Who’s Spending (and Why)

The heaviest spenders on LinkedIn are:

• Business & industrial

• Technology & electronics

• Government & nonprofit

  
  

A big growth driver: companies building generative AI products. Globally, GenAI brands allocate about 12% of their total digital ad budgets to LinkedIn, compared to an average of 3% across all categories. If you’re in B2B tech and not on LinkedIn, you’re basically leaving a category-friendly channel to your competitors.

LinkedIn is also investing in:

• B2B creators

• Video formats

• Connected TV (CTV) extensions

All of which are designed to make B2B campaigns feel less like stiff corporate ads and more like content people actually want to watch.

Reach & Usage: Big, but Close to Saturation

LinkedIn ads currently reach around 350 million active users per month out of about 1.2 billion registered users.

How people use it:

• Most commonly to look for jobs and follow company pages

• A smaller but meaningful share use it to research or purchase after seeing ads

• That conversion-oriented behavior increases among full-time employees, where ad-driven research/purchase intent is higher

  
  

In mature markets, LinkedIn’s professional audience is approaching saturation—so future growth will be less about “more users” and more about better formats, better targeting, and better performance.

Performance: High Trust, Strong Equity

In the US, LinkedIn’s largest market, Kantar’s Media Reactions survey shows that LinkedIn enjoys strong ad equity—people see it as a more trustworthy, relevant environment than most social platforms.

That’s especially important for B2B advertisers, where:

• Trust matters more than raw reach

• Buyers often move through long funnels

• High-ticket or complex offers demand credibility

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Short-form video is a standout format here, growing at ~12% year over year. Emotionally resonant, concise videos see higher completion rates, making LinkedIn an effective place for both education and conversion nudges.

What This Means for Marketers

A few practical takeaways:

• Treat LinkedIn as a performance + brand channel, not just a branding afterthought. With strong trust and precise targeting, it can support both pipeline and revenue, especially in B2B.

• If you’re in GenAI, tech, SaaS, or B2B services, LinkedIn should be one of your primary paid channels. The spend patterns of GenAI companies are a leading indicator of where serious B2B budgets are going.

• Lean into video and creator-style content. Short-form video and B2B creators give your brand a more human voice while still speaking to a professional audience.

• Measure what matters. On LinkedIn, focus your reporting on:

  
  

  • Pipeline and revenue from LinkedIn leads

  • Customer acquisition cost (CAC) compared to other channels

  • Share of voice vs key competitors

  • LinkedIn may still be a smaller piece of Microsoft’s overall business, but for B2B marketers, it’s becoming a central piece of the media mix—especially as budgets shift toward channels that can prove real impact on pipeline, not just impressions.