B2B marketing budgets are facing growing scrutiny, prompting a shift in spending. In fact, 78% of B2B CMOs state that proving marketing ROI became more important in the last two years. 

Over the past year, we at Dreamdata have seen budgets that once went to non-branded paid search being reallocated to LinkedIn.

This post examines recent industry data based on 66 million sessions and over three million customer journeys, as detailed in Dreamdata’s LinkedIn ads benchmark report. 

We will explore the reasons behind the decline in search advertising, the changing nature of the B2B buying process, and how these factors impact overall budget strategies.

Exploring the changes in digital ad spend

What is happening to B2B marketing budgets right now?

Companies are carefully reviewing their digital advertising investments to ensure they generate actual revenue. Over the past year, many organizations started moving their advertising dollars from non-branded paid search campaigns to LinkedIn. According to Dreamdata’s LinkedIn ads benchmark report, LinkedIn now captures 41% of B2B ad budgets, which is an increase from 39% in the previous year. While a two point shift sounds small, it represents a massive reallocation of capital for enterprise companies with large advertising budgets.

Why are companies spending less on non-branded search?

Non-branded search budgets, which target category or problem-based keywords rather than specific company names, shrank from 37% to 33% over the last year. Several factors drive this decline. Search engines increasingly use artificial intelligence (AI) to answer buyer questions directly on the results page. This feature reduces the number of users who click through to external websites, making non-branded search performance highly volatile.

In addition to lower click-through rates, the cost of advertising on search networks is climbing rapidly. The cost per click on non-branded terms jumped 29%, while click-through rates fell 26% in just one year. When costs rise and engagement drops, marketers find it difficult to justify maintaining their previous budget levels on search platforms.

The changing nature of the B2B buyer journey

How has the typical B2B buying process evolved?

The shift in advertising spend reflects fundamental changes in how businesses buy software and services, as detailed in Dreamdata’s LinkedIn ads benchmark report. Purchases no longer happen when a single individual fills out a form and makes a quick decision. Buying decisions require agreement from large groups of people over long periods.

Recent data highlights several aspects of the modern B2B deal:

• Buying committees now include an average of ten stakeholders
• Buyers engage in 88 touchpoints before making a decision
• Interactions occur across an average of four different channels
• The entire purchasing process takes an average of 272 days

Why does a longer buying cycle change advertising strategies?

According to Dreamdata’s LinkedIn ads benchmark report, buyers spend 81% of their 272-day journey researching and exploring options. This timeline means marketers have more than seven months to nurture prospects, build trust, and establish influence before a buyer ever speaks to a sales representative.

Since decisions take time and involve multiple people, companies must maintain brand familiarity throughout the year. Traditional demand capture tactics on search engines optimize for quick conversions from people ready to buy right now. However, most potential buyers are not in the market for a solution today. Platforms like LinkedIn allow marketers to advertise proactively to specific companies, sustaining visibility throughout the entire long-term buying cycle.

Evaluating performance and return on investment

Are LinkedIn ads too expensive for standard B2B campaigns?

On the surface, clicks on LinkedIn appear costly. Standard metrics from Dreamdata’s LinkedIn ads benchmark report show average costs around $6.91 (€5.98) per click. If marketers measure success strictly through cost per click or cost per individual contact, the platform seems expensive.

However, B2B organizations sell to companies rather than individual contacts. When you measure the cost to influence an entire company, the perspective changes completely. Data shows that the cost per company influenced is highly competitive across major platforms.

The average cost to influence a company breaks down as follows:

• LinkedIn costs $90 (€70.11) per company influenced
• Google Search costs $127 (€110.37) per company influenced
• Meta costs $148 (€128.70) per company influenced

Dreamdata’s ip-to-company resolution engine matches IP addresses to specific companies and allows marketers to track these costs accurately. This visibility proves that reaching the right accounts requires a focus on company-level metrics rather than individual clicks.

When scrutiny grows, budget decisions ultimately depend on whether a channel drives actual revenue. According to Dreamdata’s LinkedIn ads benchmark report, LinkedIn offers a return on ad spend of 121%. This performance makes it the only platform in the study delivering a positive return on advertising investments.

Google Search, which many marketers historically viewed as a safe investment, currently shows a declining return on ad spend alongside its rising costs. Meta improved its performance compared to the previous year, but it still ranks as the lowest among the major platforms. When you combine positive return on ad spend with lower costs per company influenced, it becomes clear why budget flows toward platforms that connect advertising spend directly to revenue.

Adapting to new marketing realities

The continuous shift in B2B marketing budgets, as reported in Dreamdata’s LinkedIn ads benchmark report, highlights a broader transformation in the industry. As non-branded search becomes more expensive and unpredictable, marketers must adapt their strategies. Buying decisions happen at the account level, involve large committees, and unfold over many months.

When leadership teams demand clear evidence of revenue impact, marketing departments naturally move their money toward channels that can reach the right accounts and influence multiple stakeholders at once. Aligning advertising strategies with these new buying behaviors ensures that marketing investments translate into measurable pipeline growth and sustainable business revenue.

     

Creating visual content for LinkedIn should feel seamless, especially when you already know the story you want to tell. The challenge is that many teams jump between design tools, creative asset downloads, manual platform uploads, and editing tweaks just to get a post onto the feed or an advertising asset into a campaign. That extra friction slows teams down and makes it harder to keep branding consistent across channels.

The Canva integration with LinkedIn solves that problem. You can design LinkedIn-ready images and videos, preview and publish to your feed, and export ad creative to your Campaign Manager account - all from Canva. It shortens the path from idea to execution and streamlines the creative workflow. 

A simple connection to your LinkedIn profile and ad account helps you build on-brand creative and turn Canva assets into LinkedIn campaigns. This guide walks through how to use the Canva integration for posting content on LinkedIn and for creating LinkedIn ads.  

What the Canva + LinkedIn Integration Enables

Canva integrates with LinkedIn in two ways: 1) to help members create content for the feed and 2) help marketers design advertising assets for campaigns. The Canva integration simplifies LinkedIn asset creation into a single workspace, giving you fewer workflow interruptions and a much more direct path from idea to execution. 

Here’s a quick look at what you can do once your accounts are connected.

Publish directly to the LinkedIn Feed

The integration makes it simple to build LinkedIn-ready posts right in Canva. You can choose from templates designed for the feed, customize them with your brand elements, preview and publish or schedule directly. It’s a streamlined way to share updates, spotlight expertise, or promote upcoming events using creative designs and interactive formats like video.

Export ad creative directly to Campaign Manager

For paid campaigns, the workflow stays just as straightforward. Design your image or video ads in Canva and export them into your Campaign Manager media library with a few clicks. This eliminates file downloads, manual uploads, and format changes, keeping your creative process consistent from start to finish.

Step-by-Step Guide to Using Canva + LinkedIn

Designing and publishing LinkedIn content becomes much more efficient once your Canva and LinkedIn accounts are connected. The steps below walk through how to set up the integration, create feed content, prepare ad creative, and move assets into Campaign Manager. Each section is built for quick reference, so you can follow along as you work inside Canva.

Connecting Canva to LinkedIn

Before you start designing, take a moment to set up your publishing and ads connection. This ensures your feed posts and ad creative sync where you need them. 

Get started with Canva and LinkedIn by visiting the Canva Apps Marketplace and selecting the LinkedIn or LinkedIn Ads app for Canva. 

Connect your LinkedIn Profile or Page

1. Feed workflow: navigate to Canva → Apps → Choose LinkedIn. 
   1. The LinkedIn app is for publishing to the feed organically. 
2. Ads workflow: navigate to Canva → Apps → Choose LinkedIn Ads.
   1. The LinkedIn Ads app is for exporting to Campaign Manager. 
3. Select Connect and log in with your LinkedIn credentials. 
4. Approve the publishing permissions so Canva can post or export creative on your behalf. 
   1. If you're using the LinkedIn Ads app, select the ad account you want to attach to the integration so your exported assets land in the correct media library.
      

Choose your workflow

Depending on whether you want to publish content to the feed or create ad creative for campaigns, the easiest way to start is with customized LinkedIn templates. 

• The feed workflow appears as "LinkedIn Profile" or "LinkedIn Page" when you select Share in Canva.
• The campaign workflow sends your creative directly to Campaign Manager when you select the LinkedIn Ads app for Canva in the lefthand navigation.
  

Creating content for the LinkedIn feed

Once your account is connected, you can start building. The integration supports videos, images, and multi-page designs. 

Start with LinkedIn-ready templates

Search for "LinkedIn video", "LinkedIn post" or visit our LinkedIn page inside Canva. Hover over any template to preview the animation, then select “Customize this design” to open it in the editor.

Customize the look and feel

Apply your brand colors using the Brand Kit, swap in your tone and messaging, and update fonts across the entire design with a single click. This keeps your LinkedIn presence visually consistent.

Edit your video

Canva's built-in tools make it easy to refine each element. You can trim clips, remove backgrounds, adjust audio, or change speed and volume settings. If you want narration or a talking head, record directly inside Canva. Multi-page designs will export as one continuous MP4.

Add transitions and motion

When your design includes several pages, apply transitions to make your video dynamic. Stick to simple motion or animated text that reinforces key points without distracting from the message.

Add an on-screen text hook

A short, on-screen text hook can help grab attention by giving members a brief description of what your video is about. 

Add captions

Use the captions feature to autogenerate, edit and build captions directly into your video. High-contrast styles help improve accessibility and post performance.

Publish or schedule

Select Share → Social → LinkedIn → Select your LinkedIn Profile or Page, write your caption and preview your post before publishing it to the feed. The integration removes extra steps, so your post goes live on LinkedIn in a few clicks without leaving Canva. 

“Made with Canva’ video label on mobile

Once posted, your video will include a “Made with Canva” label and deeplink on LinkedIn. If another member clicks on the Canva deeplink they will be taken to the Canva app for mobile if installed or to the App Store to download Canva.

Creating image + video ads for your LinkedIn campaigns

The LinkedIn Ads app in Canva gives you a direct workflow for creating campaign-ready assets and exporting them to Campaign Manager.

Choose the LinkedIn Ads app

In Canva, open Apps → LinkedIn Ads to access templates, design assets, and connect your ad account.

Pick a LinkedIn-optimized template

Browse templates built for vertical placements, and multipage concepts that function like lightweight carousels. These designs are already sized for LinkedIn ad specs for Sponsored Content.

Customize your creative

Swap in your brand colors, logo, and imagery. Replace placeholder text with headlines or CTAs, and adjust layouts as needed. Canva's library of photos and videos can help fill any gaps.

Export directly to Campaign Manager

When your creative is ready, select your LinkedIn ad account and choose the correct format: MP4 for video or PNG/JPEG for images. Exporting sends the asset straight to your media library in Campaign Manager, ready for setup.

Launching a campaign in Campaign Manager

Once your Canva creative appears in your media library, you can set up your campaign inside Campaign Manager.

Define your campaign

Set the campaign objective, choose your target audience, assign a budget, and establish your schedule.

Choose your ad format

Select whether you're running an image ad or a video ad. 

Add your Canva creative

Locate the Canva export in the media library, attach it to the campaign, and fill in your headline, intro text, and destination URL. Preview to ensure everything appears as expected.

Launch your campaign

Review your settings, confirm the details, and click Launch Campaign.

What to track once you launch

Once your post or campaign is live, the metrics available in LinkedIn's dashboards give you a clear view of how your creative is performing and where to refine. Monitoring these early signals helps you understand what's resonating and where small adjustments can strengthen future content.

Feed posts

Track the metrics that show how people are interacting with your content in the feed:

• Views
• Reactions
• Comments
• Reposts
• Follows
• Watch time (for videos)
  

Ads

For paid campaigns, Campaign Manager provides deeper insight into how your ads are performing:

• Impressions
• Clicks
• CTR
• Video completion rate
• Cost per click or view
• Leads (if using Lead Gen Forms)

Use these metrics as a guide to optimize your next round of creative, testing different hooks, formats, and design choices based on what your audience responds to most. Monitoring performance in Campaign Manager over time helps keep your content aligned with your goals and informs a more confident creative strategy.

Pro Tips for Stronger Creative 

High-performing LinkedIn content often comes down to a few repeatable creative habits. The guidance below brings together expert recommendations from Canva’s Design School and LinkedIn’s own creator and marketer education teams. These principles can help you create assets that feel polished without adding production complexity.

Build a strong foundation

Brand consistency helps viewers recognize your content instantly, so keep colors, logos, and style elements aligned across every asset. Establish momentum early by opening with a clear statement or visual cue; those first seconds shape whether someone keeps watching. Keep text short, specific, and easy to grasp so the message lands even when someone scrolls quickly.

Use motion with intention

Motion works best when it supports your story instead of competing with it. Light transitions can guide attention, but heavy animation often distracts. Simple movement paired with a clean layout usually provides enough visual interest without overwhelming the viewer.

Support accessibility

Captions are essential on LinkedIn, where many people watch with sound off. Add them directly in Canva using text elements, and choose styles with strong color contrast to improve readability. Accessible formatting tends to increase watch time and helps more viewers follow your message.

Get to the point quickly

Every strong video starts by delivering value right away. Lead with the central idea, whether it's a question, takeaway, or insight, and skip long openings. Direct beginnings help hold attention and reduce early drop-off.

Encourage interaction

Once your post is live, stay close to the conversation. Responding to comments signals that you're present and listening. Clear CTAs (watch, learn, try, or visit) make it easier for viewers to understand the next step.

Adapt to what performs on LinkedIn Video

Short formats consistently drive stronger engagement. For organic posts, staying under two minutes works well; for ads, 15-30 seconds tends to deliver the best results. Production doesn't have to be complex to be effective. Videos that feel genuine, helpful, or emotionally resonant often outperform highly polished content.

Bring Your Ideas to Life with Canva + LinkedIn

This integration is designed to shorten the distance between concept and execution, giving you a straightforward way to design, edit, and publish content that reflects your brand. Once you've connected your accounts and tested a few templates, the workflow quickly becomes second nature. The more you experiment with formats, with motion, with story structure, the easier it is to find a creative rhythm that works for you and your audience.

Learn more about the Canva + LinkedIn integration

And if you'd like to see these tools in action, watch our Canva x LinkedIn webinar for live examples and expert guidance on building campaigns that stand out. 

Ready to get started? Receive a LinkedIn ad credit for your next campaign. We can’t wait to see what you create!

     

Every year, the LinkedIn Marketing Partner Awards give us the opportunity to pause and celebrate something we're genuinely proud of: the partners who show up, innovate, and go above and beyond to help our mutual customers succeed.

This year, at Partner Connect 2026, we gathered under the theme Together, It's Possible. The work recognized in these awards is exactly what that theme looks like in practice. From groundbreaking product integrations to standout creative activations and data-driven thought leadership, this year's winners represent the very best of what our partner ecosystem can achieve.

The awards span two tracks that reflect how our strongest partners contribute to shared success: Build with LinkedIn, recognizing partners who strengthen how customers implement and adopt LinkedIn solutions, and Grow with LinkedIn, honoring those who turn that foundation into shared growth through go-to-market excellence, creativity, and advocacy.

Read on to meet this year's winners, and the work that earned them their awards.

Partner of the Year: Zapier

The Partner of the Year award recognizes the partner who delivered the strongest overall impact through consistent collaboration, standout execution, and measurable customer outcomes.

Zapier, the AI orchestration platform, helped bring LinkedIn’s Conversions API to marketers at scale — driving 115% year-over-year growth in customers live with CAPI, supported by pre-built templates that reduced setup drop-off and shortened time-to-value for advertisers. Their focused joint go-to-market — spanning MDF-backed campaigns, webinars, and implementation support — helped turn adoption into revenue at scale. Together, the teams made LinkedIn Conversions API workflows free for Zapier users and easier to deploy at scale.

Innovator of the Year: ON24

The Innovator of the Year award recognizes the partner who made a significant impact through a new and innovative service or solution with LinkedIn.

ON24 became the first partner to connect LinkedIn Event creation and Event Lead Sync into a single workflow, eliminating the need for marketers to jump between platforms. Built in close collaboration with LinkedIn's product and business teams, the integration set a new bar for how partners can strengthen the Events ecosystem and deliver seamless value to customers.

“We’re excited to be named Innovator of the Year. Event teams don’t need more tools, they need better workflows, and that’s what we set out to build with LinkedIn. Bringing key LinkedIn event capabilities into a single experience helps marketers move faster and stay focused on driving demand and measuring outcomes.” – Jim Blackie, Chief Customer Officer ON24

Customer Value: NBCUniversal

The Customer Value award recognizes the partner who has driven exceptional business outcomes for customers through their services and solutions with LinkedIn.

NBCUniversal helped deliver full-funnel impact for advertisers through LinkedIn's CTV Select offering, curating premium inventory that paired precise audience targeting with high standards for brand safety. For ServiceNow, the results were clear: audiences exposed to the campaign were significantly more likely to complete lead gen forms, with strong lift in aided awareness validated by a Kantar brand lift study.

Breakthrough Creativity: Adobe

The Breakthrough Creativity award recognizes the partner who brought a breakthrough idea to life through standout creative that resonated with customers.

Adobe activated their LinkedIn integration through the Video Suite at the Creator Experience — a premium, one-on-one environment where marketers, creators, and executives could elevate their video presence with hands-on guidance from LinkedIn and Adobe experts. Over the course of the week, the suite welcomed 99 guests, translating product integration into a memorable, high-impact customer experience.

“We’re honored to be recognized for Breakthrough Creativity. This work was about making the Adobe Express and LinkedIn integration feel real through a hands-on experience that helped people show up more confidently in their professional lives with video. We enjoyed building the experience with LinkedIn and love helping customers use Adobe Express to stand out with video content on their own social channels.” – Parimal Deshpande, Global Head of Product Marketing for Adobe Express

GTM Excellence: Factors.ai

The GTM Excellence award recognizes the partner who executed a best-in-class joint go-to-market through clear planning, strong coordination, and measurable business impact.

Factors.ai developed a B2B benchmark report grounded in survey data from more than 100 customers, helping marketers better understand LinkedIn's impact within their digital media mix. A coordinated, multi-channel promotion strategy did the rest, generating more than 2,000 leads in the first quarter alone.

B2B Thought Leadership: Dreamdata

The B2B Thought Leadership award recognizes the partner who advanced the B2B marketing narrative through original insights and practical guidance that helped marketers achieve more with LinkedIn.

Dreamdata's comprehensive benchmarks report analyzes spend and performance across major advertising platforms, offering clear, data-driven evidence of LinkedIn's impact on business outcomes. The report reached more than 5,000 downloads and was showcased at major industry moments including AdWeek and Newsfront, while also inspiring other partners to launch their own performance-focused thought leadership.

“Winning the B2B Thought Leadership award means a lot. We built the report because B2B teams still struggle to answer whether marketing is actually working. Our benchmarks exist to surface the influence marketing has at every stage of the customer journey, giving marketers something real to act on and a way to manage expectations across the organization. We’re proud to partner with LinkedIn in pushing the industry toward marketing that’s measured on outcomes instead of activities.” – Steffen Hedebrandt, Co-founder & CMO of Dreamdata

Congratulations to all of this year's LinkedIn Marketing Partner Award winners — and a heartfelt thank you to every partner who shows up every day to help our mutual customers grow. Learn more about the LinkedIn Marketing Partners program and how our partners can help you achieve your marketing goals on LinkedIn. We'll see you next year!

     

For years, B2B marketing has been fluent in attention – impressions, views, engagement. At this year’s NewFronts, LinkedIn called time on treating those metrics as the end goal.

What rose above the noise was a shared acknowledgment: awareness without impact doesn’t move the business. Today’s B2B marketing is being measured by a higher bar – confidence, accountability, and outcomes you can prove.

LinkedIn used the NewFronts moment to make that shift impossible to ignore, both on stage and beyond. 

Hosted by Corporate Natalie, the event featured a mix of insight-led keynotes and product spotlights, all centered on how marketing influences buying groups and drives business results.

Discovery has shifted 

LinkedIn CMO Jessica Jensen opened the event by unpacking the changing media landscape and what it takes to stand out from the noise. “In a world flooded with AI-generated everything, the brands that stand out are the ones that still feel real.”

Authenticity, Jensen argued, isn’t a brand attribute – it’s a discovery strategy. It shows up through creators, partnerships, and executives and employees using real voices to shape real conversations.

That shift matters because discovery itself has changed. When large language models recommend companies, they prioritize credible sources, expert perspectives, and professional dialogue.

LinkedIn is built for exactly that: a network of more than 100 million verified professionals contributing trusted, human insight.

New third-party research from Profound reinforces the point, ranking LinkedIn as the most-cited domain for professional queries across major AI search engines—underscoring the growing impact of trusted content early in the decision-making journey.

Why Awareness Alone Is No Longer Enough

The broader programming underscored a clear mandate facing B2B marketers today: presence isn’t proof. Impact is. Measuring success now means moving beyond visibility to influence – on confidence, consideration, and commercial outcomes.

LinkedIn called out the industry's long-standing habit of optimizing for metrics that look impressive on dashboards but do little to move the business forward. Impressions and engagement may still matter, but on their own, they’re no longer enough.

That message continued beyond the NewFronts stage. At the event, LinkedIn launched "Cut the Bullspend," a new global campaign challenging marketers to shift from vanity metrics to measurable business value. The campaign came to life across New York, transforming the city into an extension of the event itself. High‑impact billboards appeared throughout Manhattan, while LinkedIn‑branded cars circulated around NewFronts venues – including competitor events – turning the industry conversation from optics to outcomes, in real time.

Where Context Converts Attention Into Action

Context emerged as another major theme from LinkedIn’s NewFronts presence.

Video performance doesn’t happen in a vacuum. In B2B especially, professional context shapes how video is trusted, evaluated, and acted on. 

LinkedIn’s professional network offers a fundamentally different context for B2B video. 

• A network of over 100 million verified professionals, giving buyers confidence in who they’re learning from
• Directors and above at Fortune 500 companies are 1.5× more likely to watch events on LinkedIn than other members. (Source: LinkedIn Internal Data, 2025)
• Brands are 20× more likely to be purchased when the entire buying group has awareness, not just a single decision‑maker. (Source: LinkedIn and Bain Company, 2025)

The implication for marketers is simple: quality attention beats passive attention. Video that appears in a trusted professional environment is more likely to influence real B2B buying decisions – not just generate fleeting views.

From One‑Off Moments to Full‑Funnel Impact

The final – and perhaps most important – takeaway from NewFronts was this: isolated video buys and one‑off brand moments are no longer efficient in complex B2B journeys.

Today’s buying decisions are made by groups, not individuals. LinkedIn connects video exposure to real business outcomes by measuring influence at the company and buying‑group level — not just individual impressions. For B2B marketers, that means fewer metrics for metrics’ sake, and more proof that video is driving pipeline and revenue.

Supporting data shared around NewFronts reinforces this:

• Companies advertising on LinkedIn see up to 3× stronger pipeline results, with those spending $10–20K per month achieving 14.7× pipeline efficiency (Source: Fibbler Labs, 2025)
• BrandLink campaigns deliver 130% higher video completion rates, 23% higher view rates, and make exposed members 18% more likely to become a lead (Source: LinkedIn Internal Data, 2025)
• Company‑hosted events promoted with Event Ads see 31× more viewers and 4.4× more registrations than events without promotion (Source: LinkedIn Internal Data, 2025)

The message was consistent: B2B marketers don’t need more metrics – they need confidence.

LinkedIn Video: What's New and What's Next

LinkedIn also previewed new and expanded video offerings designed to help marketers prove business impact across the funnel.

Top Voices 360°

As LinkedIn’s most premium creator sponsorship to date, Top Voices 360° builds on the success of Shows by LinkedIn. Brands begin with an exclusive editorial show (supported by BrandLink pre‑roll) and can extend sponsorship across co‑branded posts, industry event appearances, and integrated on‑ and off‑platform moments.

The program brings together a diverse roster of trusted creators — including Aishwarya Srinivasan, Allie K. Miller, Candace Nelson, Cat Goetze, Corporate Natalie, Guy Raz, Meghana Dhar, Ramit Sethi, Simon Sinek, Steven Bartlett and Sue Bird – each hosting new or returning seasons of LinkedIn editorial shows.

“LinkedIn might be the most underrated platform in the creator economy right now, especially for video. If you’re not experimenting here, you might be sleeping on your next big audience!” – Corporate Natalie 

Event Sponsorships

Brands can now bundle BrandLink and Event Ads into a single sponsorship, extending impact before, during, and after live events. 

BrandLink Expansion

BrandLink continues to grow with expanded access to premium publishers and creators. Direct buying in Campaign Manager gives advertisers control over the content their brand appears alongside.

LinkedIn’s Connected TV Ads 

LinkedIn’s CTV Ads now offers expanded access through programmatic buying with The Trade Desk. This gives marketers additional flexibility to extend LinkedIn’s targeting and business audiences into the living room. It supports incremental reach as part of a broader, full‑funnel video strategy.

Bringing it all together

NewFronts 2026 made one thing unmistakable: B2B marketing has entered its outcomes era.

The future belongs to marketers who can move beyond hype and prove, with confidence, that their video investments are driving real business results. And as LinkedIn demonstrated on and off the NewFronts stage, avoiding bullspend isn’t about doing less video – it’s about doing video that delivers.

Missed our NewFronts event in NYC? Tune into our virtual replays on April 9 for NAMER & EMEA and April 10 for APAC.

     

Marketing teams today are under more pressure than ever to prove real business outcomes. Budgets are tighter. CFOs are closer to the work. And the question every marketer has to answer is no longer “Did this perform?” but “Did this move the business?”

And yet, much of B2B marketing is still measured by metrics that don’t connect to revenue at all.

That disconnect is what we call bullspend.

Bullspend is any marketing spend optimized for numbers that look impressive on a dashboard – but don’t translate into pipeline, deals, or growth. Reach without relevance. Engagement without impact. Reports that travel well internally but fall apart the moment a finance leader asks a follow‑up question.

Most marketers have seen it. Many have felt it. I know I have.

I’ve sat in rooms where the charts were going up and to the right – reach climbing, engagement ticking up, a report that earned nods around the table. For a moment, it felt like enough.

It wasn’t. And if you’ve ever walked out of a meeting unsure how your results would stand up in a boardroom, you know exactly why.

Why Bullspend Exists

Bullspend doesn’t come from bad marketing. It comes from a system that rewards the appearance of performance over actual business results. 

For years, marketers were able to operate in a comfortable middle ground. If the numbers looked good, the assumption was the business impact would follow. But that space is disappearing fast.

Budgets are under scrutiny. AI is reshaping how value is created – and exposed – across the funnel. Today, good creative and broad reach aren’t differentiators. They’re table stakes. 

How Bullspend Shows Up: Reaching the Wrong People at Scale

One of the most common ways bullspend enters the system is through imprecise targeting.

B2B marketers often reach large audiences that are technically relevant, but functionally wrong. Campaigns are blasted broadly in the hope that the right person might see them. Budgets are poured into platforms where your audience exists in theory, but can’t be reached with any real accuracy. Spend disappears into environments riddled with bots, fraud, or low‑quality placements. Brands show up next to content that actively undermines the message they’re trying to land.

The result is reach without relevance. Scale without influence.

It looks efficient. It isn’t.

Why Dashboards Lie: Vanity Metrics vs. Real Value 

The second reason bullspend persists is measurement.

Vanity metrics like impressions, views, clicks are easy to track and easy to defend. They fill dashboards. They show momentum. And they often mask the fact that nothing meaningful is happening downstream.

Pipeline doesn’t move. Buying groups don’t engage. Revenue doesn’t follow.

That’s why bullspend is so hard to kill. The metrics make it feel productive, even when it isn’t. And in a world where marketing is expected to justify every dollar, that false confidence is dangerous.

The End of Optics‑First Marketing

This is where the industry is at an inflection point.

Optics‑first marketing – optimizing for what looks good rather than what works – no longer holds up. The marketers who will remain indispensable are the ones who can draw a straight line between their work and business outcomes.

This is the shift from optics to outcomes. Not as a slogan, but as an operating principle.

What Changes When Marketing Delivers Real Outcomes

When marketing actually works – when it reaches the right people and drives measurable impact – it changes everything.

Brands grow. Pipelines fill. Confidence replaces defensiveness. Budget conversations shift from justification to investment. The CFO meeting becomes one you want to walk into with confidence, not one you dread. 

That clarity and conviction don’t show up neatly on a dashboard. But every marketer knows the difference between work they believe in and work they quietly hope no one interrogates too closely.

Putting Bullspend on Display

We gave bullspend a name because it needed one. But we also wanted to make the problem unmistakable

By naming it, we’re giving marketers permission to challenge it and to have a different conversation about what success really looks like now.

That’s the goal of our newly launched ad creative. 

Building on LinkedIn’s unified brand platform – The Network That Works For You – we launched “Cut the Bullspend” this week.

The Snacks spot captures a familiar feeling: flashy office snacks that look impressive but disappoint the moment you actually need them. A chef plates elevated, deconstructed snacks no one asked for and no one wants. It’s 2:00 p.m. People are just trying to get through the afternoon.

Polished. Well‑intentioned. Completely beside the point.

That’s bullspend.

The Furniture spot tells the same story. An office filled with sculptural, gallery‑worthy pieces—beautiful to look at, impossible to use. No one’s getting any work done. When your marketing reaches the wrong audience, it doesn’t matter how good it looks. It simply doesn’t function.

Where Bullspend Ends and Business Begins

The good news is this: bullspend isn’t inevitable.

When marketers shift their focus from “How did this perform?” to “What did this actually do for the business?” everything changes.

LinkedIn Ads helps marketers cut bullspend by connecting marketing spend directly to business outcomes. With access to over a billion professionals and targeting built around how people actually work, marketers can reach real buying groups, real B2B decision makers and measure success in ways that matter.

Cut the bullspend.

Start investing in outcomes with LinkedIn Ads.

     

First things first, let’s start with why retargeting matters in B2B marketing. 

B2B decision-making involves many people, takes a long time, and there’s nothing linear about it. Research differs, however most studies place the average B2B sales cycle length somewhere between 6-12 months. Sometimes In B2B settings several years can pass between the first engagement and the signed agreement.  

In this reality, marketers need to create awareness early, and then build on brand familiarity and trust with repeat engagement. A smart retargeting strategy leveraging the most effective content format in B2B marketing can help you build confidence and consensus across buying groups.

Using Video Retargeting to Improve Your B2B Campaign Results

The long, complex, and too-often confusing nature of B2B buying begs for salience, familiarity and trust. Video retargeting, powered by retargeting tools like the LinkedIn Insight Tag, can help marketers achieve all three of these virtues. 

The power of video in B2B marketing

In this reality, marketers need to create awareness early, and then build on brand familiarity and trust with repeat engagement. A smart retargeting strategy leveraging the most effective content format in B2B marketing can help you build confidence and consensus across buying groups.

Marketing success often comes down to connecting on an emotional level. Video’s ability to humanize messaging and connect more deeply with people cannot be understated.

How video retargeting works

Video retargeting is a digital marketing tactic where video ads are displayed to people who have previously visited your website or have interacted with your content on a specific platform. Powered by the Insight Tag, LinkedIn video retargeting allows you to display video ads to specific audience segments who have engaged with content on your website or on LinkedIn. 

With video retargeting you can create custom audiences based on which content they engaged with and how they interacted with it, allowing you to personalize ads and create unique campaigns for specific segments of your audience. 

LinkedIn video retargeting empowers B2B marketers to increase the reach and effectiveness of LinkedIn campaigns because it focuses on professionals who have already shown an interest in your content. It’s a great opportunity for marketers who want to increase video usage while also boosting meaningful impressions among key audiences. 

Why video retargeting is so effective

The B2B buying journey involves a series of micro conversions that build up to the big, macro conversion: the signed deal. The repetition of video retargeting builds recall and increases the likelihood of both micro and macro conversions.

Marketers can also move beyond awareness, using video retargeting to educate, inspire and nurture. For B2B marketers who must navigate complex buying committees, video retargeting is a multi-use tool. You can use it to educate or share thought leadership with specific members of the buying committee — helping individual members successfully execute their role within the buying process — and you can also use it to create shared messaging that builds consensus among the buying committee at large. 

“Since using the new remarketing capabilities for Lead Gen Forms and videos our conversion rate has gone up by 20%, while our cost per conversion went down by 24%.” - Marit van der Louw, International Content Marketer, TOPdesk (Mastering Targeting on LinkedIn)

Video retargeting in action: Best practices

If your goal is about brand awareness or gaining access to the consideration stage, shorter video — about 15-30 seconds — works best. If your goal is to secure a conversion, all lengths of video are proven to work. That said, the shorter you can make your video, the easier it will be to maintain your audience’s attention throughout. Our B2B Marketing Benchmark report found that short-form social videos produce the best ROI among video types.

Promoting thought leadership? Lead with branding within the first two seconds of your video ad because doing so correlates with a 16% lift in engagement. But if you’re trying to build brand awareness, it may be better to wait as the same study found a 40% lift in completion rate when branding appeared in the second half of the video.

Try to feature people and workplaces that are relatable — it’s not all smiles at work, and audiences want to see a range of emotions in the workplace. Vidmob’s 2024 Creative Trends Report with LinkedIn found that campaigns embracing emotions like anger (+59%) and confusion (+21%) had higher view-through rates than those not featuring strong emotions.

If you’re in the bottom of the funnel, low-contrast videos tend to work better, perhaps because the softer contrast creates a more subtle tone during those high-stakes moments. 

Finally, for an easier way to measure ROI, combine Lead Gen Forms with your video retargeting campaigns. Lead Gen Forms come prefilled with accurate LinkedIn profile data, making it easier for members to share their professional info, and easier for marketers to access, manage, and measure leads.

Building a video retargeting strategy

When building your video retargeting campaign, it’s important to align your objective with your audience’s intent and where you are in the funnel. Choosing a conversion-oriented goal when you still have nurturing to do, for instance, could cause you to “optimize” your campaign in ways that don’t jibe with your buyer’s context. 

Once you have a good idea of where you’re working in the funnel and what action you want your audience to take, start building your audience segment from your existing traffic. It’s recommended that you have a minimum of 300 visitors per segment. 

Video retargeting can be used to support paid campaigns, of course, but don’t forget that you can also use video retargeting to build your community and to support your organic marketing activities. 

Connecting relevance to ROI

Video amplifies message clarity, consistency, and emotional impact; retargeting keeps your brand top-of-mind. Combined they become video retargeting — a supertool B2B marketers can use to accelerate pipeline and boost conversion efficiency. 

How to measure the success of video ads

Measuring video ad success in B2B requires looking beyond views. Start with video-specific engagement metrics such as view rate, average watch time and completion rate to understand whether your creative is holding attention. On LinkedIn, you can also track video views by percentage (25%, 50%, 75%, 100%) to gauge depth of engagement.

Next, connect engagement to pipeline impact. Use the LinkedIn Insight Tag to measure post-view conversions, website actions and assisted conversions from members who watched your video before taking action. For lead-focused campaigns, track cost per lead (CPL), conversion rate and lead quality through Lead Gen Forms, which capture verified professional data.

Finally, evaluate performance at the account and buying-group level. Video retargeting works best when it increases reach and frequency of engagement among priority audiences, reinforcing familiarity over time. When recall, engagement depth and downstream conversions move together, your video strategy is driving real business impact.

Here are a few more resources to help you excel at B2B video and retargeting:

• LinkedIn Insight Tag Setup Guide
• 13 Tips for Compelling B2B Video Content on LinkedIn
• Three Principles for Effective B2B Video Brand Building
• LinkedIn Video Ads Overview
• VidMob’s 2024 Creative Trends Report with LinkedIn
  

Discover more tips for creating videos that shine in the feed and drive results.  Download How To Build Your Brand With Video on LinkedIn to unlock the full potential of LinkedIn Video Ads.

     

The B2B buying journey is shifting as more buyers rely on AI-powered search to research products and build shortlists before ever visiting a company’s website—moving influence from visibility to credibility, or “Buyability.” Third‑party research from Semrush and  Profound underscores this shift, with Profound ranking LinkedIn as the most‑cited domain for professional queries on major AI search engines, signaling the growing impact of trusted content early in decision‑making.

This space is evolving quickly. Based on third-party research, internal testing, and data, we’re sharing three key takeaways to help you navigate this new landscape.

1. Educational content is your crown jewel
2. Lean in to fresh, original posts & articles 
3. Authors need credibility, not virality 

Educational content is your crown jewel

When a business or member shares public information on LinkedIn, their expertise holds more value, and the knowledge they share has the potential for a much greater reach. This means more traffic to your content.

The secret sauce is to frequently craft and share high-quality, insightful content that showcases your expertise or firsthand experience through unique angles, data, and information about your industry, brand, products, and services. Both our data and Semrush’s show that AI models crave this depth of information far more than opinion pieces or personal updates.

While there’s no shortcut, there is a meaningful reward for quality content that delivers real value to your audience: According to Semrush, LinkedIn has higher semantic similarity scores (0.57 to 0.60) than Reddit or Quora, meaning AI responses more closely mirror original content found on LinkedIn. This can give you more control of your narrative and–in theory–reduces AI hallucinations.

Lean in to fresh, original posts and articles

On LinkedIn, long-form articles, newsletters, and posts are cited most often, accounting for 60% of all citations. We see this both internally and in Profound’s recent report. The takeaway? Ranking is much harder without comprehensive content that demonstrates expertise.

While there's no magic number for word count, aim for enough depth to be truly useful. For articles, early testing suggests that content substantial enough to provide meaningful answers (often in the 800–1,200 word range) performs well.

For shorter posts, Semrush found that 200–300 words is often enough to deliver a powerful takeaway and spark conversation. Their research also highlights that originality is crucial—95% of all citations of content on LinkedIn come from original posts, not reshares. Publishing authentic content, rather than fully AI-generated text, can also help you avoid being flagged or blocked from indexing.

While the focus on AI search is new, the core principles of traditional SEO, like creating relevant content and using strategic keywords, are still essential for visibility across organic search and AI-search platforms.

Tips for creating cite-worthy content:

• Share authentic knowledge: Your best content often comes from answering a question you hear directly from your customers. Frame your content as the solution to their biggest problems. Think: "Question: Answer."
• Be the expert. Don't just share information; offer unique insights. Define key terms, make bold claims, and share your expert point of view to build authority.
• Provide detailed, actionable advice: Give as much detail as you can, but make it easy to digest. Use ranked lists, clear steps, and proven best practices. A good TL;DR (too long; didn't read) summary can also help.
• Keep it fresh and frequent: Show both your audience and AI that your information is current. Signal this by including specific dates (e.g., "The top AI tools for 2026"). Posting regularly also helps build momentum.
• Optimize your opening for impact: Lead with the most important information. The first line of your post or the title of your article is often your key takeaway and what gets cited. Make it count.

Authors need credibility, not virality

It is not just what you say but who is saying it. Use a mix of Company Pages and individual posts, ideally by subject matter experts, to maximize your impact. Have your most knowledgeable source share their insights, then amplify their message through your most established voices to maximize reach and authority.

LinkedIn internal data shows that members with 3,000 followers or more show a stronger likelihood of citation. Consistency is also key. Aim to post 2-3 times a week, or at least weekly to establish a strong presence and help ensure enough opportunities for your content to be “picked up” by the LLMs. 

Engagement signals to search engines that your content is valuable, helping it get discovered more easily. While you do not need to go viral, our internal data suggests that having 10 or more comments on a post seems to help. Video continues to perform well, but don’t skip the caption. Your text gives the model the context to understand your message.

How to Win on LinkedIn: A Content Checklist

Marketers with a growth mindset who adapt quickly to these changes will pull ahead. 

This checklist is a great starting point for powering up your LinkedIn content strategy today, but it will likely evolve as we learn more over the coming weeks and months. 

To recap, here's what you can do now:

There is no silver bullet

It’s about building expertise where it matters most at the crossroads of identity, authority, and professional trust. That is LinkedIn's superpower, and in an AI-powered world, it has become an advantage you can strategically leverage.

Ready to adapt? Dive into our guide to optimizing your owned content for AI discovery. It’s packed with the strategies top brands are using to stay ahead as search changes forever.

Stay tuned for the next chapter of our AI Search Series, where we'll reveal more exclusive insights and lessons from our content laboratory. We're fired up to keep pushing the boundaries and sharing every discovery with you.

     

Today’s decision-makers expect more than static content. They want dynamic, informative experiences that help them navigate the complexity of purchasing decisions. Video delivers on that demand.

While video’s impact is undeniable, creating content that resonates with B2B decision-makers — and ensuring it reaches the right audience — requires a thoughtful approach. LinkedIn’s expanding video ecosystem, combined with its powerful targeting capabilities and partner solutions, empowers marketers to build memorable campaigns that help grow their brands.

Our ebook, How To Build Your Brand With Video on LinkedIn, dives deep into video strategies, creative best practices, and partner solutions to help you maximize your video marketing impact. This post offers a preview of what you’ll find in the full guide, including key ad formats and insights to help you create powerful video campaigns on LinkedIn.

Why video works for B2B marketing

Research consistently proves the power of video in B2B marketing:

• 70% of B2B buyers say video leads the way in creating awareness around business-related problems.
• 95% of B2B buyers say video played a vital role along their path to purchase.
• Members exposed to a video ad are 18% more likely to respond positively on brand awareness tests than those who saw a non-video ad format. (Source: LinkedIn internal data, June 2025)
  

Unlike traditional static ads, video allows brands to simplify complex messages that create emotional connections and deliver information in an engaging, digestible format.

LinkedIn: The B2B platform for video marketing

LinkedIn’s professional network of over 1 billion global members provides an environment where business content is not only welcomed but actively sought out. With advanced targeting capabilities and a work-focused audience, LinkedIn helps brands get their message in front of decision-makers who are actively researching solutions.

In addition to Video Ads appearing in member feeds and across the LinkedIn Audience Network (LAN), LinkedIn continues to expand its video ecosystem with new advertising solutions and powerful marketing partner integrations making it easier than ever for brands to create and scale high-quality video content.

Video Ad Formats for Brand Building

Choosing the right Video Ad format can make a significant impact on your campaign's success. LinkedIn offers several powerful options designed to capture the attention of B2B decision-makers.

Video Ads

Video Ads in the feed and on LAN are versatile and ideal for a range of objectives, from awareness to conversion, and enable diverse messaging strategies and storytelling across products and customer testimonials. By showcasing solutions, sharing success stories, or breaking down complex ideas, these ads help build trust and inspire action. For instance, a B2B software company might use Video Ads to highlight product features or demonstrate a real-world use case to capture the interest of prospective buyers.

BrandLink

BrandLink is an opportunity for advertisers to run pre-roll video ads that play before premium content from publishers and creators in targeted members’ feeds and drive meaningful partnerships between brands, creators, and publishers. Members who first view a BrandLink In-Stream Ad are up to 18% more likely to become a lead.

Connected TV (CTV) Ads

Connected TV Ads offer a unique opportunity to reach decision-makers in a relaxed, high-attention environment. These ads combine the impact of traditional television with LinkedIn's precise targeting capabilities, ensuring your message reaches the right professional audience.

As an early adopter of this ad format, Palo Alto Networks successfully leveraged LinkedIn Connected TV Ads to amplify their cybersecurity message. By delivering targeted content directly to IT decision-makers in relevant industries, they increased brand visibility and engagement among key accounts. This campaign demonstrated how CTV Ads can effectively extend brand presence in non-traditional yet impactful spaces.

Event Ads

Event Ads are designed to boost attendance and engagement for both virtual and in-person events. By promoting event details directly within the LinkedIn Feed, brands can attract qualified attendees, drive registrations, and spark meaningful conversations before, during, and after the event.

For example, Salesforce utilized LinkedIn’s Event Ads to drive awareness and attendance for their Dreamforce event. By targeting industry professionals with tailored messaging, Salesforce maximized engagement and drew a highly relevant audience to their live sessions.

Thought Leader Ads

Thought Leader Ads provide a powerful way to showcase executive insights, establish industry expertise, and build credibility. By featuring leadership perspectives or subject-matter expertise from influencers, these ads position your brand as a trusted resource in your industry.

For example, a financial services firm could use Thought Leader Ads to promote their CFO’s perspective on economic trends, offering valuable insights to LinkedIn’s professional audience while reinforcing their brand’s authority.

Maximizing impact with the right format

Selecting the appropriate ad format depends on your goals. Use Video Ads for product storytelling, Connected TV Ads for broad awareness campaigns, Event Ads to boost attendance, and Thought Leader Ads to establish credibility. Combining formats strategically can help brands engage B2B buyers throughout their decision-making journey.

Elevate Your Video Ads with LinkedIn Marketing Partner Solutions

Creating effective video content is just the first step — ensuring it’s seen by the right audience, optimized for performance, and delivering measurable results is equally crucial. LinkedIn’s extensive marketing partner ecosystem empowers brands to achieve all of this with greater efficiency and impact.

High-impact video production

Crafting compelling video content that resonates with B2B audiences requires both creativity and efficiency. LinkedIn’s content and creative partners provide the tools and expertise to streamline production while ensuring content aligns with brand goals.

For example, TD Bank successfully leveraged QuickFrame to scale their video content creation, launching their first CTV Ad campaign. Together, they produced a series of high-quality, targeted video ads that connected with key decision-makers while maintaining brand consistency. This partnership allowed TD Bank to quickly generate engaging content at scale, enhancing their video marketing efforts without overextending internal resources.

Campaign management for optimized reach

To ensure video campaigns reach the right audience at the right time, LinkedIn’s campaign management partners provide powerful solutions for targeting, budget allocation, and campaign optimization. These partners help brands monitor performance in real time, adjust creative elements for better engagement, and maximize ROI across LinkedIn’s diverse ad formats.

Measurement that proves value

Proving video campaign success is essential for justifying spend and refining future strategies. Measurement partners provide trusted solutions for tracking brand lift, audience insights, and conversion impact. These insights help marketers understand not only how their video content is performing but also how it’s influencing broader business outcomes.

The combined power of LinkedIn’s robust video ad capabilities and trusted partner solutions means marketers can create, optimize, and measure impactful campaigns with confidence — ensuring every video investment delivers results.

How to Get Started with Video Ads on LinkedIn

Launching successful LinkedIn video ad campaigns requires thoughtful planning, strategic execution, and the right resources. These three steps can get you started creating impactful video content.

1. Define your campaign goals

Start by identifying what you want to achieve with your video campaign. Are you looking to build brand awareness, establish thought leadership, or strengthen brand affinity? Clear goals will guide your content strategy, format selection, and performance metrics.

2. Choose the right video ad format

Selecting the best format for your brand-building goals is crucial:

• Video Ads are ideal for showcasing product demos, sharing customer success stories, or driving engagement with storytelling content that highlights your brand identity and values.
• BrandLink is an opportunity to align your brand with in-stream, contextually-relevant content from premium publishers and creators.
• Connected TV Ads are perfect for reaching decision-makers in a relaxed, high-attention environment – ideal for thought leadership or other brand-building messages.
• Event Ads can boost attendance at webinars, conferences, or other virtual and in-person events, giving your brand the opportunity to interact directly with potential customers and partners.
• Thought Leader Ads effectively spotlight executive insights, reinforcing your brand's credibility and industry expertise.

3. Leverage LinkedIn partner solutions for support

For brands looking to elevate their content, LinkedIn’s marketing partners offer invaluable resources:

• Creative support: Partners like Adobe Express, Canva, and QuickFrame streamline video production and ensure content aligns with your brand identity.
• Campaign optimization: Solutions like Transmission, Scorch, and Sprinklr help you effectively plan, manage, and optimize your campaigns for maximum reach and engagement.
• Measurement tools: Partners such as Kantar and iSpot provide trusted solutions to gauge brand lift, audience insights, and ROI.
  

With thoughtful planning, creative expertise, and a measurement strategy, you can launch video campaigns that captivate attention and build the brand recognition you’re looking for with LinkedIn’s advertising and partner solutions. 

Ready to take your LinkedIn video marketing strategy to the next level? Download How To Build Your Brand With Video on LinkedIn to explore in-depth how expert partner solutions can help you unlock the full potential of LinkedIn video ads.

     

Trust is the cornerstone of executive leadership, and video has become its new language.

It bridges the gap between leaders and their audiences, making executive presence tangible, relatable, and authentic at scale. Once reliant on big budgets and long production cycles, creating video content now requires little more than a smartphone and a perspective. 

This shift isn’t just about efficiency—it’s how modern leaders signal credibility. During a CES 2026 panel, leaders from top global brands shared how they’re moving beyond scripted corporate language to embrace authenticity. The consensus was clear: when leaders present their true selves, they build trust that scales.

Key Takeaways:

• Video as the New Language of Leadership: Executive video bridges the gap between leaders and audiences, making leadership more authentic, relatable, and visible at scale.
• Driving Thought Leadership and Trust: Short, unscripted videos allow executives to share insights, decision-making processes, and challenges, positioning them as credible, trustworthy voices.
• LinkedIn Leads the Way: With 158 billion video views and executive posts generating 4x more engagement, LinkedIn is the top platform for impactful executive video content.
• Proven Practices for Success: Keep videos brief, authentic, and filmed in real environments. Use LinkedIn’s tools like native video, articles, and livestreams to foster trust and connection.
• Measure What Matters: Focus on meaningful metrics like saves, shares, and engagement from key audiences to evaluate the true impact of executive video.
  

The new language of leadership

Video has redefined executive visibility, enabling leaders to connect directly with audiences at scale in a way that feels authentic and relatable. Today’s leaders use video to share decision-making processes, admit challenges, and communicate with emotional transparency—building trust by inviting people into the real story. This generational shift moves leaders from talking to audiences to fostering deeper connections with teams, stakeholders, and customers. 

"In the past, video was a highly curated experience done through the lens of PR and legal, which often resulted in massive, staged keynotes," said Rick Tolman, VP of Global Media at HP, during the CES session. "Today it is less about mediated and more about immediate."

That shift isn’t theoretical, it’s measurable: 

The growth of executive voices on LinkedIn

• LinkedIn has surpassed 158 billion video views.
• Video sharing from CEOs has increased 57 percent over the past two years.
• Posts from C-suite executives generate four times more engagement than other posts.
• Video creation is growing two times faster than any other format.
• Videos are 20 times more likely to be shared.
  

Leadership visibility drives influence

Executives now use video as a catalyst for visibility, shifting from one-way, highly produced messages to brief, authentic moments that break silos and encourage trust. These short, approachable videos give audiences a genuine “corner-office view,” showcasing not just outcomes, but the reasoning behind strategy and even tough calls. As Rick Tolman of HP emphasized at CES 2026, audiences respond to unscripted, coffee-chat moments that invite transparency and empathy — making visible, real leadership the foundation of trust.

Setting the tone with authentic vision

For example, Snowflake Head of Product Marketing Nuri Cankaya shared a short video highlighting his initial experience at the company just 10 days after joining. The post featured a behind-the-scenes look at onboarding, the office environment, and roles he was hiring for.

"The intention is not to promote a product," Cankaya explained at CES. "It is making sure the audience gets value from the insight itself."

Another strong example from Cankaya is a video highlighting his top AI trend predictions. He avoided the hard sell to focus on the macro trend that AI cannot happen without data. That insight-first approach led to more than 15,000 shares.

"Video gives users a small window to digest a lot of information because it is visual and personal," Cankaya noted.

Making complexity human

Even when executive video covers product or business outcomes, it’s the leader’s perspective — shared in their own words and rooted in real experience — that builds trust. The most powerful content goes beyond features, revealing the thinking and lessons behind key decisions. Short, authentic videos serve as modern executive summaries, offering insight into shifts and challenges and making leadership visible in a way that’s relatable and honest. As Rick Tolman (HP) highlighted at CES 2026, this human approach turns executive presence into a daily touchpoint, strengthening visibility and credibility across audiences.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella models this in a LinkedIn post that walks through three Copilot features he uses in his daily life. Instead of zeroing in solely on business use cases, he talks about using features to learn about Egyptian mythology with his daughter or connecting with family.

When leaders explain value simply and credibly, they remove friction for the buyer.

Measuring influence beyond vanity metrics

Impressions tell part of the story, but the real value of executive video is in how it fosters visibility and trust. For leaders like Cankaya, it is less about view counts and more about sparking engagement that signals credibility — measured through saves, shares, and genuine interactions. The most meaningful metrics reflect authentic connection and lasting leadership impact, both within organizations and in the public eye.

Adobe takes a targeted approach to measurement. Dacay explained that her team evaluates executive video influence based on whether the content reaches the right buying groups.

"We want to ensure we have reach," Dacay said. "But then we go a level deeper to understand if we are reaching the people and the buying groups we care about most."

Proven practices for executive video

Leaders from Snowflake, HP, and Adobe stressed that fostering executive visibility and trust with video is about more than just being on camera. It requires a shift toward open, consistent communication — using video to share the reasoning behind decisions, invite honest feedback, and offer a candid look at leadership in action. Regular, short-form videos — ranging from quick internal updates to thoughtful public insights — make leadership accessible, nurture credibility, and build trust by demystifying executive roles and encouraging ongoing, two-way conversation.

Use the platform's full potential

LinkedIn gives leaders practical ways to make their visibility real — using short, informal videos to offer direct updates, share decision-making, and invite trust through transparency. The most effective executives keep clips brief and relatable, recording from everyday settings to deliver clear, candid insights that explain not just what’s happening, but why. By consistently using a mix of native video, articles, and livestreams, leaders can communicate openly within their teams and with broader audiences, making trust and credibility tangible, not theoretical.

"Leverage the full functionality," Cankaya advised. "Start with an article, do a LinkedIn Live, and then post that 90-second video."

He emphasized that vertical orientation works best and suggested keeping videos under 90 seconds. Sixty seconds is often the sweet spot for retaining attention.

Lead with authenticity

Leaders are discovering that the most effective executive videos are authentic and approachable, leaving behind scripted, polished delivery for genuine, unscripted connection. By sharing the reasoning behind tough decisions or pivots, leaders make their intentions visible and relatable. Short, candid videos invite ongoing dialogue, break down barriers, and make executive presence both real and trustworthy, fostering lasting credibility inside and outside their organizations.

"Audiences are not looking for a paid actor or someone who feels manufactured," Tolman said.

Look outward for inspiration

Leaders sharpen executive visibility by understanding what makes certain videos resonate. Short, candid clips that explain the reasoning behind key decisions — whether a shift in strategy or a lesson learned from a setback — make leadership transparent and trustworthy. The most effective executive videos turn complex moves into authentic stories, modeling openness and inviting audiences into the heart of organizational direction.

"We all consume video that we love," Dacay said. "Pay attention to what you are saving and sharing. Ask yourself how you can use those formats to tell a story people cannot read about elsewhere."

Empowering executive voices

Leaders are turning to video as a key tool for executive visibility, making communication more open and building genuine trust. With short, authentic videos, they invite employees, customers, and partners into the decision-making process and the reasoning behind important moves. This consistent transparency not only demystifies leadership but earns credibility, making it easier for audiences to connect with the people behind the decisions.

LinkedIn provides the context where that trust already exists. When executives show up consistently to share what they know, credibility compounds. Combine the right leaders with the right medium, and influence follows naturally.

Ready to put your thought leadership in motion? Explore Video Ads on LinkedIn.

     

• How video has become the language of modern buyers
• How demand generation is evolving beyond leads to long-term pipeline health
• How events are turning into full-funnel experience engines
• How measurement is giving marketers clearer views of what’s working
• How the future of thought leadership is people-powered, as brands focus on building strategic partnerships with creators

It would be impossible to cover the full picture of B2B marketing this year without recognizing a true powerhouse in every marketer’s toolkit: AI.

We are at an incredibly exciting point in time. Workflows are being redefined. New use cases are coming together before our eyes. The possibilities feel endless, and that part can be a little intimidating. Where to start?

B2B leaders are no longer wondering whether to use AI, but how to use it. The answer is going to vary across teams and organizations. In looking over benchmarking data and inspiring success stories, however, a few key themes stand out for marketers who want to find their focus and achieve measurable benefits. 

From experimental to operational: The new AI norm

LinkedIn’s research for the 2025 B2B Marketing Benchmark found that 95% of B2B marketers are now using AI at least weekly, while 65% use it daily. In other words, using AI for marketing isn’t a competitive advantage — more of an equalizer. To gain an edge, you’ve got to go deeper and use it more effectively.

For leaders, it starts with modeling a curious and confident mindset, while providing the resources and conditions to develop an AI-proficient workforce. 

Insight #6: It’s Time to Upskill and Level Up with AI

There are major opportunities for B2B marketers to better understand their audiences and build stronger campaigns through more advanced applications of AI, but it all starts with intentional upskilling across teams.

Building skills to thrive in the age of AI

Despite the high adoption rate of AI, only 32% of respondents in our latest benchmark survey rated their expertise as “extremely good,” remaining flat from last year’s report. Even leadership is at a deficit, with just 38% of CMOs saying they feel highly confident in their AI skills. 

In terms of how B2B marketers can improve their effectiveness with using AI, “training and skill-building” was the top response. 

Marketing leaders can help their teams (and themselves) brush up on the basics by getting familiar with common use cases. Brad Batesole overviews many of them in the LinkedIn Learning course AI for Marketing, including: 

• Drafting a value proposition with AI suggestions
• Using ChatGPT to write marketing drip campaigns or analyze marketing data
• Creating PowerPoint presentations with help from Copilot
• Automating tasks with Zapier AI

LinkedIn Learning offers a wide range of specific AI skill-building resources, but that’s only one way to sharpen AI proficiency across teams. Consider running goal-oriented experiments or team activities to put AI tools and techniques into practice. Encourage people to level up beyond the fundamentals; research shows that many marketers are still operating at a shallow task-based level, with ample opportunity to use AI in a more strategic, orchestrated fashion.

Improving customer insight and audience targeting

The oldest and most enduring commandment of marketing: Know Thy Customer. As B2B teams start building their adeptness and comfort level with AI, this is one area where the impact can be enormous.

The growing use of AI to enhance segmentation and targeting is a driving trend in advertising, at a time where audiences increasingly demand relevant, tailored content. At LinkedIn we are continually evolving our tools, introducing new capabilities to ensure you can step into the future of B2B audience targeting with help from the latest innovations. 

A key innovation is Buyer Groups, which use LinkedIn’s AI to identify and target the decision-makers and key stakeholders involved in company purchasing. By analyzing professional signals, buyer groups help you reach those with authority and influence, boosting your impact and return on investment while minimizing wasted impressions. This targeted approach makes your ad spend more efficient and effective. 

As another example, Predictive Audiences uses LinkedIn's AI to combine the millions of engagements taking place on the platform with your data, helping you reach high-intent audiences that are more likely to convert. LinkedIn Accelerate also helps you target smarter by using your own brand and product info to guide audience suggestions. Of course, AI tools can help marketers deliver more personalized content to these audiences at scale while spanning job functions and buying committee roles.

When you’re reaching your audience more effectively and serving fewer wasted impressions, cost efficiency tends to naturally follow: Early tests showed a 21% CPL reduction in campaigns using predictive audiences and lead gen objectives, and one enterprise customer shared that they were seeing double the leads at half the cost. 

Learn more in our resource center: AI in Marketing: Trends, Tools and Best Practices

Jumpstarting creativity and campaign momentum

AI is not a replacement for creativity. It’s a multiplier. Respondents in the B2B Marketing Benchmark pointed to a variety of ways that AI is enhancing their creative processes, from reducing production time to enabling real-time iteration.

AI is not a replacement for creativity. It’s a multiplier. Respondents in the B2B Marketing Benchmark pointed to a variety of ways that AI is enhancing their creative processes, from reducing production time to enabling real-time iteration. LinkedIn’s AI-powered tools, like AI Ad Variants and flexible ad creation, further amplify this by helping marketers quickly generate on-brand content and optimize creative combinations, saving time while boosting campaign performance.

Whether it’s content creation, research, analysis or campaign management, B2B marketers say they are saving a ton of time thanks to AI — about 20 hours per week on average. This means teams are now actually empowered to meet that seemingly impossible directive of doing more with less. They are running more campaigns, reaching new audiences and experimenting with fresh ideas, all without sacrificing the human-centered core of their marketing engine.

That’s the promise of AI, and we’ll see it realized more than ever in 2026.

Want to quickly experience how AI features can improve your efficiency and campaign results? Jump into LinkedIn Accelerate now and see for yourself.