Social Media

Account Based Marketing (ABM) on LinkedIn

Target a named list of companies, reach the buying committee inside them, and measure progress by account rather than by lead.

BenchMarketing editorial team Updated October 2, 2026 3 min read

Account based marketing flips the usual funnel: instead of attracting as many leads as possible and filtering them, you choose the companies you want and concentrate effort on them. LinkedIn is the most practical paid channel for it because you can target employees of specific companies by role.

Build the account list

Start with the companies most like your best customers: industry, size, technology, region. Keep the first list focused; a few hundred well-chosen accounts are easier to work than thousands of loose fits. Sales should agree with the list, because they will follow up.

Target the buying committee

Upload the list as a company list audience in LinkedIn Campaign Manager, then layer job functions and seniorities on top. Most B2B purchases involve several people: the user, their manager, finance, sometimes IT or legal. Give each group messages about their concerns rather than one generic ad.

Content by stage

Unaware accounts: short, useful content about the problem: data, benchmarks, opinion from someone credible.
Engaged accounts: case studies from similar companies, product walkthroughs.
Accounts in active conversations: proof and reassurance: security, implementation, pricing clarity.

Thought leader ads (promoting posts from your team's own profiles) and document ads often earn more attention in early stages than standard sponsored content.

What it costs

LinkedIn's median CPM is $33.80 and median CPC $5.39. ABM audiences are small, so costs per impression tend to sit at the higher end. That is fine if the accounts are valuable; judge the programme on pipeline from target accounts, not on cost per click.

Measure by account

Share of target accounts reached and engaged.
Accounts with meetings or opportunities.
Pipeline and revenue from target accounts against a comparable set you did not target.

Lead counts will look low. That is the point: you are trading volume for fit.

See LinkedIn Ads benchmarks and our comparison of LinkedIn and Google for B2B.

About the figures

Benchmark figures in this article come from the BenchMarketing dataset and update when the benchmark pages do. Each benchmark page lists its sources and period; see our methodology.

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