The trust factor: What’s actually working on LinkedIn Ads right now

LinkedIn is noisy as hell at the moment.

Feeds are flooded with AI-generated filler, reposted carousel junk, and marketers trying to shout louder than each other.

So how do you actually cut through and drive real pipeline?

I sat down with Justin Rowe, founder of Impactable – a LinkedIn ads agency deep in the trenches. We broke down what’s working and what’s straight-up wasting your budget.

The 3 myths that kill LinkedIn ad performance

Let’s start with the most common mistakes – these are the landmines most marketers step on before their campaigns even launch.

1. “You need massive budgets to make LinkedIn work.”

Wrong. You don’t need $10K/month to get traction. You just need to be smart about targeting and sequencing. LinkedIn lets you get hyper-specific – you’re not throwing darts in the dark like on Meta or Google. You get to say what you want to exactly who you want.

2  “LinkedIn ads are too expensive.”

Only if you treat it like a quick-conversion channel. It’s not Facebook. You’re not pushing impulse buys. LinkedIn is for building trust over time, especially in B2B. Expect a longer cycle. Play the long game.

3. “LinkedIn is just another channel.”

Treating LinkedIn like an isolated experiment is a mistake. It works best when it supports your whole go-to-market engine. It’s an amplifier, not a soloist.

What is working right now?

One word: Thought leadership.

But not the empty, buzzword-packed kind. Real opinions from real people who understand the customer’s pains. Here’s the sequencing that’s working:

First touch:

Start with single-image or video ads. Short, punchy, insight-led. The objective is to make sure your audience is aware of your solution to a specific problem or need.  This does not even have to be on LinkedIn.

Trust-building:

Don’t sell. Show you understand your audience’s pains and problems better than anyone else.

Once they engage (visit your site, watch a few videos, click), move into nurture. Text ads. Spotlight ads. Follower ads. Keep your brand and your people showing up consistently.

Conversion:

When someone’s shown serious interest – like watching 75% of a video – trigger a DM or lead gen form. A simple “Saw you checked out our video – happy to connect” works better than you’d expect.

Unpolished, raw content is winning

The overproduced content trend is wild right now. Everyone’s using AI to polish and script every frame. That’s why raw content is now outperforming. Especially when you are trying to build trust.

Justin put it well: If someone’s willing to watch a long an unedited video, that’s a signal they trust the person enough to hear them out.

Turns out people prefer real humans over avatars with perfect lighting and scripted soundbites.

Do you really need your founder on camera? No.

“Founder-led” marketing became trendy. And sure, it works if the founder is great on camera and close to the customer.

But, your best spokesperson might just as well be your:

– Head of Product
– CTO
– Customer success lead
– Even an external influencer who deeply understands the audience.

What matters is credibility. The messenger needs to get the customer’s world – and be able to speak to it with authority.

We’re seeing a rise in B2B influencer plays for this exact reason. Borrowing trust is faster (and cheaper) than building it from scratch. The only difference is they are not promoting hand lotion, but MarTech.

What kind of business should run LinkedIn ads?

There’s a clear threshold when LinkedIn starts to make sense:

• <$5K LTV: Not worth it. The math won’t work.
• $5K–$10K LTV: Possible – if you’re strategic, patient, and tight with targeting.
• $10K+ LTV: No-brainer territory.

This is why enterprise SaaS and high-value services are crushing it. If your average deal size is low, your money’s probably better spent elsewhere.

LinkedIn’s secret weapon: Precision retargeting

Here’s what most marketers miss – LinkedIn lets you retarget and layer in qualification filters. Game changer.

The out-of-the-box, top-level playbook:

• Drive initial traffic from SEO, Google Ads, wherever is already working.
• Retarget website visitors and subscribers.
• Filter to only spend money on the right people: job title, seniority, company size.
• Hit them with thought leadership from your subject matter experts.
• Engage personally and convert when they’re ready.

Rowe put it bluntly: “You’re not starting from scratch. You’re warming up qualified traffic and building trust over time.”

Smart marketers are using LinkedIn to finish the sale on LinkedIn – not start it.

The advantage right now: Be more human

AI made it easier than ever to publish. Which means most of what you see online is bland, sanitized, and forgettable.

The edge now? Human content. Unfiltered. Imperfect. Real.

People don’t trust brands. They trust people. Especially people who sound like they actually give a shit.

To round it up

Winning on LinkedIn isn’t about slick visuals or big budgets. It’s about:

• Showing up consistently with real expertise
• Building trust over time
• Integrating with your broader GTM
• Understanding that B2B buying is a marathon

If you’re not playing the trust game, you’re just burning cash.

Want to hear the full story?

Watch the full, unpolished webinar here.