The Crowded Market is the podcast built for B2B marketers who want to grow, lead and stay ahead – and episode one is out now!
Hosted by Luke Barnett, founder and CEO of LRB, the show shares real conversations with marketers and business leaders who are navigating the challenges and opportunities of B2B today.
Each episode is packed with useful advice, practical tips and honest insight from people doing the work at a high level. From content and campaigns to leadership and career growth, this is where B2B marketers come to hear what actually works. If you’re building brands, managing teams or simply looking to sharpen your thinking, this podcast is made for you.
Episode 1 — George Terry, LinkedIn specialist and co-founder/creative director at a Bristol-based LinkedIn marketing agency Winbox
LinkedIn: the setting that burns your budget, how to target, and what to post
“There’s a setting in Campaign Manager that’s toggled on by default. That little checkbox is responsible for wasting so much ad budget.”
George’s number-one fix is simple: switch off LinkedIn Audience Network (LAN) in Campaign Manager.
Many advertisers assume their paid posts appear only in the LinkedIn feed.
With LAN on, a large portion of the budget can be spent across third-party sites and apps – including low-quality placements like casual games and click-farms – producing inflated CTRs without meaningful pipeline.
Why does it matter?
- LAN often drives botty, low-intent clicks that never convert.
- Your CTR may look great, but 80–90% of spend can be wasted if most impressions happen off LinkedIn.
- Turning LAN off may reduce CTR, but improves signal quality and lets you evaluate creative, audience and offer on their real merits.
What can you do?
You’ll need to log in to Campaign Manager on LinkedIn, and go to the ‘Ad Placement’ dropdown. After that, you’ll need to untick LinkedIn Audience Network for every campaign.
Build audiences around reality, not generic best practices
In B2B, pretending you’ve got a mass market rarely works. George’s advice is to model audiences on your actual Total Addressable Market (TAM) rather than chasing arbitrary platform-recommended sizes.
This means that if you need near-term pipeline results, then go narrow and specific. An example of this is to speak directly to one sector, role, or set of companies.
Remember – relevance beats reach when it comes to LinkedIn ads.
Also, if you’re investing for longer-term growth, run broader brand campaigns to introduce yourself to the wider category.
Finally – do not abandon the sector where you’re already strong. Go deeper where you’ve got traction before expanding to shiny new markets.
Cold audiences won’t buy on first contact. According to George, the job is to move qualified people into intent-signalling segments and keep talking to them.
Should you be posting on weekends?
George stated that people do convert in evenings and weekends, but for organic, weekday publishing still tends to work the best.
More important is LinkedIn’s push toward relevancy over recency.
Posts can now keep surfacing for 2–3 weeks after they have been posted.
This highlights that LinkedIn is rewarding quality over cadence with your posts.
Instead of churning out filler to keep to a schedule, put more thought into craft and usefulness.
What content formats work now?
George broke down what content works best into three sections.
Video: LinkedIn is pushing it hard, but current compression can blunt performance. People need to see your face, hear your voice, and remember you. And this is the best way of doing it.
Carousels and text posts: Still reliable performers when they deliver practical, specific value.
Mix it up: Trends fluctuate and performance is personal. Treat content like an ongoing test-and-learn program. Stay ahead of the curve by speaking with experts.
Importance of the organic strategy
Company pages have their place, but George emphasised that humans win on LinkedIn.
Businesses looking to establish and grow in LinkedIn need to find a few credible internal voices – ideally the founder, CEO and other leaders – and help them publish consistently (and with high quality).
How to start:
- Begin with simple text posts that document real work, lessons and decisions.
- Clarify your point of view. Become ‘the person known for one thing’ and bang that drum.
- Graduate to video and carousels once the POV is sharp.
- Stop posting blog links. Turn articles into carousels, threads, clips, comments, and more.
“Thought leadership, not link-dropping. Take the insight to the feed instead of dragging the feed to your site.”
Founder-led media is a free cheat code
If your company funds a podcast or video series, encourage your experts to use those clips on their personal profiles.
This is essential for businesses in all industries and sectors that use LinkedIn.
It builds their authority and compounds the company’s reach on the platform.
What is next for LinkedIn?
Currently, there is no real competitor to LinkedIn’s position in professional social media, so expect it to keep evolving and influencing for years to come.
There is also a continued push toward video content, so it is important to stay up to date with this trend.
It is essential to keep raising the bar for content quality, as AI tools are helping experts publish posts on the platform.
Therefore, it is vital to sharpen your narrative and craft posts that people genuinely want to engage with.
Stay tuned for episode two of The Crowded Market Podcast!