LinkedIn Ads Case Study
LinkedIn Ads Case Study: 54% Lower Cost per Lead for ESET
Scale Chapter cut the cost per lead from LinkedIn Ads by 54% for ESET in Türkiye. We rebuilt the audiences by job title, seniority and company size, and judged every campaign on the leads the sales team accepted.
- ESET
- IT security
- Türkiye
- February–September 2026 (8 months)
01THE CLIENT
The Client: Expensive Leads, Unhappy Sales Team
In Türkiye, ESET is run by a local business that sells its security software to companies. It had been running LinkedIn Ads for a while and the form count looked fine. The sales team turned most of those leads away on the first call.
The sales director wanted fewer leads, each one worth a conversation. From the start we agreed to count the leads sales accepted, and to stop judging the campaigns by forms filled in.
Worked inLinkedIn Campaign ManagerInsight TagCRM
02THE PROBLEM
The Problem: The Right Platform, the Wrong People
LinkedIn is one of the few platforms where you can reach people by job title, seniority and employer. The campaigns used none of it.
Audiences Built on Interests
Targeting relied on member interests, with audience expansion switched on. Ads were also shown in apps outside LinkedIn through the Audience Network.
A Long Website Form
Every ad went to a long form on the website. Most people who opened it on a phone gave up halfway.
Leads Nobody Owned
Leads landed in a spreadsheet nobody was responsible for. Even a good one often went days without a call.
What the wider data saysPublished numbers from outside Scale Chapter that explain why the work was done in this order.
- 300
members is the smallest audience LinkedIn will run an ad to, and it suggests at least 50,000 for results.
SourceLinkedIn Help, audience size - 5%
of business buyers are in the market for a given product at any one time. The other 95% are not buying yet.
SourceLinkedIn’s B2B Institute and Ehrenberg-Bass, reported in Marketing Week
03OUR WORK
What We Did: Our LinkedIn Ads Work
Before changing a campaign we sat down with the sales team and wrote out the job titles, company sizes and sectors a lead needed to be accepted. Then came the Insight Tag, the Conversions API and a link from the Lead Gen Forms to the CRM. Each lead now reached the right salesperson the same day, and sales’ verdict on it showed in the CRM.
Audience expansion and the Audience Network were switched off. The new audiences were built from job function, seniority and company size, with the sales team’s priority accounts added as a matched audience. The ads offered a practical guide buyers could download, running as document ads and Lead Gen Forms in several versions.
Leads rose in the first weeks, since a form inside LinkedIn is quick to fill in, and some were poor fits. We added short questions on company size and project timing. Leads dipped slightly and the share sales accepted rose clearly. Audiences that did not work were switched off, and people who opened the guide without filling in the form were retargeted.
04RESULTS
The Results: What Changed in LinkedIn Ads
Results for ESET, February–September 2026 (8 months): 54% lower cost per lead, 289% more leads from LinkedIn Ads and 68% lead acceptance by sales.
These numbers come from LinkedIn Campaign Manager, matched against the company’s CRM for the same months. The sales team decided in the CRM whether each lead was accepted, and we went through those decisions in the weekly review. For reaching the same kind of decision-maker with one-to-one messages, see our LinkedIn lead generation case study.
- 54%Lower cost per leadLinkedIn Ads spend per lead, against the period before
- 289%More leads from LinkedIn AdsLead Gen Form and website conversions
- 68%Lead acceptance by salesShare of leads the sales team agreed were a fit
- Client
- ESET
- Sector
- IT security
- Market
- Türkiye
- Period
- February–September 2026 (8 months)
05MORE CASE STUDIES
More Case Studies From Our Team
- LinkedIn Lead Generation
264% More Sales Meetings for Bureau Veritas
The sales team prospected only when existing clients left them time, so new meetings came and went. We took over everything from the first LinkedIn contact to the booked meeting.
Read the case study - Email Outreach
284% More Sales Meetings for Würth
Most of their earlier emails had landed in spam. We started again from separate domains, with short emails written around each buyer’s job.
Read the case study - SEO & Organic Growth
236% More Organic Enquiries for Odoo
Several of their pages were chasing the same searches, and none of them made page one. We merged those before writing anything new.
Read the case study
06QUESTIONS
LinkedIn Ads Case Study: Frequently Asked Questions
- Are LinkedIn Ads worth the cost for B2B companies?
For B2B offers sold to specific roles, often yes. A LinkedIn click usually costs more than a click elsewhere. What you are paying for is the ability to pick buyers by job title, seniority and employer, so the number to watch is the cost per lead accepted by sales, more than the cost per click.
- How do you charge for LinkedIn Ads management?
Scale Chapter charges a flat monthly fee and takes no percentage of your ad budget. Ad spend is paid directly from your own LinkedIn ad account, and the campaigns stay in your account. The fee depends on how many channels we run and how much of the work you hand over, and we set it out in writing after a free audit.
- How soon will LinkedIn Ads produce results?
Campaigns can bring in leads within the first days, but judging their quality means your sales team has to speak to them. So we spend the first few weeks testing audiences and the offer, and the period after that moving budget to the audiences that win.
- What do you need to get started with LinkedIn Ads?
Access to LinkedIn Campaign Manager and your company page, technical access to add the Insight Tag to your site, and a connection to your CRM. Most important of all is writing down, with your sales team, what an acceptable lead looks like. The campaigns are built around that definition.
- Who runs the campaigns day to day?
The same strategist, performance lead and data analyst work on your account from start to finish. We go through results with you every week, with your sales team where it helps. Any change that affects a live campaign is signed off before it goes out; how we work is set out on our home page.
- How do you measure lead quality?
We agree with your sales team what makes a lead worth accepting and connect the Lead Gen Forms to your CRM. That way we report the leads sales accepted and what each one cost, as well as the forms filled in. Each audience is reported separately, so you can see which job titles bring the leads sales keeps.
- Should we use LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms or a form on our website?
For most B2B campaigns we see more leads from Lead Gen Forms, since they open inside LinkedIn with the person’s details already filled in. Being easy to fill in, they can also bring more poor fits, which Scale Chapter balances with short qualifying questions on the form. A form on your website usually brings fewer leads, and keener ones.
- How much budget do LinkedIn Ads need?
Enough for every audience you test to bring in leads your sales team can judge within the first few weeks. LinkedIn clicks cost more than on most platforms, so a budget spread across too many audiences tells you nothing. After the free audit we suggest a test budget for your market and how many audiences it can carry.
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