Impact Report / Audience & Creative Intelligence
All 5 attributable conversions sit in the 51 to 200 employee band, on LinkedIn first-party demographics with full coverage. Every band under 50 employees shows zero. Enterprise takes a large share of clicks, 31.6%, and converts nothing.
The real lead-quality issue is qualification, not company size. Cross-referencing the CRM against ad exposure shows 10 of the 17 LinkedIn attributed leads have no company name and no business email address — individuals who downloaded a gated report with a personal address. Fixing the form gate is worth more than any audience change.
The Campaign Manager demographics export only runs from 1 May. All 17 leads and all recorded conversions fall inside that window, so conversion analysis is unaffected, but impression and click totals here are not comparable to the 230,251 and 6,421 quoted elsewhere in the report. The base here is 148,199 impressions.
There is still no cost column. LinkedIn does not expose spend by demographic segment. Where dollars appear below they are apportioned by impression share and labelled as estimates. True cost per lead by segment remains unavailable.
Percentages do not sum to 100. LinkedIn assigns members to multiple industry and function segments, so shares overlap by design. Read them as relative weight, not as a partition.
Seniority is measured here on ad recipients, not website visitors, and the picture is a genuine strength.
Ad reached members, not website visitors — the true delivery picture.
| Seniority | Impressions | Share | Clicks | CTR | Conversions | Read |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Director | 51,235 | 34.57% | 1,209 | 2.36% | 4 | Largest segment and the only one converting. |
| Senior | 22,396 | 15.11% | 351 | 1.57% | 0 | Lowest CTR of any material band. Individual contributors. |
| VP | 19,967 | 13.47% | 503 | 2.52% | 0 | Strong engagement, no conversions yet. Offer gap. |
| Owner | 14,583 | 9.84% | 334 | 2.29% | 0 | Founder led brands. Right buyer for mid market. |
| CXO | 11,893 | 8.03% | 301 | 2.53% | 0 | Best CTR at scale alongside VP. |
| Manager | 10,111 | 6.82% | 182 | 1.80% | 0 | Below the buying line for a retainer this size. |
| Partner | 6,451 | 4.35% | 182 | 2.82% | 0 | Highest CTR of any material band. Likely agency partners. |
| Entry | 1,080 | 0.73% | 46 | 4.26% | 0 | Tiny volume, high CTR. Not buyers. |
| Training | 85 | 0.06% | 7 | 8.24% | 0 | Negligible. |
Director, VP, CXO, Owner and Partner together take 104,129 impressions, 70.3% of delivery. That is a defensible targeting result and the strongest finding in this analysis.
Conversions concentrate in the ICP band, not below it — the opposite of what click volume alone suggests.
| Size band | Impressions | Share | Clicks | CTR | Conversions | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10,001+ | 33,622 | 22.69% | 963 | 2.86% | 0 | Reduce |
| 51 to 200 | 24,434 | 16.49% | 508 | 2.08% | 5 | Invest |
| 11 to 50 | 22,972 | 15.50% | 442 | 1.92% | 0 | Watch |
| 201 to 500 | 17,088 | 11.53% | 319 | 1.87% | 0 | Invest |
| 501 to 1,000 | 11,111 | 7.50% | 236 | 2.12% | 0 | Hold |
| 1,001 to 5,000 | 10,218 | 6.90% | 213 | 2.09% | 0 | Hold |
| 5,001 to 10,000 | 6,575 | 4.44% | 160 | 2.43% | 0 | Reduce |
| 2 to 10 | 4,570 | 3.08% | 123 | 2.69% | 0 | Exclude |
| 1 employee | 4,430 | 2.99% | 82 | 1.85% | 0 | Exclude |
| Total | 148,199 | 100% | 3,046 | 2.06% | 5 |
All 5 conversions sit in 51 to 200 employees, at a 0.98% conversion rate. The 201 to 500 band engages at 1.87% CTR with no conversions yet, which makes it the offer-gap target rather than a targeting problem. Together those two bands take 28% of impressions.
10,001+ takes 22.7% of impressions and 31.6% of clicks at the highest CTR of any large band, 2.86%, and converts zero times. This is the segment the enterprise case study creative attracts, per the creative analysis.
1 employee, 2 to 10 and 11 to 50 together take 21.6% of clicks and produce zero conversions. Earlier partial company resolution attributed leads here, but that does not survive first-party data.
LinkedIn's own industry assignment. Shares overlap because members carry multiple tags.
| Industry | Impressions | Share | Clicks | CTR | Conv | ICP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Technology, Information and Internet | 48,181 | 32.51% | 957 | 1.99% | 0 | No |
| Business Consulting and Services | 42,341 | 28.57% | 876 | 2.07% | 5 | Verify |
| Advertising Services | 25,695 | 17.34% | 525 | 2.04% | 0 | Agencies |
| Chemical Manufacturing | 25,640 | 17.30% | 718 | 2.80% | 0 | Adjacent |
| Retail | 25,211 | 17.01% | 566 | 2.25% | 0 | Yes |
| Retail Apparel and Fashion | 20,685 | 13.96% | 386 | 1.87% | 0 | Yes |
| Food and Beverage Manufacturing | 15,318 | 10.34% | 333 | 2.17% | 0 | Yes |
| Retail Health and Personal Care | 11,947 | 8.06% | 365 | 3.06% | 0 | Yes, best CTR |
| IT Services and IT Consulting | 11,073 | 7.47% | 204 | 1.84% | 0 | No |
| Apparel Manufacturing | 10,049 | 6.78% | 174 | 1.73% | 0 | Yes |
| Manufacturing | 9,482 | 6.40% | 183 | 1.93% | 3 | Adjacent |
Technology and Internet at 32.5%, Business Consulting at 28.6%, Advertising Services at 17.3% and IT Services at 7.5%. Advertising Services alone absorbed 25,695 impressions. That is the agency contamination documented in the account analysis and the ICP filter, now visible in LinkedIn's own first-party industry data rather than inferred from enrichment.
That is a very broad LinkedIn category, and members carry multiple tags, so this does not prove the converters are consultancies. But it is not the consumer brand category we would want either. Cross-check the 5 against the named CRM leads before anyone presents this as a win.
3.06% CTR, the strongest of any material industry, on 8.1% of impressions. Consistent with the creative analysis's finding that the wellness and supplements category is where the tactical playbook creative should be rebuilt.
The function mix raises a question this report has not raised before.
| Job function | Impressions | Share | Clicks | CTR | Read |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Business Development | 45,119 | 30.44% | 1,070 | 2.37% | The executive decision maker bucket. Founder, CEO, Co-Founder, Owner, President, COO and Board Member all file here. |
| Sales | 38,886 | 26.24% | 777 | 2.00% | Weakest CTR of the big three. Vendor and seller population. The line to trim. |
| Marketing | 29,380 | 19.82% | 781 | 2.66% | Best CTR of the big three and the actual buyer. |
| Operations | 13,965 | 9.42% | 338 | 2.42% | Second real buying function for marketplace work. |
| Arts and Design | 7,203 | 4.86% | 149 | 2.07% | Creative staff, not buyers. |
| Media and Communication | 4,649 | 3.14% | 124 | 2.67% | Strong CTR, small volume. |
| Product Management | 4,220 | 2.85% | 110 | 2.61% | Adjacent to ecommerce ownership. |
Business Development is not a mis-targeting signal. It is the executive decision maker bucket. LinkedIn files Founder, Co-Founder, Owner, CEO, President, COO and Board Member under Business Development. Those are exactly the titles this account reaches: Founder 7,221 impressions, CEO 4,691, Board Member 3,957, Co-Founder 3,259, Owner 3,137, President 2,443. Business Development at 30.4% of delivery is therefore a strength, and combined with Marketing at 19.8% and Operations at 9.4% it means roughly 60% of impressions land on either the economic buyer or the functional buyer.
The one line worth watching is Sales at 26.2% with the weakest CTR of the big three at 2.00%, and Sales Director as the second largest single title at a 1.85% CTR. That is the vendor and seller population, and it is the only part of the function mix that needs trimming.
| Title | Impressions | Clicks | CTR | Read |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Founder | 7,221 | 161 | 2.23% | Largest single title. Founder led brands are the right profile. |
| Sales Director | 4,922 | 91 | 1.85% | Second largest title, weakest engagement. Probably not a buyer. |
| Chief Executive Officer | 4,691 | 115 | 2.45% | Strong. |
| Board Member | 3,957 | 114 | 2.88% | High CTR, indirect influence. |
| Co-Founder | 3,259 | 86 | 2.64% | Right profile. |
| Marketing Director | 1,751 | 53 | 3.03% | Best CTR of any named title. Under weighted at 1.2% of impressions. |
| Brand Specialist | 1,623 | 46 | 2.83% | Brand side, engages well. |
| Chief Marketing Officer | 1,490 | 38 | 2.55% | Right buyer, small volume. |
| Digital Specialist | 1,479 | 41 | 2.77% | Ecommerce adjacent, engages well. |
Founder, CEO, Co-Founder, Owner, President and Board Member together take 24,708 impressions, 16.7% of delivery. Marketing Director, CMO, Brand Specialist and Digital Specialist are the four best converting title profiles by CTR and together take only 4.3%. That is the clearest reallocation available inside targeting.
This was the largest open question in the account. The CRM cross reference closes it.
| Contact | Domain | Created | Service interest | Read |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contact 4 | example.com | 13 Jul | AI Optimization | Supplements brand. Second contact from the same company. |
| Contact 14 | example.com | 17 Jul | - | Same company, four days later. Strongest signal in the set. |
| Contact 7 | example.com | 16 Jul | - | Major beauty brand. ICP category. |
| Contact 15 | example.com | 9 Jul | - | ICP Brand 79, consumer goods. ICP. |
| Contact 2 | example.com | 9 Jul | - | ICP Brand 66. The only lead matching an ad exposed company. |
| Contact 25 | example.com | 9 Jul | - | Small brand, verify fit. |
| 10 further leads | none | 13 to 30 Jul | mostly blank | No company, no business email. Report downloads by individuals. |
Ten of seventeen LinkedIn leads have no company. 74.5% of Google spend went to affiliate and influencer keywords, which are searched by people wanting to become an Amazon affiliate rather than brands hiring an agency. 6,887 page views sit on the careers page and a 2022 resume helper file.
Three independent datasets, one failure mode. It is not a channel problem and it is not a creative problem. The offer and the keywords are attracting career and side income intent alongside commercial intent, and the measurement layer cannot tell them apart. Fixing that is worth more than any budget reallocation in this report.
Director and above takes 104,129 of 148,199 impressions. This is the strongest defensible targeting result in the account and it is currently missing from every client facing artifact.
Business Development is the founder and CEO bucket and should be protected. Sales at 26.2% with a 2.00% CTR is the weak line, and Sales Director is the second largest title at 1.85%. Reallocate from Sales toward Marketing, which posts the best CTR of the big three at 2.66%, and toward the four strongest title profiles: Marketing Director 3.03%, Brand Specialist 2.83%, Digital Specialist 2.77%, CMO 2.55%.
1.87% CTR, 319 clicks, zero conversions, and squarely able to pay the minimum. The band engages and then stops — an offer gap, not a targeting one.
Ten of seventeen leads arrived with a personal email and no company. Require a business email on the lead form, or accept that the lead count is inflated and report a qualified subset instead.
Advertising Services alone absorbed 25,695 impressions, 17.3% of delivery. Combined with Technology and Internet and IT Services, non buyer categories dominate the mix.
All 5 are tagged Business Consulting and Services. That is a broad category with overlapping tags, but it is not the consumer brand label we would want. Confirm who they are before this is reported as a win.
Part two / messaging and creative
Client case study documents produce a 6.01% CTR at a $2.00 CPC, three times the account CTR and the cheapest clicks by far. They have generated zero leads from $3,518 of spend.
The seasonal tactical playbook produces a 1.37% CTR at a $9.76 CPC, five times the cost per click. It generated 5 leads, all 4 recorded conversions, at a $74.15 cost per lead from $371 of spend.
This also explains the audience analysis. The case studies feature Enterprise Account 33, Enterprise Account 58 and Enterprise Account 47. Enterprise beauty content attracts enterprise beauty companies, which is exactly the 10,001+ segment that takes 22.7% of impressions and 31.6% of clicks at the highest CTR of any large band and converts zero times, per Campaign Manager demographics. The creative is manufacturing the audience problem, and the Enterprise Account 53 spillover risk is the clearest example.
65% of spend has no creative attribution. A single unnamed row carries $16,157 of $24,703, with 143,532 impressions and 4,323 clicks. Everything below covers the $8,546 that is attributable. All 18 leads and 4 of 5 conversions do fall inside that attributed portion, so the conversion analysis holds even though the spend coverage does not.
No ad headline or introduction text. DemandSense exposes creative names only. True headline and hook analysis needs the Campaign Manager Creative Performance export, which has Ad Introduction Text and Ad Headline. That request is with the LinkedIn specialist.
Partially resolved on 30 July. Google is not connected to DemandSense and Search Console is not connected at all, so the search terms report is still outstanding and Search Console is unconnected, so the organic discovery section is substituted with website content engagement and labelled as such. The Google keyword report that did arrive is analysed in the channel analysis.
Click any column to sort. Seven angles classified from creative naming. Verdicts follow the standard thresholds, adjusted because conversion tracking records only 4 events across the account.
| Angle▿ | Spend▿ | Impressions▿ | Clicks▿ | CTR▿ | CPC▿ | Engagements▿ | Leads▿ | CPL▿ | Verdict▿ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Named total | $8,546 | 89,396 | 2,127 | 2.38% | $4.02 | 7,936 | 18 | $474.80 |
Both winning angles are gated documents with a practical takeaway: the Prime Day Tactical Guide at $74.15 CPL and the AI Shopping Report at $230.43 CPL, together 15 of 18 leads. Both losing document angles are about Northwind Commerce rather than about the reader's problem. Same format, opposite outcome, so format is not the variable. Subject matter is.
Founder voice video across four cuts: $1,044, 16,097 impressions, 82 clicks, a 0.51% CTR and 334 engagements. PostPrimeDay images: $543 at a 0.42% CTR, the lowest in the account. July 1 webinar image: $364 at a $27.97 CPC, seven times the account average. None produced a lead.
Four of 17 named creatives produced a lead. All four are gated documents. Ranked by lead volume.
The single highest lead producer in the account. A weak 0.76% CTR and a $14.64 CPC, so it looks like a failing ad on engagement metrics. It is the opposite. Original category research is the one asset type that makes a marketplace operator hand over an email.
The best creative in the account on every outcome measure and the only one with recorded conversions. $315 of spend, 31 clicks, 5 leads, 4 conversions at a $78.65 cost per conversion. Time bound, tactical, and tied to the single event the entire ICP plans around.
The B variant of the winning research asset, at 1.8 times the CPL of the A variant on similar spend. A real A B result worth acting on: variant A is the one to scale and B is the one to retire or rewrite.
Launched 16 July, so it has run under two weeks and already sits at a $116.53 CPL, second best in the account. Variants 1 and 3 of the same guide produced nothing on $53 combined, so the creative execution inside the angle matters as much as the angle.
Every other named creative produced zero leads, including the two highest CTR assets in the account. Conversion tracking records only 4 events in total, so lead volume is the primary outcome measure throughout this report.
The inverse relationship, drawn out. Bars show CTR. The figure on the right is leads. Founder voice video is included because it is the format most often assumed to work.
Founder voice content usually beats produced ad copy, often by a wide margin. It did not here. Four cuts, 16,097 impressions, 334 engagements and a 0.51% CTR, against 4,541 engagements for the case study documents on 29,203 impressions. This is a production and distribution problem rather than evidence that founder content fails. The client's PR agency now controls the CEO's profile and we are still waiting on posts, so these ran as standalone video ads rather than as promoted organic thought leader posts, which is the format that produces the engagement multiple.
Google search terms and Search Console organic queries are both unavailable. What follows is website content engagement from DemandSense, which answers a similar question: which themes hold attention. Top 35 pages by views.
| Page | Views | Companies | People | Avg seconds | Read |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| /case-study/how-ollie-drove-double-digit-growth... | 68 | 0 | 0 | 383 | Deepest read on the site. A mid market DTC pet brand, exactly the ICP. |
| /career-page-new/ | 90 | 2 | 3 | 430 | Longest dwell of any page. Job seekers, not buyers. |
| /affiliate/ (sales) | 97 | 10 | 14 | 174 | High intent service page holding attention. |
| /case-studies/ | 396 | 23 | 47 | 118 | Proof content works when people find it. |
| /2026-ai-shopping-report/ | 81 | 7 | 6 | 107 | Landing page for the 10 lead creative. Long dwell. |
| /amazon-growth-services/ | 157 | 13 | 17 | 99 | Core service page, strong engagement, thin traffic. |
| /marketplace-mastery/ | 92 | 6 | 11 | 70 | Educational pillar with real dwell. |
| /2026-prime-day-tactical-guide/ | 285 | 18 | 19 | 61 | Landing page for the best converting creative. |
| /careers/ | 2,941 | 301 | 472 | 49 | Third most viewed page. The contamination source. |
| /wp-content/uploads/2022/02/theresumator_helper.html | 3,856 | 186 | 265 | 48 | A resume helper file from 2022. Second most viewed page on the entire site. |
| /amazon-affiliate-agencies/ | 165 | 20 | 19 | 11 | Traffic without attention. Thin page. |
| /best-amazon-brand-protection-agencies... | 74 | 1 | 2 | 9 | SEO page attracting nobody relevant. |
| /post-prime-day-audit/ | 120 | 19 | 17 | 1.5 | Immediate bounce. The PostPrimeDay creative also produced zero leads. |
| /amazon-sports-outdoors-top-products... | 97 | 11 | 18 | 0.2 | Almost certainly automated traffic. |
383 seconds of average dwell, more than six minutes, on a case study about a mid market DTC pet brand. ICP Brand 100 is also a live engaged account with a VP Commercial identified on the site. Meanwhile the case studies we do run as ads feature Enterprise Account 33, Enterprise Account 58 and Enterprise Account 47, and they convert nobody. The asset that matches the ICP already exists and is already proven to hold attention. Put it in the ad account.
/careers/ at 2,941 views plus a 2022 resume helper file at 3,856 views plus /career-page-new/ at 90. Together roughly 38% of all page views in the top 35. This is the root cause of the non ICP website population flagged in the account analysis and in the ICP filter. Excluding these three paths from identification is a single change that fixes the account scoring layer.
The most important section. Personas come from the audience analysis. Every persona currently sees the same creative, which is the core problem.
51 to 200 employees / 0.76% click to lead / can pay the minimum
10,001+ employees / 0.17% conversion rate / highest CTR in account
1 to 50 employees / 1.64% click to lead / below the contract floor
Wellness, cosmetics, consumer goods / 8 of 17 leads
Agencies, adtech, VC and PE / 4 of 17 leads / 2.40% click to lead
Every persona currently receives the same creative, and that creative is optimised for the persona we least want. The case study documents are the most engaging assets in the account and they are built around enterprise beauty logos, which is why enterprise beauty companies dominate the click volume. Rebuilding proof content around mid market brands, and rebuilding the tactical playbook by category, addresses the audience problem and the conversion problem with one change rather than two.
$74.15 CPL and the only angle with conversions, on just $371 of spend. It is the least funded angle in the account and the best performing. Q4 and holiday are the obvious next windows, and variant 1_B is the template, not 1_A.
383 seconds of dwell, mid market DTC, and ICP Brand 100 is a live engaged account. Retire Enterprise Account 33, Enterprise Account 58 and Enterprise Account 47 from paid distribution. This is the single change that addresses both the creative problem and the audience problem.
$1,950 combined, zero leads, and the three lowest CTRs in the account. Hold founder content until the PR agency delivers posts we can promote as thought leader ads, which is the format that actually works.
$16,157 of delivery carries no creative attribution, so two thirds of the account has no messaging signal at all. Until that is fixed every conclusion here rests on a third of the budget.
Best converting format crossed with best converting category. Wellness, cosmetics and consumer goods produced 8 of 17 leads on DemandSense industry attribution, which resolves 67% of clicks and should be treated as directional. Campaign Manager demographics independently puts Retail Health and Personal Care at the best CTR of any material industry, 3.06%, which points the same way from a first party source.
The three decisions this report exists to produce.
| Action | Messaging | Evidence | Replace with |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cut | Enterprise logo case studies | Enterprise Account 33, Enterprise Account 58, Enterprise Account 47. 6.01% CTR, $2.00 CPC, zero leads from $3,518. Recruits the 10,001+ segment that converts at zero. | Mid market proof, campaign 5 |
| Cut | Founder voice video, as ads | Four cuts, 16,097 impressions, 334 engagements, 0.51% CTR, $1,044, zero leads. | Promoted organic thought leader posts, once the PR agency delivers |
| Cut | PostPrimeDay and webinar imagery | 0.42% and 0.68% CTR, $27.97 CPC on the webinar, $907 combined, zero leads. Landing page bounces at 1.5 seconds. | Nothing. Recover the budget. |
| Scale | Seasonal tactical playbook | $74.15 CPL and every recorded conversion on $371. Variant 1_B is the template, 1_A produced nothing. | Three new variants, Q4 and holiday windows |
| Scale | Original research report | 10 of 18 leads. Variant 2_A at $186.20 CPL against 2_B at $333.63. | Scale 2_A, retire or rewrite 2_B |
| Segment | Mid market case study | The ICP Brand 100 asset holds 383 seconds average dwell, deepest read page on the site, and ICP Brand 100 is a live engaged account. Not currently in the ad account. | Dedicated budget against RT 90D and ABM |
| Test | Category playbook, wellness and supplements | Best converting format crossed with the best converting category. Retail Health and Personal Care posts 3.06% CTR, strongest of any material industry. | One asset, one category, measured against the generic playbook |
| Test | Audit or teardown offer | No bottom funnel asset exists. People reached 7.5 times are still being offered a PDF. | Conversation ad to the already engaged pool |
| Test | Competitive white space angles | April analysis named five gaps. AI driven commerce discovery is already validated by 389 unpaid AI assistant sessions. Governance and profitability measurement remain untested in creative. | One angle per month against the warm pool |
Cut list recovers roughly $1,950 per month of directly identified waste plus the $3,518 case study allocation, which is reallocated rather than saved. Ad copy for every creative above is available in the Ads Performance export, including introduction text and headline.