February 19, 2025 • 27 mins
Meet Joshua Stout, the director of advertising at Influent and a LinkedIn Certified Marketing Expert, who shares his journey and expertise on running a thousand LinkedIn ad campaigns. Joshua offers key insights into avoiding common pitfalls that lead to wasted ad spend and takes listeners through the art of maximizing ROI with LinkedIn ads.
Whether you're managing a modest budget or a substantial one, these strategies promise to double your leads and conversions and optimize your marketing budget.
Finally, we explore the nuances of targeting high-level executives on LinkedIn, addressing the challenges that come with higher ad costs. This episode is packed with actionable insights and expert advice, designed to elevate your LinkedIn advertising game to new heights.
Send us a Text Message, give feedback on the episode, suggest a guest or topic
Visit the Remarkable Marketing Podcast website to see all our episodes.
Visit the Remarkable Marketing Podcast on YouTube
Remarkable Marketing Podcast Highlights on Instagram
Eric Eden on LinkedIn
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Eric Eden (00:03):
Welcome to today's episode.
Today, we are talking about howto have massive success with
LinkedIn advertising and how tostop wasting money on ads that
don't work.
We have the perfect guest tohelp us talk through this.
Josh Stout has run over athousand campaigns on LinkedIn
(00:24):
and helped companies achievemassive success.
Josh, welcome to the show.
Joshua Stout (00:30):
Thank you, I'm really happy to be here.
Eric Eden (00:32):
So why don't we start off?
Can you share just a minute ortwo, a little bit more about who
you are and what you do?
Joshua Stout (00:41):
Yeah, absolutely so.
As you mentioned, my name isJoshua Stout.
I am the director ofadvertising at an agency called
Influent.
I am leading the LinkedIn adsdivision there.
For the last five plus years.
I spent my time with an agencythat was also LinkedIn centric
and I basically built their adservice so kind of from the
(01:04):
ground up.
I managed enough campaignswhere I couldn't take any more
and then I had to hire the nextperson.
I had to hire the next personand train them, and then the
next, and then next, untilultimately I had to create a
training program that went on totrain at least 50 more people
on how to run LinkedIn ads.
So during my time there Ieither personally managed or
(01:25):
oversaw strategy and, as yousaid, over a thousand ad
accounts.
A few months ago I did getflown to London by LinkedIn to
receive my LinkedIn certifiedmarketing expert certification,
and at some point last year theymust have found my content
pretty valuable, because theyalso gave me the elusive
LinkedIn top voice badge, whichis now my profile.
Eric Eden (01:47):
Nice.
So you're basically a LinkedInblack belt is what you're
telling us.
Joshua Stout (01:52):
Yeah, I was.
I was born, molded and formedon LinkedIn, so everything I've
done is focused on LinkedIn andyou know, while I I have run
other channels and more cohesiveB2B strategies and omni-channel
strategies to achieve results,it all really started with
(02:14):
LinkedIn and hinged aroundLinkedIn, so it's always been
LinkedIn-centric.
Eric Eden (02:19):
So you have these LinkedIn jiu-jitsu moves.
We're ready to be inspired, soyou have these LinkedIn jujitsu
moves.
Joshua Stout (02:36):
We're ready to be inspired.
Tell us a story about some ofthe remarkable results you've
been able to generate onLinkedIn, some that really stand
out above the rest and I sayquite a few because I have done,
obviously, countless audits,jumped into countless accounts.
I've seen everything from $300a month budgets to over $100,000
a month budgets, basicallymanaged millions on LinkedIn
(03:00):
spend, and it's surprising ormaybe not how common it is to
find certain settings and errorsthat can waste a lot of budget
for companies all the way toFortune 100 companies.
I think a big reason behindthis was, if you really think
about it, until COVID, linkedinwasn't nearly as prevalent as it
(03:23):
is now in the businessnetworking game.
Not that they weren't there andnot that they didn't already
have an offer an ads offer forbusinesses.
But when COVID hit, peoplecouldn't go to conferences
anymore, they couldn't go toevents anymore.
You couldn't go door knockinganymore to try to make sales,
and all of these people weredesperate for a way to get in
(03:46):
front of businesses to networktheir business right, and
LinkedIn was sitting herewaiting for everybody.
They said come, my children.
We're more than a job site.
We've always been more than ajob site, and you started seeing
this paradigm shift from peoplethinking of LinkedIn as a site
that you go to to look for yourjobs or for computers to use, to
(04:07):
where businesses were finallyable to start marketing
themselves and, as such, whatthat left was a pretty big
deficit in people that wereactually experts in LinkedIn
advertising.
Right, because you have a lot ofdigital marketing agencies.
You have a lot I mean so muchcompetition out there with
people that focus on meta orprogrammatic or Google or the
(04:30):
numerous other marketingchannels there were.
But when you go on to LinkedIn,it's similar.
A lot of these platforms aresimilar but it's also vastly
different.
You're not an expert in theright settings to use and how to
build target audiences that.
You know the right nuances,such as audience expansion and
audience network, on on buildingan actual structure within
(04:51):
linkedin to maximize your budget, to get the most roi out of it.
Then you can be wastinghundreds or thousands of dollars
on linkedin.
So that's typically what I'veseen.
So, so obviously, like as Imentioned, I kind of grew up on
the LinkedIn scene.
I was there for it when peoplewere switching over to LinkedIn
and that's how I learned allthese best practices.
(05:12):
So there's one, though, thatsticks out to me the most, and
they were a financial servicesindustry, which usually is a
pretty hard industry to promoteor to market with.
There's a lot of restrictionson other channels, for example,
like on Meta, you can't evenupload a list if you're in
financial services industry.
(05:34):
You can't retarget or set upretargeting campaigns if you're
in financial services industryOn Reddit, they require you to
have certification to prove thatyou can advertise in each and
every state that you want to inthe financial services industry.
So it's an extremely difficultindustry to be able to market
(05:54):
for.
Now.
When I first got in to thataccount and I first started
seeing how we could revamp theirstrategy and what we can do,
they did a mistake that I'veseen so many companies do, and
that's running lead gen formson-platform forms for prospects
to fill out at your top offunnel, with no follow-up
(06:14):
strategy.
This is a way that you canreally waste budget.
Also, you have to have yourmatched audiences in place on
LinkedIn in order to maximizethe return that you're getting
from those prospects, and if youonly run Legion Forms top of
funnel to a cold audience thatdoesn't know about your business
, you're getting your ad infront of some busy entrepreneur
(06:39):
decision maker and they might beinterested.
But if you're already askingfor their information, you're
not going to get the resultsthat you want.
There's really high frictionthere.
Now for this client inparticular, they did have a very
, very strong video top offunnel and they got a lot of
results.
But as I usually see forcompanies that do that, they get
a pop of results and then itstarts dwindling down and they
(07:02):
get diminishing returns overtime and then it stops yielding
the ROI.
They think LinkedIn is tooexpensive of a channel and they
don't want to run it anymore.
So when we came in, they weredoing the structure and they had
basically I think it was likefour salesperson's territory who
had uploaded very narrow nichelists that they were targeting
(07:23):
and they ran this video and theyran the lead jumps for them.
They got a pop of results overa few months and then it died
down.
So the first thing that I'mgoing to do when I go into any
campaign and any account is I amgoing to set up the appropriate
structure.
I am going to set up theappropriate structure.
So LinkedIn is extremelypowerful for two really big
(07:43):
reasons.
One, it has the most up-to-datedata for professionals.
If you think about it, whensomebody changes a job, you lose
a job, get a job, changepositions you don't rush to meta
to update your Facebook profile.
There's no other socialplatform that you're like oh,
(08:04):
let me go update my job on hereOn LinkedIn.
It's almost instant.
You're almost instantly goingto go to LinkedIn and update
your information.
That means the data on LinkedInis the cleanest that you can
get for the current jobs thatpeople have, better than any
databases out there, any datacenters that you can get.
All this aggregated data fromdifferent places, linkedin is
going to have the cleanest, best, most up-to-date data.
(08:26):
Now, along with that, linkedingives you a ton of professional
filters that you can use Jobtitles, industries, company size
, revenue just a ton of thingsthat you can use to try to find
your ICP the best way possible.
And that's really important,because every dollar that you
(08:46):
spend that's not for your ICP iswasted budget.
You might as well throw it away, right, because if you're
showing impressions of somebodythat's not your audience and not
a potential client of yours,it's wasted budget.
So LinkedIn gives you thatpower to be able to find these
people.
Now the other is the mindset ofthe user on the platform.
When people get on LinkedIn,they're thinking business,
(09:08):
they're thinking career growth.
They're thinking businessgrowth.
So by getting on LinkedIn andshowing your B2B ads there or
B2C if it's professionallydriven you're most likely to
engage the people that you wantand you're ensuring, because of
the targeting, that you'regetting it in front of the right
people.
So, all that being said, so I'mgoing in there and that's what
(09:29):
I'm looking for.
So I'm looking for a structureand your top of funnel.
When you're targeting peoplethat you don't know if they've
engaged with you, you don't knowif they've been to your website
, you don't know if they've seenyou.
It's high friction.
Ask for lead gen forms Becausethey had success there.
We didn't want to change that,but instead we added to it there
(09:51):
should be a multi-prongedstrategy to everybody's accounts
on LinkedIn or campaigns onLinkedIn.
So the very first thing that wedid is we set up the
retargeting audiences.
The very first thing that wedid is we set up the retargeting
audiences.
You would be amazed at how muchROI you can squeeze out of your
target audience simply byretargeting them.
I don't think there's anywhereon the internet that, if you
look up, how many touch pointsor impressions does it take to
(10:14):
convert someone for a businessor to convert someone into
either a demo or a sale?
It's going to say one or eventwo, right, I think some Google
sites I've seen said you know,eight to 12.
I think more likely.
If you look at the businesslandscape today, it's 20, 40
plus.
One recurring theme that we cansee is it's staying in front of
(10:37):
the people that showed interest, building trust and credibility
and influencing that conversion.
There's no easy changes in abusiness and no easy decisions.
When I was growing that lastagency with my partners even
switching from a Google Sheetinto a platform like ClickUp, it
took training.
It took time.
(10:57):
It took effort.
Framing it took time, it tookeffort.
It wasn't an expensive move tobuy the software, but it was an
expensive move to spendeveryone's time doing it,
because you're paying salaries,other people are getting paid to
work for you and they're takingtheir time to learn this new
system and transition everythingover.
So I'm looking for thatstructure.
Right, there's not a structure,so I want to put it in place.
(11:19):
I'm going to build matchedaudiences based on people that
have visited the website, peoplethat have visited the company
page or people that haveinteracted with the previous ads
and with their specifically.
As I mentioned, they wererunning a video top of funnel
with a lead gen form.
You can set up a matchedaudiences or matched audience
for a prospect who's seen acertain amount of that video.
Theirs was kind of a longervideo, which I'll touch on here
(11:42):
in a second, but so we targetedat least people that watched 50%
of the video or more.
And also you can retargetpeople that opened the lead gen
form but didn't submit it.
I guess a better way to saythat is you can retarget people
that opened the lead gen formand you can create another
audience from the people whosubmitted, and you can create
another audience from the peoplewho submitted it and you can
exclude them from your campaigns.
(12:02):
So you're not trying to servetop of funnel ads to people that
have already converted.
First and foremost, right therewe use the same exact videos,
retargeted them with thosevideos instantly started getting
more leads for them.
Now you don't want to rely onleads either.
So if you're going to runvideos, you also want to run
static images, static images.
Well, videos will get thehighest intent if somebody
(12:22):
watches a video and clicks onthe call to action.
That's the highest intent youcan get.
Right, they watched your video,they're still interested.
But to get the most traffic andeasiest interest you have to
use static images, and acombination of those two is
what's going to work best.
Top of funnel implement fivedifferent ads, each have
(12:46):
different pain points andbenefits for your ICP, and then
run those in tandem with yourvideos.
Now, those ads, we're not goingto run lead gen forms to, we're
going to send them to thewebsite, treat it like a true
funnel top of funnel audienceand let them learn more about
the company.
Again, we're going to retargetthe people that are interacting
with those ads.
Now, in our retargeting layers,we're going to do the same.
We're running that video andwe're running the ads.
So now we start gettingconversions on the website.
(13:08):
Plus, we're getting the leadsfrom LinkedIn.
So now we've really improvedtheir results, lowered their
cost per leads incrementally andwe're getting more conversions
on their website.
Finally, another thing we hadthem do and I could obviously
probably talk for hours.
I'm not going to go full intodepth about their full structure
(13:28):
, but we had them chop up thatvideo.
So I highly recommend that ifyou're using a video in your top
of funnel campaign that youwant to use shorter videos 15 to
45 seconds, maybe a minute max.
People have short attentionspans and if they don't know who
you are they're very unlikelyto give you that attention.
(13:50):
You have to catch it quick andyou have to keep it.
And if you have a long videotwo minutes, three minutes it's
just not very likely that peopleare going to sit there and
watch that whole video and theyhave no idea who you are, unless
it is very good and veryenticing.
So we chopped up that videointo five different shorter
video segments.
We move that top of funnel.
(14:10):
We move the longer videos tomiddle of funnel.
Remember, up here people don'tknow who you are.
That's top of funnel.
Get their interest, get theminterested in what you're
offering.
Have them engage in some way.
Now they've moved into yourmiddle of funnel.
In the middle of funnel youwant to build trust and
credibility.
What makes you the best at whatyou do?
(14:31):
Why should someone go with youinstead of with one of your
competitors?
So they're much more likelyalso to spend much more time
watching a video.
They already showed interest.
You already got that initialinterest from them.
Now they're much more likely togive you more of that
consideration.
And then, finally, you have tohave something bottom of funnel,
asking for the next step.
(14:51):
You've whined, you've dined andnow it's time to take the
relationship to the next level,right?
And if you're not asking for it, you're never going to get
there.
You're going to be friend-zoned, right.
If you want to get seriousabout this, you need to pop the
question, and so we do that in acouple of different ways, but
mainly using a variation of ads10 to 15 ads, both middle funnel
, bottom of funnel.
For those bottom of funnelcampaigns, you can build
(15:13):
audiences based off anybody thatengaged with your middle of
funnel content or ads and alsoanybody that went to your
website company page within thelast 30 days.
So now you have this highintent audience that you're
serving a direct call to actionfor.
That feeds into your fullfunnel structure of bringing an
(15:33):
instant audience to middlefunnel, building trust and
credibility and ultimatelyasking for the conversion.
With this combination and thisjust beautiful, mature funnel
that we were able to build out,we over doubled their results,
not only just in leads but alsowith conversions, and ended up
exponentially increasing thebudget to drive more results.
Eric Eden (15:55):
So what does success look like?
Should people think aboutthings in terms of a cost per
lead and a certain sort ofconversion rate on LinkedIn as
like, what is the gold standardthat people can get to if
they're doing all of thesethings right?
Joshua Stout (16:11):
Yeah, that's great, because a lot of times
it's a great question because alot of times it's not so
compartmentalized or siloedright, so a lot of times it's
the other influences too.
So it's hard to just say, hey,like, what do you want from
LinkedIn?
But I'll tell you, like,typically, what I'm looking for.
First and foremost, if you'rejust starting and you don't have
(16:32):
traffic going to your website,or even if you do, if you're
using LinkedIn to make sureyou're bringing in the right
traffic to your website, you'regoing to have higher costs.
Top of funnel always costs more.
Consider this.
Most people are trying to targetCEOs, directors you know
C-suite right and a lot ofpeople target really big
(16:53):
companies or even if it's smallcompanies.
It's a highly sought afterposition to get your ads in
front of, and LinkedIn is oneplace to show that ad.
You are waiting for thesepeople to log into LinkedIn so
you could show them that ad andengage them.
It's going to cost a lot.
Your are waiting for thesepeople to log into LinkedIn so
you could show them that ad andengage them.
It's going to cost a lot.
Your CPM is going to be high.
Your cost per click is going tobe higher than you're used to
on other platforms.
(17:14):
Other platforms have a millionother places they can show your
ads.
On LinkedIn, you're saying, hey, I want them to engage here.
So $5 to $15 for a click is notunreasonable.
In fact, if you're targetingCEOs at 10,000 plus, companies
expect a higher cost per click.
This is an extremely busyperson and you're trying to
(17:34):
appeal to them with your offer.
Expect it to be expensive.
So that's top of funnel.
And the reason I want todistinguish that is because, yes
, it can be more expensive thanother platforms to bring people
in, but once you startretargeting and you see the
re-engagement, once you'rebuilding their interest with
content like blogs and whitepapers and eBooks and you're
putting testimonials and socialproof in them, you're going to
(17:57):
10x the amount of time that theyspend on your website and
considering your offer.
So now, with that, you're goingto see a $1 cost per click.
So when I'm talking about, like, overall cost per click, when
I'm looking at LinkedIn, I dowant it to be somewhere within
$1 to $5 when it averagesbetween the different layers.
(18:18):
Don't just take it at face value, though, on what your cost per
click is top of funnel.
It's not the right way toassess it.
Now, that's cost per click.
Of course a lot of people.
They also want results, right.
They want leads, they wantconversions.
So the way I usually reverseengineer that is you know what's
the lifetime value and new salevalue of a client to you and
(18:42):
now we have to work backwards,right?
Because how many sales callsdoes it take to close a sale?
How many leads does it take tohold a certain amount of sales
calls?
Not all leads hold the salescalls a certain amount of drop
off there and not all salesconvert into a sale for the
company.
So you have to work backwards,right.
If it takes five calls to closea $100 sale, I mean obviously
(19:03):
it's going to be much higher onLinkedIn, but that's going to be
$20, right?
So now it's $20 a sales call.
So if you reverse engineer, whatis a lead worth to you?
That should be your benchmark.
That should be your benchmarkof what you're going for.
And the way that you cancontinuously optimize on that
and lower it is by looking atthe demographic data.
So you have your ICP, but youdon't know where the interest in
(19:24):
the market is right now.
But you can look at thedemographic data available and
see the people that are engagingthe most with your ads and that
gives you an idea of how tooptimize your campaigns to get
lower than the benchmark thatyou want for this channel and to
get the best ROI possible.
And also make sure you're not.
It's not an apples to applescomparison with other channels.
(19:46):
I've seen people all the timethat came over to LinkedIn that
said, meta did not do good forme.
I got a ton of leads.
They were trash leads, right.
I got 20 leads and one wasinterested.
Well, on LinkedIn, while theappearance of the cost is higher
, you're getting higher qualityleads.
So maybe if you get 20 leads onLinkedIn, you know eight or
(20:08):
nine of them are going toconvert in their higher quality
leads because you're engagingthem in the right place at the
right time for the right people.
So ultimately, there's nonumber that I can just throw out
.
I can't throw out the samenumber for somebody that has a
$10,000 offer for somebody thathas a $100,000 offer.
You have to reverse engineerwhat is a lead worth to you.
(20:29):
Set that as your benchmark, ofcourse, at first.
If you're first building yourfunnel, it's going to start
higher than that.
But optimize based on the data,ensure you're converting at the
right amount.
Talk to your sales team, talkto your marketing team, talk to
the ops and that's the benchmarkthat you're looking for to
exceed.
Eric Eden (20:45):
So what is the hardest thing about being
successful with LinkedInadvertising?
Joshua Stout (20:50):
There's two things that I'm going to say.
One, as I mentioned before,it's the expertise of the
platform, because if you don'tknow that your settings are done
the right way and that you havethe right structure in place,
you're wasting budget and that'sgoing to give you skewed
perception of the platform.
An easy one to mention isaudience network.
It's a highly debated featureof LinkedIn.
(21:11):
Every platform has their ownaudience network, right?
It's basically a programmaticchannel where you can show ads
in other places that aren't theplatform.
And if LinkedIn is so powerfulbecause of the mindset of the
user, then if you're showing adson other platforms, well,
because of the mindset of theuser.
Then if you're showing ads onother platforms, well, maybe
(21:33):
you're losing some of that valuebehind it.
So that's a big one.
Just the settings on theplatform and an audience network
.
You can still make it effective, but it has to be highly
excluded and people just don'tknow that.
They just don't know LinkedInmakes it so vague.
They intentionally make itwhere you really can't pick up
on that, or unless you know howto do it, because it gives and
they're not.
They're not evil here, right?
They're not trying to like,just take your budget and, like
(21:55):
some, some evil bosses behindthe curtain saying, well, just
give it all to me, right Causethen you wouldn't want to run on
LinkedIn anymore.
But it gives them the abilityto show your ads in other places
, so of course they want to useit.
So settings like that and thecertain nuances, like matched
audiences you need to know whatyou're doing.
The other part is it takes work.
(22:16):
It takes work.
You have to be actively looking, testing and optimizing and
because of that, you know, I'vealways believed in all these
tips and all this data andknowledge that I know.
I've always believed in sharingit freely online.
I post about it.
I've posted about strategies.
I lay out the strategies.
(22:37):
I've posted about everythingthat I know, because if you can
take that information and use it, great, that's 100% great for
you, that's awesome.
But a lot of people just don'thave the time.
That it takes.
And that can be true for anymarketing and any platform that
you use.
But on LinkedIn, you know, Iwant to use five ads at the top
(22:57):
of funnel that display painpoints and benefits, like what's
resonating with the targetaudience and driving volume.
But you can't just use five adsand leave them there forever,
right.
You have to see what ads areperforming well, what ads aren't
performing well.
Stop the low performers andeither A-B test the high
performers, try a brand new setof ads if none of those are
working, or just swap out.
(23:18):
Whatever you take out, swap itout with new ads to see if
something's going to engagebetter.
But that takes time, that takeseffort.
You should have 10 to 15 adsrunning in your middle funnel.
That's a variation of contentBlogs, white papers, ebooks Best
if you can separate it into PDF, doc, ads on LinkedIn and then
also articles and blogs that youcan send people to on your
(23:39):
website, and you have to includethat variation in there.
You have to swap out oldcontent with new content, and
that takes time, that takesconsideration.
And then you have to do thesame with your bottom of funnel
layer with the testimonials andsocial proof and bolded revenue,
and you want 10 to 15 ads theretoo.
And then that's if you're justdoing a very simple one funnel
(24:00):
structure, but it can getexponentially complicated.
Maybe you want to target bycertain segments in your ICP.
I want to target end users anddecision makers and I want them
to each have their own funnel.
I want to target manufacturingindustry and construction
industry and retail industry,and I'm going to create a
separate funnel because I havethe content or have the
(24:21):
resources and have the budget todo that, and I'm going to do
that all concurrently whilerunning a broad funnel, right?
So the amount of work that goesinto it and the amount of
expertise that you have to havein the platform can be daunting.
That's why you typically wantto find someone who knows what
they're doing on LinkedIn, whocan give that time and effort to
make sure they're making theright optimizations, looking at
(24:42):
the data and it's implementingsome kind of testing framework
to continue optimizing for thebest results.
Eric Eden (24:48):
One last question what are the best things that
people can do in 2025 to havemassive success on LinkedIn?
Joshua Stout (24:59):
Think of LinkedIn as a tool in the tool belt I
started this podcast withtalking about.
There's two very powerfulthings about LinkedIn the data
and the ability to target withit, and the mindset of the user.
When you're thinking about howto use LinkedIn, think about how
that works to your marketingecosystem.
(25:19):
You want to make sure thatyou're engaging the right people
for your offer and showing themthe content that's going to
build the trust and credibilityto get them to convert.
Linkedin is great for that.
Linkedin isn't your one-stopsuccess for everything marketing
right.
You can have Google for yourdemand capture.
(25:40):
You can include retargeting onchannels like Meta X, reddit,
the programmatic right, so allthe other channels can work in
tandem with it.
But for your success withLinkedIn, what is it the most
powerful for Bringing in theright people?
The ICP that you want for youroffer and then having
distributing that type ofcontent and middle and bottom of
(26:02):
funnel ads that are ultimatelygoing to influence them and get
them to convert.
Eric Eden (26:08):
Awesome.
Well, thank you very much forsharing your story and your
insights here today.
I'm going to link to yourwebsite and your LinkedIn so
people can get in touch ifthey'd like to learn more, and
we really appreciate you beingwith us today and being on the
show.
Joshua Stout (26:24):
My pleasure and I will end with this.
So I do offer freecomplimentary audits and that's
available to anybody.
If you reference that you heardabout this from this show, the
first three clients that signedup will get free content, which
means up to a specific number ofcopy and designs per month with
your package.
Eric Eden (26:44):
Awesome.
Thank you for that offer andagain thanks for being on the
pod.
We appreciate it.
Welcome to today's episode.
Today, we are talking about howto have massive success with
LinkedIn advertising and how tostop wasting money on ads that
don't work.
We have the perfect guest tohelp us talk through this.
Josh Stout has run over athousand campaigns on LinkedIn
(00:24):
and helped companies achievemassive success.
Josh, welcome to the show.
Joshua Stout (00:30):
Thank you, I'm really happy to be here.
Eric Eden (00:32):
So why don't we start off?
Can you share just a minute ortwo, a little bit more about who
you are and what you do?
Joshua Stout (00:41):
Yeah, absolutely so.
As you mentioned, my name isJoshua Stout.
I am the director ofadvertising at an agency called
Influent.
I am leading the LinkedIn adsdivision there.
For the last five plus years.
I spent my time with an agencythat was also LinkedIn centric
and I basically built their adservice so kind of from the
(01:04):
ground up.
I managed enough campaignswhere I couldn't take any more
and then I had to hire the nextperson.
I had to hire the next personand train them, and then the
next, and then next, untilultimately I had to create a
training program that went on totrain at least 50 more people
on how to run LinkedIn ads.
So during my time there Ieither personally managed or
(01:25):
oversaw strategy and, as yousaid, over a thousand ad
accounts.
A few months ago I did getflown to London by LinkedIn to
receive my LinkedIn certifiedmarketing expert certification,
and at some point last year theymust have found my content
pretty valuable, because theyalso gave me the elusive
LinkedIn top voice badge, whichis now my profile.
Eric Eden (01:47):
Nice.
So you're basically a LinkedInblack belt is what you're
telling us.
Joshua Stout (01:52):
Yeah, I was.
I was born, molded and formedon LinkedIn, so everything I've
done is focused on LinkedIn andyou know, while I I have run
other channels and more cohesiveB2B strategies and omni-channel
strategies to achieve results,it all really started with
(02:14):
LinkedIn and hinged aroundLinkedIn, so it's always been
LinkedIn-centric.
Eric Eden (02:19):
So you have these LinkedIn jiu-jitsu moves.
We're ready to be inspired, soyou have these LinkedIn jujitsu
moves.
Joshua Stout (02:36):
We're ready to be inspired.
Tell us a story about some ofthe remarkable results you've
been able to generate onLinkedIn, some that really stand
out above the rest and I sayquite a few because I have done,
obviously, countless audits,jumped into countless accounts.
I've seen everything from $300a month budgets to over $100,000
a month budgets, basicallymanaged millions on LinkedIn
(03:00):
spend, and it's surprising ormaybe not how common it is to
find certain settings and errorsthat can waste a lot of budget
for companies all the way toFortune 100 companies.
I think a big reason behindthis was, if you really think
about it, until COVID, linkedinwasn't nearly as prevalent as it
(03:23):
is now in the businessnetworking game.
Not that they weren't there andnot that they didn't already
have an offer an ads offer forbusinesses.
But when COVID hit, peoplecouldn't go to conferences
anymore, they couldn't go toevents anymore.
You couldn't go door knockinganymore to try to make sales,
and all of these people weredesperate for a way to get in
(03:46):
front of businesses to networktheir business right, and
LinkedIn was sitting herewaiting for everybody.
They said come, my children.
We're more than a job site.
We've always been more than ajob site, and you started seeing
this paradigm shift from peoplethinking of LinkedIn as a site
that you go to to look for yourjobs or for computers to use, to
(04:07):
where businesses were finallyable to start marketing
themselves and, as such, whatthat left was a pretty big
deficit in people that wereactually experts in LinkedIn
advertising.
Right, because you have a lot ofdigital marketing agencies.
You have a lot I mean so muchcompetition out there with
people that focus on meta orprogrammatic or Google or the
(04:30):
numerous other marketingchannels there were.
But when you go on to LinkedIn,it's similar.
A lot of these platforms aresimilar but it's also vastly
different.
You're not an expert in theright settings to use and how to
build target audiences that.
You know the right nuances,such as audience expansion and
audience network, on on buildingan actual structure within
(04:51):
linkedin to maximize your budget, to get the most roi out of it.
Then you can be wastinghundreds or thousands of dollars
on linkedin.
So that's typically what I'veseen.
So, so obviously, like as Imentioned, I kind of grew up on
the LinkedIn scene.
I was there for it when peoplewere switching over to LinkedIn
and that's how I learned allthese best practices.
(05:12):
So there's one, though, thatsticks out to me the most, and
they were a financial servicesindustry, which usually is a
pretty hard industry to promoteor to market with.
There's a lot of restrictionson other channels, for example,
like on Meta, you can't evenupload a list if you're in
financial services industry.
(05:34):
You can't retarget or set upretargeting campaigns if you're
in financial services industryOn Reddit, they require you to
have certification to prove thatyou can advertise in each and
every state that you want to inthe financial services industry.
So it's an extremely difficultindustry to be able to market
(05:54):
for.
Now.
When I first got in to thataccount and I first started
seeing how we could revamp theirstrategy and what we can do,
they did a mistake that I'veseen so many companies do, and
that's running lead gen formson-platform forms for prospects
to fill out at your top offunnel, with no follow-up
(06:14):
strategy.
This is a way that you canreally waste budget.
Also, you have to have yourmatched audiences in place on
LinkedIn in order to maximizethe return that you're getting
from those prospects, and if youonly run Legion Forms top of
funnel to a cold audience thatdoesn't know about your business
, you're getting your ad infront of some busy entrepreneur
(06:39):
decision maker and they might beinterested.
But if you're already askingfor their information, you're
not going to get the resultsthat you want.
There's really high frictionthere.
Now for this client inparticular, they did have a very
, very strong video top offunnel and they got a lot of
results.
But as I usually see forcompanies that do that, they get
a pop of results and then itstarts dwindling down and they
(07:02):
get diminishing returns overtime and then it stops yielding
the ROI.
They think LinkedIn is tooexpensive of a channel and they
don't want to run it anymore.
So when we came in, they weredoing the structure and they had
basically I think it was likefour salesperson's territory who
had uploaded very narrow nichelists that they were targeting
(07:23):
and they ran this video and theyran the lead jumps for them.
They got a pop of results overa few months and then it died
down.
So the first thing that I'mgoing to do when I go into any
campaign and any account is I amgoing to set up the appropriate
structure.
I am going to set up theappropriate structure.
So LinkedIn is extremelypowerful for two really big
(07:43):
reasons.
One, it has the most up-to-datedata for professionals.
If you think about it, whensomebody changes a job, you lose
a job, get a job, changepositions you don't rush to meta
to update your Facebook profile.
There's no other socialplatform that you're like oh,
(08:04):
let me go update my job on hereOn LinkedIn.
It's almost instant.
You're almost instantly goingto go to LinkedIn and update
your information.
That means the data on LinkedInis the cleanest that you can
get for the current jobs thatpeople have, better than any
databases out there, any datacenters that you can get.
All this aggregated data fromdifferent places, linkedin is
going to have the cleanest, best, most up-to-date data.
(08:26):
Now, along with that, linkedingives you a ton of professional
filters that you can use Jobtitles, industries, company size
, revenue just a ton of thingsthat you can use to try to find
your ICP the best way possible.
And that's really important,because every dollar that you
(08:46):
spend that's not for your ICP iswasted budget.
You might as well throw it away, right, because if you're
showing impressions of somebodythat's not your audience and not
a potential client of yours,it's wasted budget.
So LinkedIn gives you thatpower to be able to find these
people.
Now the other is the mindset ofthe user on the platform.
When people get on LinkedIn,they're thinking business,
(09:08):
they're thinking career growth.
They're thinking businessgrowth.
So by getting on LinkedIn andshowing your B2B ads there or
B2C if it's professionallydriven you're most likely to
engage the people that you wantand you're ensuring, because of
the targeting, that you'regetting it in front of the right
people.
So, all that being said, so I'mgoing in there and that's what
(09:29):
I'm looking for.
So I'm looking for a structureand your top of funnel.
When you're targeting peoplethat you don't know if they've
engaged with you, you don't knowif they've been to your website
, you don't know if they've seenyou.
It's high friction.
Ask for lead gen forms Becausethey had success there.
We didn't want to change that,but instead we added to it there
(09:51):
should be a multi-prongedstrategy to everybody's accounts
on LinkedIn or campaigns onLinkedIn.
So the very first thing that wedid is we set up the
retargeting audiences.
The very first thing that wedid is we set up the retargeting
audiences.
You would be amazed at how muchROI you can squeeze out of your
target audience simply byretargeting them.
I don't think there's anywhereon the internet that, if you
look up, how many touch pointsor impressions does it take to
(10:14):
convert someone for a businessor to convert someone into
either a demo or a sale?
It's going to say one or eventwo, right, I think some Google
sites I've seen said you know,eight to 12.
I think more likely.
If you look at the businesslandscape today, it's 20, 40
plus.
One recurring theme that we cansee is it's staying in front of
(10:37):
the people that showed interest, building trust and credibility
and influencing that conversion.
There's no easy changes in abusiness and no easy decisions.
When I was growing that lastagency with my partners even
switching from a Google Sheetinto a platform like ClickUp, it
took training.
It took time.
(10:57):
It took effort.
Framing it took time, it tookeffort.
It wasn't an expensive move tobuy the software, but it was an
expensive move to spendeveryone's time doing it,
because you're paying salaries,other people are getting paid to
work for you and they're takingtheir time to learn this new
system and transition everythingover.
So I'm looking for thatstructure.
Right, there's not a structure,so I want to put it in place.
(11:19):
I'm going to build matchedaudiences based on people that
have visited the website, peoplethat have visited the company
page or people that haveinteracted with the previous ads
and with their specifically.
As I mentioned, they wererunning a video top of funnel
with a lead gen form.
You can set up a matchedaudiences or matched audience
for a prospect who's seen acertain amount of that video.
Theirs was kind of a longervideo, which I'll touch on here
(11:42):
in a second, but so we targetedat least people that watched 50%
of the video or more.
And also you can retargetpeople that opened the lead gen
form but didn't submit it.
I guess a better way to saythat is you can retarget people
that opened the lead gen formand you can create another
audience from the people whosubmitted, and you can create
another audience from the peoplewho submitted it and you can
exclude them from your campaigns.
(12:02):
So you're not trying to servetop of funnel ads to people that
have already converted.
First and foremost, right therewe use the same exact videos,
retargeted them with thosevideos instantly started getting
more leads for them.
Now you don't want to rely onleads either.
So if you're going to runvideos, you also want to run
static images, static images.
Well, videos will get thehighest intent if somebody
(12:22):
watches a video and clicks onthe call to action.
That's the highest intent youcan get.
Right, they watched your video,they're still interested.
But to get the most traffic andeasiest interest you have to
use static images, and acombination of those two is
what's going to work best.
Top of funnel implement fivedifferent ads, each have
(12:46):
different pain points andbenefits for your ICP, and then
run those in tandem with yourvideos.
Now, those ads, we're not goingto run lead gen forms to, we're
going to send them to thewebsite, treat it like a true
funnel top of funnel audienceand let them learn more about
the company.
Again, we're going to retargetthe people that are interacting
with those ads.
Now, in our retargeting layers,we're going to do the same.
We're running that video andwe're running the ads.
So now we start gettingconversions on the website.
(13:08):
Plus, we're getting the leadsfrom LinkedIn.
So now we've really improvedtheir results, lowered their
cost per leads incrementally andwe're getting more conversions
on their website.
Finally, another thing we hadthem do and I could obviously
probably talk for hours.
I'm not going to go full intodepth about their full structure
(13:28):
, but we had them chop up thatvideo.
So I highly recommend that ifyou're using a video in your top
of funnel campaign that youwant to use shorter videos 15 to
45 seconds, maybe a minute max.
People have short attentionspans and if they don't know who
you are they're very unlikelyto give you that attention.
(13:50):
You have to catch it quick andyou have to keep it.
And if you have a long videotwo minutes, three minutes it's
just not very likely that peopleare going to sit there and
watch that whole video and theyhave no idea who you are, unless
it is very good and veryenticing.
So we chopped up that videointo five different shorter
video segments.
We move that top of funnel.
(14:10):
We move the longer videos tomiddle of funnel.
Remember, up here people don'tknow who you are.
That's top of funnel.
Get their interest, get theminterested in what you're
offering.
Have them engage in some way.
Now they've moved into yourmiddle of funnel.
In the middle of funnel youwant to build trust and
credibility.
What makes you the best at whatyou do?
(14:31):
Why should someone go with youinstead of with one of your
competitors?
So they're much more likelyalso to spend much more time
watching a video.
They already showed interest.
You already got that initialinterest from them.
Now they're much more likely togive you more of that
consideration.
And then, finally, you have tohave something bottom of funnel,
asking for the next step.
(14:51):
You've whined, you've dined andnow it's time to take the
relationship to the next level,right?
And if you're not asking for it, you're never going to get
there.
You're going to be friend-zoned, right.
If you want to get seriousabout this, you need to pop the
question, and so we do that in acouple of different ways, but
mainly using a variation of ads10 to 15 ads, both middle funnel
, bottom of funnel.
For those bottom of funnelcampaigns, you can build
(15:13):
audiences based off anybody thatengaged with your middle of
funnel content or ads and alsoanybody that went to your
website company page within thelast 30 days.
So now you have this highintent audience that you're
serving a direct call to actionfor.
That feeds into your fullfunnel structure of bringing an
(15:33):
instant audience to middlefunnel, building trust and
credibility and ultimatelyasking for the conversion.
With this combination and thisjust beautiful, mature funnel
that we were able to build out,we over doubled their results,
not only just in leads but alsowith conversions, and ended up
exponentially increasing thebudget to drive more results.
Eric Eden (15:55):
So what does success look like?
Should people think aboutthings in terms of a cost per
lead and a certain sort ofconversion rate on LinkedIn as
like, what is the gold standardthat people can get to if
they're doing all of thesethings right?
Joshua Stout (16:11):
Yeah, that's great, because a lot of times
it's a great question because alot of times it's not so
compartmentalized or siloedright, so a lot of times it's
the other influences too.
So it's hard to just say, hey,like, what do you want from
LinkedIn?
But I'll tell you, like,typically, what I'm looking for.
First and foremost, if you'rejust starting and you don't have
(16:32):
traffic going to your website,or even if you do, if you're
using LinkedIn to make sureyou're bringing in the right
traffic to your website, you'regoing to have higher costs.
Top of funnel always costs more.
Consider this.
Most people are trying to targetCEOs, directors you know
C-suite right and a lot ofpeople target really big
(16:53):
companies or even if it's smallcompanies.
It's a highly sought afterposition to get your ads in
front of, and LinkedIn is oneplace to show that ad.
You are waiting for thesepeople to log into LinkedIn so
you could show them that ad andengage them.
It's going to cost a lot.
Your are waiting for thesepeople to log into LinkedIn so
you could show them that ad andengage them.
It's going to cost a lot.
Your CPM is going to be high.
Your cost per click is going tobe higher than you're used to
on other platforms.
(17:14):
Other platforms have a millionother places they can show your
ads.
On LinkedIn, you're saying, hey, I want them to engage here.
So $5 to $15 for a click is notunreasonable.
In fact, if you're targetingCEOs at 10,000 plus, companies
expect a higher cost per click.
This is an extremely busyperson and you're trying to
(17:34):
appeal to them with your offer.
Expect it to be expensive.
So that's top of funnel.
And the reason I want todistinguish that is because, yes
, it can be more expensive thanother platforms to bring people
in, but once you startretargeting and you see the
re-engagement, once you'rebuilding their interest with
content like blogs and whitepapers and eBooks and you're
putting testimonials and socialproof in them, you're going to
(17:57):
10x the amount of time that theyspend on your website and
considering your offer.
So now, with that, you're goingto see a $1 cost per click.
So when I'm talking about, like, overall cost per click, when
I'm looking at LinkedIn, I dowant it to be somewhere within
$1 to $5 when it averagesbetween the different layers.
(18:18):
Don't just take it at face value, though, on what your cost per
click is top of funnel.
It's not the right way toassess it.
Now, that's cost per click.
Of course a lot of people.
They also want results, right.
They want leads, they wantconversions.
So the way I usually reverseengineer that is you know what's
the lifetime value and new salevalue of a client to you and
(18:42):
now we have to work backwards,right?
Because how many sales callsdoes it take to close a sale?
How many leads does it take tohold a certain amount of sales
calls?
Not all leads hold the salescalls a certain amount of drop
off there and not all salesconvert into a sale for the
company.
So you have to work backwards,right.
If it takes five calls to closea $100 sale, I mean obviously
(19:03):
it's going to be much higher onLinkedIn, but that's going to be
$20, right?
So now it's $20 a sales call.
So if you reverse engineer, whatis a lead worth to you?
That should be your benchmark.
That should be your benchmarkof what you're going for.
And the way that you cancontinuously optimize on that
and lower it is by looking atthe demographic data.
So you have your ICP, but youdon't know where the interest in
(19:24):
the market is right now.
But you can look at thedemographic data available and
see the people that are engagingthe most with your ads and that
gives you an idea of how tooptimize your campaigns to get
lower than the benchmark thatyou want for this channel and to
get the best ROI possible.
And also make sure you're not.
It's not an apples to applescomparison with other channels.
(19:46):
I've seen people all the timethat came over to LinkedIn that
said, meta did not do good forme.
I got a ton of leads.
They were trash leads, right.
I got 20 leads and one wasinterested.
Well, on LinkedIn, while theappearance of the cost is higher
, you're getting higher qualityleads.
So maybe if you get 20 leads onLinkedIn, you know eight or
(20:08):
nine of them are going toconvert in their higher quality
leads because you're engagingthem in the right place at the
right time for the right people.
So ultimately, there's nonumber that I can just throw out
.
I can't throw out the samenumber for somebody that has a
$10,000 offer for somebody thathas a $100,000 offer.
You have to reverse engineerwhat is a lead worth to you.
(20:29):
Set that as your benchmark, ofcourse, at first.
If you're first building yourfunnel, it's going to start
higher than that.
But optimize based on the data,ensure you're converting at the
right amount.
Talk to your sales team, talkto your marketing team, talk to
the ops and that's the benchmarkthat you're looking for to
exceed.
Eric Eden (20:45):
So what is the hardest thing about being
successful with LinkedInadvertising?
Joshua Stout (20:50):
There's two things that I'm going to say.
One, as I mentioned before,it's the expertise of the
platform, because if you don'tknow that your settings are done
the right way and that you havethe right structure in place,
you're wasting budget and that'sgoing to give you skewed
perception of the platform.
An easy one to mention isaudience network.
It's a highly debated featureof LinkedIn.
(21:11):
Every platform has their ownaudience network, right?
It's basically a programmaticchannel where you can show ads
in other places that aren't theplatform.
And if LinkedIn is so powerfulbecause of the mindset of the
user, then if you're showing adson other platforms, well,
because of the mindset of theuser.
Then if you're showing ads onother platforms, well, maybe
(21:33):
you're losing some of that valuebehind it.
So that's a big one.
Just the settings on theplatform and an audience network
.
You can still make it effective, but it has to be highly
excluded and people just don'tknow that.
They just don't know LinkedInmakes it so vague.
They intentionally make itwhere you really can't pick up
on that, or unless you know howto do it, because it gives and
they're not.
They're not evil here, right?
They're not trying to like,just take your budget and, like
(21:55):
some, some evil bosses behindthe curtain saying, well, just
give it all to me, right Causethen you wouldn't want to run on
LinkedIn anymore.
But it gives them the abilityto show your ads in other places
, so of course they want to useit.
So settings like that and thecertain nuances, like matched
audiences you need to know whatyou're doing.
The other part is it takes work.
(22:16):
It takes work.
You have to be actively looking, testing and optimizing and
because of that, you know, I'vealways believed in all these
tips and all this data andknowledge that I know.
I've always believed in sharingit freely online.
I post about it.
I've posted about strategies.
I lay out the strategies.
(22:37):
I've posted about everythingthat I know, because if you can
take that information and use it, great, that's 100% great for
you, that's awesome.
But a lot of people just don'thave the time.
That it takes.
And that can be true for anymarketing and any platform that
you use.
But on LinkedIn, you know, Iwant to use five ads at the top
(22:57):
of funnel that display painpoints and benefits, like what's
resonating with the targetaudience and driving volume.
But you can't just use five adsand leave them there forever,
right.
You have to see what ads areperforming well, what ads aren't
performing well.
Stop the low performers andeither A-B test the high
performers, try a brand new setof ads if none of those are
working, or just swap out.
(23:18):
Whatever you take out, swap itout with new ads to see if
something's going to engagebetter.
But that takes time, that takeseffort.
You should have 10 to 15 adsrunning in your middle funnel.
That's a variation of contentBlogs, white papers, ebooks Best
if you can separate it into PDF, doc, ads on LinkedIn and then
also articles and blogs that youcan send people to on your
(23:39):
website, and you have to includethat variation in there.
You have to swap out oldcontent with new content, and
that takes time, that takesconsideration.
And then you have to do thesame with your bottom of funnel
layer with the testimonials andsocial proof and bolded revenue,
and you want 10 to 15 ads theretoo.
And then that's if you're justdoing a very simple one funnel
(24:00):
structure, but it can getexponentially complicated.
Maybe you want to target bycertain segments in your ICP.
I want to target end users anddecision makers and I want them
to each have their own funnel.
I want to target manufacturingindustry and construction
industry and retail industry,and I'm going to create a
separate funnel because I havethe content or have the
(24:21):
resources and have the budget todo that, and I'm going to do
that all concurrently whilerunning a broad funnel, right?
So the amount of work that goesinto it and the amount of
expertise that you have to havein the platform can be daunting.
That's why you typically wantto find someone who knows what
they're doing on LinkedIn, whocan give that time and effort to
make sure they're making theright optimizations, looking at
(24:42):
the data and it's implementingsome kind of testing framework
to continue optimizing for thebest results.
Eric Eden (24:48):
One last question what are the best things that
people can do in 2025 to havemassive success on LinkedIn?
Joshua Stout (24:59):
Think of LinkedIn as a tool in the tool belt I
started this podcast withtalking about.
There's two very powerfulthings about LinkedIn the data
and the ability to target withit, and the mindset of the user.
When you're thinking about howto use LinkedIn, think about how
that works to your marketingecosystem.
(25:19):
You want to make sure thatyou're engaging the right people
for your offer and showing themthe content that's going to
build the trust and credibilityto get them to convert.
Linkedin is great for that.
Linkedin isn't your one-stopsuccess for everything marketing
right.
You can have Google for yourdemand capture.
(25:40):
You can include retargeting onchannels like Meta X, reddit,
the programmatic right, so allthe other channels can work in
tandem with it.
But for your success withLinkedIn, what is it the most
powerful for Bringing in theright people?
The ICP that you want for youroffer and then having
distributing that type ofcontent and middle and bottom of
(26:02):
funnel ads that are ultimatelygoing to influence them and get
them to convert.
Eric Eden (26:08):
Awesome.
Well, thank you very much forsharing your story and your
insights here today.
I'm going to link to yourwebsite and your LinkedIn so
people can get in touch ifthey'd like to learn more, and
we really appreciate you beingwith us today and being on the
show.
Joshua Stout (26:24):
My pleasure and I will end with this.
So I do offer freecomplimentary audits and that's
available to anybody.
If you reference that you heardabout this from this show, the
first three clients that signedup will get free content, which
means up to a specific number ofcopy and designs per month with
your package.
Eric Eden (26:44):
Awesome.
Thank you for that offer andagain thanks for being on the
pod.
We appreciate it.
Popular Podcasts
Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com