# LinkedIn Targeting Options: What You Should Know and Which to Choose > Every LinkedIn targeting option explained for ABM, from company attributes to member traits, with strategies for combining criteria effectively. Author: Emilia Korczynska Published: 2026-02-27 Updated: 2026-03-06 Categories: Audience & Targeting Source: https://zenabm.com/blog/linkedin-targeting-options --- ![LinkedIn Ads Targeting Options for ABM cover, with ZenABM logo and the tagline Run ABM Campaigns on LinkedIn](https://cdn.zenabm.com/media/LinkedIn-Ads-Targeting-Options-for-ABM.png) LinkedIn offers 20+ targeting options for ads, and choosing the wrong combination is one of the fastest ways to waste your ad budget. I have audited dozens of LinkedIn ad accounts running ABM campaigns, and the most common issue is not bad creative or weak offers – it is targeting that is either too broad, too narrow, or using options that actively work against account-based marketing goals. This post breaks down every LinkedIn targeting option available in Campaign Manager, explains which ones matter for ABM, which ones to avoid, and how to combine them for campaigns that actually reach the right people at the right companies. Everything here is based on what I have seen work at Userpilot and across the ABM programs we analyze through [ZenABM](/blog/what-is-zenabm). **Key takeaways from this post:** LinkedIn targeting options fall into three categories: location-based, company-based, and member-based. For [ABM](/), company-based targeting (especially matched audiences from account lists) is the foundation. Layer member-based filters like job function and seniority on top, but avoid over-segmenting. Always turn off audience expansion and LinkedIn Audience Network. ## LinkedIn Targeting Options – Key Takeaways - For ABM, matched audiences (company lists) are the foundation. Don’t use broad targeting.  - Layer job function and seniority on top of your company list to reach the right people within target accounts. You can also use contact lists instead, but make sure you get high enough match rates.  - Turn off audience expansion and [LinkedIn Audience Network for every ABM campaign](/blog/what-is-zenabm). - Avoid relying on job function targeting – it is too broad due to LinkedIn’s matching logic. Use specific job titles.  - Different ABM campaign stages (cold, warm, hot) require company targeting by behavioral criteria – you can apply acocunt scoring in your CRM or use ZenABM to score your target accounts by level of engagement for you automatically.  - Narrow audiences cost more per lead but convert at 2-3x the rate of broad audiences. - Use the Audience Hub to monitor audience overlap and sizing across campaigns. - Do not over-segment – keep your targeting focused but broad enough for LinkedIn to deliver impressions. ## LinkedIn Targeting Options: The Full List [LinkedIn Campaign Manager](/use-cases/linkedin-campaign-management-optimization) organizes targeting into several categories. Here is the complete list, with a brief description of what each does. ![LinkedIn Campaign Manager dialog for choosing a matched audience source, with Company or Contact selected](https://cdn.zenabm.com/media/Create-a-Matched-Audience-List.png) ### Location Targeting (Required) Location is the only mandatory targeting field. You can target by continent, country, state/region, or metro area. LinkedIn determines location from member profiles (permanent location) or IP address (recent location). You must select at least one location for every campaign. For ABM, be intentional about location. Max Herzeg advises: *“If you can, try to not have lots of different time zones in one targeting pool.”* Different time zones mean your audience is online at different hours, which affects when your ads get shown and how your daily budget distributes across the day. ### Company Targeting ![LinkedIn company filter slide: Amazon's self-reported industry shows why filters trail curated account lists](https://cdn.zenabm.com/media/Company-targeting-broad-targeting-filters-on-LinkedIn-Campaign-Manager-Max-Herzeg-1.png) - **Company name:** [Target employees of specific](/blog/company-level-insights-from-linkedin-ads) companies. This is one of the most direct [ABM targeting](/blog/signal-based-outbound) options — you are telling LinkedIn exactly which companies to reach. - **Company industry:** Target by LinkedIn’s industry classifications. Useful as a broad filter, but not precise enough for ABM on its own. - **Company size:** Filter by employee count ranges (1-10, 11-50, 51-200, etc.). Good for ensuring you are not targeting companies outside your ICP size range. - **Company followers:** Target people who follow your [LinkedIn company page](/blog/best-abm-tools-linkedin-advertising). Useful for remarketing, but [limited audience size](/blog/linkedin-carousel-ad-specs) for most companies. - **Company connections:** Target first-degree connections of employees at a specific company. Only available for companies with 500+ employees. Rarely useful for ABM. - [Company revenue: Target](/blog/6sense-for-abm) by estimated annual revenue ranges. Available for larger companies. Helpful if ACV is a key ICP criterion. - [Company growth rate: Target](/blog/6sense-for-abm) companies growing at certain rates. Can help identify companies in expansion mode that may have budget. ### Member Targeting (Demographics and Professional Attributes) - **Job title:** Target specific titles. Sounds precise but is actually problematic for ABM. Tim Davidson warns: *“Targeting one title like Vice President of Marketing shows up for 100+ other titles, thus diluting your strategy.”* LinkedIn matches job titles broadly, so “VP of Marketing” may include “VP of Product Marketing,” “VP of Brand Marketing,” and many others. - **Job function:** Broader category than title (Marketing, Sales, Engineering, etc.). More reliable than title targeting because it is standardized by LinkedIn, not self-reported. - **Job seniority:** Filter by level (Entry, Senior, Manager, Director, VP, CXO, etc.). LinkedIn infers this from titles, so it is reasonably accurate for common titles. - **Member skills:** Target based on skills listed on profiles. Can help narrow a broad audience but varies wildly in accuracy since members self-report skills. - **Member groups:** Target members of specific LinkedIn groups. Useful for niche audiences but group membership data can be stale. - **Member interests:** LinkedIn’s inferred interests based on content engagement. Directional at best — I do not recommend relying on this for ABM. - **Member age:** Available in some regions. Rarely relevant for ABM. - **Member gender:** Available in some regions. Rarely relevant for ABM. - **Years of experience:** Filter by career length. Can proxy for seniority if title-based seniority is not precise enough. - **Degrees:** Target by education level. Occasionally useful for specific verticals (like targeting MBAs) but usually not relevant for ABM. - **Fields of study:** Target by what members studied. Same as above — niche use cases only. - **Member schools:** Target alumni of specific schools. Very niche. ### Matched Audiences - **Company list (**[account targeting): Upload a CSV of company](/blog/rollworks-for-abm) names and domains. [LinkedIn matches them and creates](/blog/linkedin-ads-landing-pages) a targetable audience. This is the foundation of [ABM on LinkedIn](/blog/how-do-linkedin-ads-work). - **Contact list:** Upload emails. LinkedIn matches them to member profiles. Useful for targeting specific people within your TAL. - **Website retargeting:** Target people who visited your website (requires [LinkedIn Insight Tag](/blog/revenue-attribution-from-linkedin-abm)). - **Lookalike audiences:** Create audiences that resemble your matched audiences. - **Event audiences:** Target people who registered for or attended LinkedIn Events. - [**Lead gen form](/blog/linkedin-ads-hubspot-integration-steps) audiences:** Retarget people who opened or submitted your lead gen forms. - **Video audiences:** Retarget people who watched a certain percentage of your video ads. ## Which LinkedIn Targeting Options to Use for ABM For account-based marketing, the hierarchy is clear. Start with matched audiences and layer additional filters only when necessary. **Primary targeting (always use):** 1. **Company list (matched audience):** Upload your [target account list](/blog/clay-for-target-account-list-building-abm). This is non-negotiable for ABM. Everything else is secondary. 2. **Location:** Required by LinkedIn, and you should limit it to geographies where your sales team can actually close deals. 3. **Job function + seniority:** Layer these on top of your company list to ensure your ads reach decision-makers and influencers, not every employee at the company. **Secondary targeting (use when needed):** - **Company size:** Add as a filter if your matched list might contain companies outside your ICP size range (this can happen if your list data is imperfect). - **Contact list:** Use alongside company lists when you want to reach specific people. Bilal recommends: *“Test both [company and contact lists].”* - **Website retargeting:** Essential for remarketing campaigns. Layer this on top of your company list to retarget people from your TAL who visited your site. Max Herzeg’s advice on segmentation applies here: *“Don’t over-segment. Find a segmentation that works for you.”* Adding too many targeting layers shrinks your audience below LinkedIn’s minimum of 300, or makes it so narrow that campaigns cannot deliver enough impressions to optimize. For a complete walkthrough of how to [structure LinkedIn ABM campaigns](/blog/structure-linkedin-abm-campaigns), see my dedicated guide. ## LinkedIn Targeting Options to Avoid for ABM ![LinkedIn post joke: a Halloween costume of common LinkedIn Ads mistakes like Audience Expansion left on](https://cdn.zenabm.com/media/Emilia-Korczynskas-LinkedIn-post-Most-common-LinkedIn-Ads-mistakes-as-halloween-costume-a-joke.png) Some targeting options are useful for demand generation but actively harmful to [ABM campaigns](/blog/abm-strategy-types). Here are the ones to turn off or avoid. ### Audience Expansion ![Audience expansion in LinkedIn Campaign Manager](https://cdn.zenabm.com/media/Enable-Audience-Expansion-Option-in-Linkedin-Ads-Magnetica-Advertising.png) This is not a targeting option per se – it is a setting that tells LinkedIn to expand beyond your selected [audience to reach](/blog/abm-for-hard-to-reach-audiences) “similar” people. For ABM, this defeats the entire purpose of account-level targeting. Max Herzeg is emphatic: *“Audience expansion — don’t use that. And LAN – don’t use it either.”* I agree completely. Every ABM account I audit has this turned on by default, and every time I recommend turning it off. ### LinkedIn Audience Network (LAN) ![LinkedIn Campaign Manager placements with LinkedIn Audience Network unchecked, so ads run only on LinkedIn](https://cdn.zenabm.com/media/LAN-LinkedIn-Audience-Network.png) LAN shows your ads on third-party apps and [websites outside of LinkedIn](/blog/free-b2b-website-visitor-deanonymization-with-linkedin-ads). The quality of these placements is generally poor, the viewability is questionable, and for ABM you lose the contextual advantage of reaching people while they are in a professional mindset. Your sales reps may push you to use it because it increases reach numbers, but the quality is not there. As I have noted: *“Your reps will be really pushing you to use it.”* Push back. ### Job Title Targeting (as primary filter) ![LinkedIn Ads ICP targeting slide: include VP of Engineering titles, exclude Engineering Specialist roles](https://cdn.zenabm.com/media/LinkedIn-ads-ICP-targeting-job-titles-Max-Herzeg.png) Using job titles as your main targeting filter is risky because LinkedIn’s matching is very broad. If you target “Director of Marketing,” you might also reach “Director of Content Marketing,” “Director of Marketing Operations,” “Director of Marketing Analytics,” and dozens of other variations. Job function plus seniority gives you similar reach with more consistency. Use titles only when you need to add specificity on top of function + seniority, and check the forecasted demographics before launching. ![ZenABM job titles report comparing impressions, clicks and cost by LinkedIn campaign group](https://cdn.zenabm.com/media/Job-titles-by-campaign-groups-ZenABM-scaled.png) ### Interest and Trait-Based Targeting LinkedIn infers interests from content engagement. These inferred categories are too broad and too noisy for ABM. Someone who liked three posts about AI does not necessarily work in AI or have AI budget. Do not use interest targeting as a primary or secondary filter for [ABM](/blog/best-intent-based-abm-tools) campaigns. ## How to Combine Targeting Options for Different ABM Campaign Types Different [stages of your ABM funnel](/blog/abm-strategy-guide) require different targeting combinations. Here is how I set them up: ![ZenABM campaigns list with COLD and WARM ABM campaigns highlighted for separating audience segments](https://cdn.zenabm.com/media/COLD-WARM-ABM-Campaigns.png) ### Cold ABM Campaigns (Awareness) Targeting: Company list (cold accounts) + Job function + Seniority + Location. Keep it relatively broad within your TAL. The goal is to build awareness across the buying committee, so include multiple job functions that participate in the buying decision. Max recommends *“30-50% penetration per month”* for cold audiences. ### Warm ABM Campaigns (Engagement) Targeting: Company list (engaged accounts) + Website retargeting + Job function + Seniority. You can narrow the job functions here to focus on the decision-makers. These accounts already know you, so you want to deepen engagement with the specific people who influence the buying decision. For warm audiences, aim for *“70 to 90% [audience penetration](/blog/linkedin-audience-penetration) per month.* ### Hot ABM Campaigns (Conversion) Targeting: Contact list (known contacts at pipeline accounts) + Company list (pipeline accounts). At this stage, you are [targeting specific people at specific accounts](/blog/measure-linkedin-ad-engagement-target-accounts). Use contact lists layered with company lists to be as precise as possible. Budget should be higher per person but lower overall since the audience is small. Btw. ZenABM allows you to automatically segment your target companies into ABM stages (hot – warm -called) based on pre-defined criteria – and pushes the stage data into your CRM/ any chosen tool as a company property:  ![LinkedIn ABM account stages](https://cdn.zenabm.com/media/ABM-account-stages.png) For more on understanding how your targeting choices affect performance numbers, review the [LinkedIn ABM Performance Benchmarks Report 2026](/blog/linkedin-abm-performance-benchmarks-report-2026). ## Budget Impact of Different Targeting Options Your targeting choices directly affect your costs. Here is what our benchmarks show: - **Broad audiences (1M+):** $45-85 CPL. You reach a lot of people, but many are not in your ICP. Low conversion rates. - **Medium audiences (100K-1M):** $75-125 CPL. The sweet spot for most [ABM programs](/blog/benefits-of-an-abm-strategy) that combine matched audiences with job function filters. - **Narrow audiences (under 100K):** $100-200+ CPL. Higher cost per lead, but 2-3x higher conversion rates because you are reaching exactly the right people. For ABM, the narrow audience cost premium is almost always worth it. A $150 lead that converts at 3% is more valuable than a $60 lead that converts at 0.5%. Gabriel Ehrlich also provides reassurance for teams worried about running multiple campaigns to the same audience: *“I’ve seen no evidence that having the same audience in multiple campaigns increases bids.”* Also note that bigger companies in your TAL can consume disproportionate budget. Max warns: *“Bigger companies might take up lots of your budget, like get more impressions than the rest.”* If you have a mix of enterprise and mid-market accounts on the same list, consider splitting them into separate campaigns to control spend distribution. Learn more about common pitfalls in my post on [LinkedIn ads mistakes to avoid](/blog/linkedin-ads-mistakes). ## The Audience Hub: A Feature Most Teams Miss ![Maximillian emphasizes the importance of monitoring audience demographics in LinkedIn campaign manager's audience hub after launching the campaign](https://cdn.zenabm.com/media/Audience-overview-Max-Herzeg-1.png) Max Herzeg highlights a feature that many advertisers do not use: *“The audience hub – if you don’t know it, please get to know it.”* The Audience Hub in LinkedIn Campaign Manager gives you a consolidated view of all your audiences, their sizes, overlap, and performance. It helps you identify when audiences are too small, when they overlap excessively, and where you might consolidate campaigns. For [ABM teams managing multiple campaigns](/blog/track-the-roi-of-linkedin-ads) across different account tiers, the Audience Hub is essential for keeping your targeting organized and preventing budget waste from audience overlap. Check it at least monthly. ## FAQs About LinkedIn Targeting Options **What is the minimum audience size for LinkedIn ads?** [LinkedIn requires a minimum audience](/blog/linkedin-retargeting-ads) of 300 members per campaign. For ABM, if your targeted segment falls below this, you need to either broaden your targeting filters or combine segments. Most [ABM campaigns work](/blog/why-display-ads-fail-in-abm) best with audiences of 1,000-10,000. **Can I target both company lists and job titles in the same campaign?** Yes. When you layer targeting options, LinkedIn applies them as AND logic — meaning members must match all criteria. So a campaign targeting your company list AND “Director” seniority AND “Marketing” job function will only show ads to directors of marketing at companies on your list. **How [accurate is LinkedIn’s job function](/blog/track-the-roi-of-linkedin-ads) targeting?** Job function is one of the more reliable targeting options because LinkedIn standardizes it based on title parsing. It is not perfect — some edge cases get miscategorized — but it is more consistent than relying on self-reported job titles, which vary enormously across companies and individuals. **Should I use OR or AND logic when combining targeting options?** Within a single category (like selecting multiple job functions), LinkedIn uses OR logic. Across categories (like job function AND seniority), LinkedIn uses AND logic. This means selecting “Marketing” and “Sales” as job functions reaches people in either function, while adding “Director” seniority on top means only directors in those functions. **How do I know if my targeting is too narrow?** If your audience size is below 1,000 and your campaign is struggling to spend its daily budget, your targeting is probably too narrow. Check the [audience penetration guide](/blog/linkedin-audience-penetration) to see if you are over-saturating a small audience.