Play · LinkedIn Ads
LinkedIn’s job title and industry filters look exact, but in practice they cast a wide net. Primer lets you build tighter audiences that mirror your ICP, so you can test and prove whether Primer or native LinkedIn targeting drives higher-quality leads.
Primer audiences get half the CPM of LinkedIn native on average. LinkedIn targeting is convenient but imprecise.
Build your ICP from the ground up without irrelevant seniorities, then sync it directly into LinkedIn as a matched audience — letting you test it head-to-head against LinkedIn’s native filters.
We thought LinkedIn targeting was precise — until we looked at our audience breakdown. Primer showed us how many leads were way outside our ICP. Once we switched, quality improved immediately.
Step 1
In Campaign Manager, open Audience Insights for your top campaigns.
What you’ll find: A mismatch — e.g., wrong seniorities or industries that don’t match selected filters.
Product example: a LinkedIn Campaign Manager saved audience, ICP Native Filters, targeting Chief Financial Officers, VPs of Finance and Controllers at software companies with 201 to 1,000 employees, about 54,000 members. The Member tab shows most members are accountants, finance managers, financial analysts and accounts payable specialists, with CFOs at 7% of the audience.
Step 2
Use CRM win rates to help define your ideal accounts (industry, size, region) and personas. Sync the ICP audience directly to LinkedIn as a Matched Audience.
Pro Tip: Exclude existing customers, competitors, etc.
Note: Audiences will take 72 hours to full match. Plan accordingly
Product example: in Primer's audience editor, job titles are refined to CFO, VP Finance, Controller and Head of Finance at software companies with 200 to 1,000 employees, excluding customers and competitors. Accountants and financial analysts are excluded from the composition, a job title does-not-contain filter is added, and the audience drops from 61,200 to 18,600 people before syncing to LinkedIn as a Matched Audience, which takes up to 72 hours to fully match.
Step 3
Duplicate your campaign in LinkedIn Campaign Manager. Campaign A: LinkedIn native filters (job title, industry, company size). Campaign B: Primer Matched Audience (no LinkedIn filters applied).
Tip: Run for at least 10–14 days for meaningful results.
Product example: LinkedIn's A/B test setup with an audience variable. Ad set A, Native Audience, uses LinkedIn's filters at 54,000+ members; ad set B, Primer Audience, uses the Primer – SaaS Finance Leaders matched audience at 15,800 members, with Audience Expansion turned off. Each ad set gets 50% of traffic and $1,575 over 21 days.
Step 4
Step 5
In Primer, compare funnel outcomes.
Ask Primer
Compare the two ad sets on qualified leads, not lead volume: qualified lead rate and cost per qualified lead.
Ask Primer: it compares both ad sets on lead quality and can sync qualified leads back to Salesforce or HubSpot.
Product example: asked which audience brought better leads, Primer reports that over the same 21-day test the Primer audience cost $124 per lead against $196 with native LinkedIn filters, 46% of its leads qualified against 28%, and a qualified lead cost $270 against $700.
Ask Primer
Open the Primer audience. Its top bar shows the leads, opportunities created and opportunities won it drove, straight from Salesforce or HubSpot.
In Primer: no report to build — divide opportunities created by leads for your Pipeline Conversion %.
Product example: the Primer – SaaS Finance Leaders audience page in Primer. Its top bar shows 2,100 companies and 18,600 people, a LinkedIn match of 15,100 to 17,300, and CRM results for the last 60 days: 1,240 people revealed, 13 leads, 3 opportunities created and 1 won, all in the ICP, so 23% of leads became pipeline. Below, the audience history lists its matched-size updates and the criteria change that added a job title does-not-contain filter.
Primer narrows your reach to verified companies and roles. Audience preview confirms this.
Primer matches deterministically from CRM truth.
You’ll see fewer leads — but far more qualified ones.
LinkedIn’s job title and industry filters look exact, but in practice they cast a wide net. Audience Insights often shows wrong seniorities and companies that don’t match the industries you selected, and native audiences include inferred data.
Primer audiences get half the CPM of LinkedIn native on average. You build your ICP from the ground up without irrelevant seniorities and sync it to LinkedIn as a matched audience, so you stop paying for impressions outside your buyers.
Duplicate your campaign in LinkedIn Campaign Manager. Campaign A uses LinkedIn native filters (job title, industry, company size); Campaign B uses the Primer Matched Audience with no LinkedIn filters. Keep spend, creative, form and objective the same and run at least 14 days before evaluating.
Audiences will take 72 hours to full match, so plan accordingly before launching the test.
Qualified Lead Rate (MQL%), Cost per Qualified Lead (CPQL) and Pipeline Conversion %. You’ll see fewer leads — but far more qualified ones.
In one comparison, cost per lead fell from $196 to $124 (–37%), the qualified rate rose from 28% to 46% (+64%) and cost per qualified lead fell from $700 to $270 (–61%).
Build the audience, sync it to every channel, and ask Primer what it drove.
