Hello, I’m marketing instructor Kim Bo-kyung. I’m sharing a recap of the LinkedIn marketing session held at KOTRA’s Daejeon Trade Office. In this post, I’ll cover how to use LinkedIn ads to show your ads only to the purchasing decision-makers at the companies you want.
If you sent a message via Sales Navigator but got no reply?
This is the question I get most often in training sessions. “I sent a message about lemon balm extract, but if there’s no reply, what should I do?”
In this situation, I explained it using the analogy of ‘German-style tactics.’
– Bombers/Tanks: broad exposure through ads
– Infantry: the stage where you send direct messages and close the deal
In B2B deals, it takes an average of eight touchpoints before a customer recognizes your company. If you make contact twice via Sales Navigator and get six ad impressions, the mere-exposure effect kicks in. It’s human nature: the more often people see you, the more trust builds.
How much do LinkedIn ads cost?
The part participants were most curious about in the session was ad costs.
So I shared the data as-is.
| Ad type | Billing model | Unit cost |
| Single image ad | Per click | About KRW 4,000 |
| Carousel image ad | Per click | About KRW 4,000 |
| Video ad | When viewed for 7+ seconds | About KRW 50–70 |
| Message ads (DM) | Per send | About KRW 1,200–1,500 |
For message ads, compared to Korea Post’s express mail at KRW 2,830, being able to deliver a message to an overseas buyer for KRW 1,500 is more than worth it.
I ran a simulation with GPT and got these results.
– Send 200 DMs with a KRW 300,000 budget – Assuming a 1.5% conversion rate, you could close about 3 deals
The key is ‘intersection targeting’
The real strength of LinkedIn ads is that you can show ads only to specific people in a specific department at a specific company.
For example, let’s say you want to target a U.S. health supplement distributor.
– Total employees: about 5,000 – Show ads to all 5,000? → Waste of budget
This is where the math concept of set intersection comes in.
– Set A: all employees at the company (480 are on LinkedIn)
– Set B: people in Purchasing or the R&D department
If you target the intersection of A and B, your audience shrinks to just a few dozen people.
LinkedIn may show a warning like “Your audience is too narrow, so your campaign may not run,” and that’s exactly the right answer.
What you must do before running ads – identify competitors
Use the LinkedIn Ads Library.
– Go to the LinkedIn Ads Library
– Search a keyword (e.g., 3D Print)
– Check the list of companies running ads with that keyword worldwide
The right order is to benchmark what messages competitors are using, then set up your own ads.
What’s the real reason deals get stuck?
During the session, one participant said, “I can find the contact points, but it feels like I’m getting filtered out at the actual decision stage.”
This can be explained with the classic B2B marketing framework BANT.
– B (Budget): no budget
– A (Authority): no decision-making authority
– N (Need): no intent to adopt
– T (Timeline): “We’ll review it in six months” = effectively a no
When a deal stalls, you need to identify which of these four is the blocker. And you need a multi-channel approach: if messaging doesn’t work, build awareness through ads and leverage referrals through mutual connections.
Talking with customers is the essence
In two hours, we quickly covered everything from inbound marketing principles to Sales Navigator and LinkedIn ads.
There’s one final message I emphasized to participants.
“Talking a lot with the instructor won’t give you the answer. You need to talk a lot with customers.”
An external expert can guide you to where the buyers are, but you can only learn where the product is actually purchased and which department makes the decision by talking with customers on the ground.
Recommended read: Training review: ‘LinkedIn Marketing Strategy’ for Beginners (DAOU Tech)
If you have any questions about LinkedIn ads or B2B global marketing, feel free to reach out anytime.
