, Impressions, Clicks, CTR.

• Campaign Level : Conversions, audience effectiveness, CPL.

• Ad Level : Creative performance (CTR, CPC, CPL, Conversions).
  

Best Practices

• Organize by business objective (e.g., Awareness, Lead Gen).
• Keep Campaigns focused (1 audience definition each).
• Run multiple ads per campaign to compare creatives.
• Start broad and then refine with filters.
• Lead Gen : shorter forms convert better.
• Traffic: always enable UTM tagging for analytics.