Short answer: Exclude current customers, competitors, your own employees and people who already converted from every LinkedIn campaign. Then use double exclusions: exclude the seniorities, company sizes and functions you don't want, not just include the ones you do. That's how you get rid of gray zone leads.
Are you having leads come in from LinkedIn outside of your company size targeting? You may be getting gray zone leads. Here's what that means, and how we set up exclusions on every campaign.
What are gray zone leads?
Gray zone leads come from companies that LinkedIn has in more than one company size bucket, or in no bucket at all. The same thing happens with people. LinkedIn isn't always sure which seniority or job function someone belongs in, so it puts them in more than one.
So you target 201-500 employees and still get leads from a company LinkedIn also has in 11-50. You included the right bucket, and the wrong one came along with it.
What are double exclusions?
Don't just do inclusion targeting. ALSO do exclusion targeting. For example:
Targeting Manager and above? Exclude Entry, Unpaid/Intern and Senior in the exclusion section.
Targeting 201-500 employees? Exclude 1-10, 11-50 and 51-200.
The next time you do this on company size, watch the audience estimate. You'll be surprised how much audience you lose, even though you thought you only included your target size. That drop is the gray zone you were paying for. Do this on every campaign.
Who else should you exclude?
Current customers, unless the campaign is built for upsell. Run those as their own campaigns.
Competitors, so you stop paying to educate them and sales stops chasing their "leads."
Your own company, plus agencies and partners who work on your account, so their clicks don't pad the numbers.
People who already converted. Build an audience from your lead gen form submitters and exclude it from prospecting.
What are the job function gotchas?
People can sit in two functions. Product marketers show up in both Product and Marketing. Exclude a function and you remove everyone LinkedIn puts in it, even people who are mostly in your target function.
CEOs are in Business Development. Not where most people expect. Targeting the C-suite by function? Include Biz Dev. CFOs can be in Finance or Accounting.
Recruiters are in HR. There's no recruiting function, so exclude recruiters by job title.
Job title targeting can't exclude by function, but job function targeting can exclude by job title. Plan your exclusions around that.
How do you set up exclusions?
Pull your lists from the CRM: customers, competitors and partners.
Upload them as Matched Audiences. Company lists for accounts, contact lists for people. Give them a day or two to process.
Add your own company as a company exclusion.
Add your double exclusions for seniority, company size and function.
Check the audience estimate before launch. Prospecting audiences should land around 40K to 200K. ABM lists shouldn't go below 3K to 5K.
Refresh the lists at least monthly.
FAQ
Why am I getting LinkedIn leads outside my company size targeting?
They're gray zone leads. LinkedIn has some companies in more than one size bucket, or none. Exclude the sizes you don't want, not just include the ones you do.
Can you exclude a list of companies on LinkedIn?
Yes. Upload them as a Matched Audiences company list and add it to the exclusions on every campaign.
Will exclusions make my LinkedIn audience too small?
The drop can be big, and that's kind of the point. That's audience you were paying for that didn't fit. If it gets too small, widen your targeting on purpose with more job titles or functions.
Written by Trey Buchanan, founder of TB3 Digital. Trey has spent nine years in B2B paid media and has twice been selected for LinkedIn's Customer Advisory Board. This is one of the seven things we do on every account. See the full list in How TB3 runs LinkedIn Ads, or book a strategy call and we'll look at your account with you.