Key takeaways
- Rule of thumb: pick the format by funnel stage, not by trend.
- Best CTR: Thought Leader Ad (~0.95%), then Single Image (~0.57%).
- Video and Carousel have structurally lower CTR, they get watched, not clicked.
- For lead generation: Single Image or Document Ad plus Lead Gen Form.
- Must-haves in B2B: Single Image, Document Ad, and Thought Leader Ad.
Almost every B2B team asks first for the "best" format. The honest answer: the best format depends on where your prospect currently stands. A video that introduces you to someone for the first time is a different tool than a message that pushes a warm contact toward a demo booking. Pick formats by funnel stage rather than chasing the latest trend, and you get more out of every euro.
Format follows funnel stage
A simple compass before we get into the details:
- Top of funnel (awareness): Thought Leader Ads, video, and Single Image put your audience on to you for the first time.
- Middle of funnel (consideration): Document Ads and Carousel deliver substance, Lead Gen Forms capture the first contacts.
- Bottom of funnel (conversion): Single Image with a clear demo CTA moves warm contacts to a booked call.
The formats, one by one
| Format | CTR (click-through rate) | What it's for |
|---|---|---|
| Single Image | ~0.57% | the workhorse, the standard for lead generation |
| Thought Leader Ad | ~0.95% | trust, the strongest feed format |
| Event Ad | ~0.55% | webinars and live events |
| Video | ~0.44% | awareness, trust |
| Document Ad | ~0.43% | lead magnets, guides in the feed |
| Carousel | ~0.40% | storytelling, step by step |
| Spotlight / Dynamic | ~0.08% | brand, many cheap impressions (right rail) |
| Text Ad | ~0.02% | near-free reach, profile clicks |
Two formats come without a classic feed CTR, because they work differently: Conversation and Message Ads land directly in the LinkedIn inbox. They work well for booking meetings with warm contacts. Lead Gen Forms aren't a standalone ad unit, they're a native form you attach to a feed format.
Thought Leader Ads are boosted posts from a real person instead of the brand, and at around 0.95 percent they have the highest CTR of any feed format. Everything about the format, from strategy to its limits, is covered in the guide to Thought Leader Ads.
The format details that decide performance
A handful of details per format separate an ad that runs from one that wastes budget:
- Document Ad: keep the document between 6 and 15 pages, show a table of contents in the preview, and pick the strongest 5 to 7 pages as the preview. The user decides within seconds whether the download is worth it. Why this format lowers CPL with sensitive audiences and how to set it up gated or ungated is covered in the guide to LinkedIn Document Ads.
- Video: the first three seconds decide everything. No intro, get straight to the point, and always add captions, since most people watch without sound. 15 to 30 seconds for awareness, up to three minutes for retargeting. And go vertical: roughly 88 percent watch on mobile, and a 9:16 video fills the whole screen and noticeably outperforms a square 1:1, which in turn beats a landscape 16:9.
- Conversation and Message Ads: you pay per send, not per click. That means they only work with tight targeting and only on warm audiences who already know you. On cold contacts they read as spam, which makes this push format the wrong choice for cold DACH audiences. The clean way around this is the Click-to-Message Ad: it starts as a Single Image in the feed, and only the user's click opens the inbox with a pre-built chat. Because the contact starts the conversation themselves, it doesn't feel intrusive, and you pay per click instead of per send.
- Text and Spotlight Ads: the quiet workhorses. They run in the right rail, cost almost nothing, and deliver a lot of impressions. On their own they barely drive clicks, but run alongside your feed ads, they noticeably lift feed CTR because your brand shows up more often. How cheap this gets shows in practice: with the website visits objective and a manual bid, you pay just €0.10 to €0.50 per 1,000 impressions, because you're only paying for the rare clicks and the impressions come along almost for free. That gets you over 100,000 impressions a month for under €100.
Never leave the small default logo running on a Spotlight Ad. Use the freely selectable background image instead, a large, prominent visual delivers noticeably more visibility in the right rail than the logo alone.
One principle holds across every format: on LinkedIn, each format needs its own campaign. Don't lump Single Image and video into the same campaign, or the algorithm will shift your budget by its own logic instead of yours.
Which formats do you actually need?
You don't need to run every format. Start with the three must-haves, Single Image and Document Ads for lead generation and the Thought Leader Ad for trust, and expand only once the basics are working. The format is only half the job, the creative is the other half: which creative types work in B2B and what actually performs in the feed is covered in the guide to LinkedIn Ads Creatives.