LinkedIn Matched Audiences allow you to target people you already know — visitors to your website, contacts in your CRM, or decision makers at specific companies — rather than relying only on LinkedIn’s interest or job title targeting. For B2B advertisers, this is often the highest-converting targeting approach available.
This guide covers all three types of LinkedIn Matched Audiences and how to set them up correctly.
The Three Types of LinkedIn Matched Audiences
- Website Retargeting — audiences built from visitors to your website, using the LinkedIn Insight Tag
- Contact List Targeting — audiences built by uploading a list of email addresses (matched to LinkedIn profiles)
- Company List Targeting — audiences built by uploading a list of company names or domains (matched to LinkedIn company pages)
All three require the LinkedIn Insight Tag to be installed on your site (even for the list-based options, because the Insight Tag powers the user-to-LinkedIn-profile matching on your ad clicks).
Setting Up Website Retargeting Audiences
Go to Campaign Manager → Plan → Audiences → Create Audience → Matched Audience → Website.
Name your audience and set the rules. You can target:
- All website visitors
- Visitors to specific pages (e.g. /pricing/ or /demo/)
- Visitors who did NOT visit a specific page (e.g. viewed /pricing/ but not /thank-you/)
Set the lookback window (the number of days of website visits to include). LinkedIn allows up to 180 days.
Best audiences to create for B2B:
- Pricing page visitors: high intent, actively evaluating your solution
- Demo request page visitors who did not convert: showed intent, did not take action
- Blog readers (all posts): warm audience engaged with your content
- All site visitors in last 90 days: broad retargeting pool
LinkedIn requires a minimum of 300 matched members before an audience can be used in campaigns. Website retargeting audiences build over time as LinkedIn matches Insight Tag events to member profiles. For smaller sites, it may take several weeks to reach the 300-member minimum.
Setting Up Contact List Targeting
Go to Campaign Manager → Plan → Audiences → Create Audience → Matched Audience → List Upload. Select Contact List.
Prepare your CSV with a single column of email addresses. The file must have the header “email”. Upload your list and LinkedIn will attempt to match each email to a LinkedIn member profile.
LinkedIn typically matches 40–60% of B2B email addresses to LinkedIn profiles. Consumer email addresses (Gmail, Hotmail) match at lower rates than business email addresses.
Best uses for contact list targeting:
- Upload your full CRM contact list to suppress existing customers from prospecting campaigns
- Upload warm prospects from your CRM and target them with middle-funnel content (case studies, comparison guides)
- Upload conference attendee lists for event retargeting
Setting Up Company List Targeting
Company list targeting is unique to LinkedIn and has no equivalent on Meta or Google. It lets you target all LinkedIn members who work at specific companies.
Go to Create Audience → Matched Audience → List Upload → Company List. Upload a CSV with columns for company name and/or company website domain.
How to use company list targeting effectively:
- Account-Based Marketing (ABM): if you have a target account list of 100–500 companies you want to sell to, upload them and target all employees at those companies with LinkedIn ads
- Competitor targeting: upload competitor company names and reach their employees (who may be evaluating switching)
- Customer industry targeting: upload a list of companies in your best-performing industry vertical and reach new companies similar to your existing customers
Combining Matched Audiences with Job Function Targeting
Matched Audiences are most powerful when combined with LinkedIn’s demographic targeting. For example:
- Company list (your target accounts) + Job Title (Decision Maker) = reaches only the right people at the right companies
- Website pricing page visitors + Seniority (Director+) = prioritises high-authority retargeting
Adding demographic filters to Matched Audiences reduces audience size but improves relevance and typically lowers cost per qualified lead.
Matched Audience Limitations to Know
- Minimum audience size: 300 LinkedIn members before delivery begins
- Contact lists expire after 90 days if not refreshed
- Company list matching is approximate — LinkedIn matches on company name and domain, not always perfectly
- LinkedIn excludes members who have opted out of matched audience advertising from LinkedIn (this reduces effective audience size, which is expected and compliant)
Build Your B2B LinkedIn Audience Strategy
Matched Audiences require the LinkedIn Insight Tag to be working correctly on your site for website retargeting. If the tag is not firing or matching rates are lower than expected, there may be a technical issue with your installation.
Book your free tracking audit here and we will verify your LinkedIn Insight Tag setup and help you build the most effective Matched Audience strategy for your B2B campaigns.