Bidding Strategy Appropriateness
What AdGradr checks
Section titled “What AdGradr checks”AdGradr evaluates whether your conversion and lead gen campaigns are using a bidding strategy that matches their maturity. Specifically:
- Maximum Delivery with no cost cap on campaigns older than 14 days gets flagged. This tells LinkedIn to spend your budget as fast as possible with no guardrails on cost per result.
- Campaigns in learning phase (under 14 days old) using Maximum Delivery are not penalized. This is the correct starting approach.
- Cost cap set too high (more than 150% of target CPL) is flagged as a soft warning.
- Bid higher than daily budget is flagged as a configuration error.
Why this matters
Section titled “Why this matters”LinkedIn CPCs run $8-15 for most B2B verticals and $20+ for enterprise SaaS and financial services. At those prices, the difference between a well-tuned bidding strategy and a default one can be 20-50% of your monthly spend.
Maximum Delivery is LinkedIn’s default. It optimizes for spending your full daily budget, not for cost efficiency. LinkedIn officially recommends starting here, and experienced buyers agree, but the consensus diverges after the learning phase: LinkedIn says switch to Cost Cap, while experienced buyers often prefer Manual CPC for maximum control.
What good looks like
Section titled “What good looks like”A phased bidding approach:
- Days 1-7: Maximum Delivery. Let LinkedIn’s algorithm learn which audience segments respond to your creative.
- Days 8-14: Evaluate early performance. If CPL is within 20-30% of target, prepare to transition.
- Day 14+: Switch to Cost Cap at 110-120% of your target CPL, or Manual CPC if you want tighter control.
For mature campaigns with stable performance data, Manual CPC or Cost Cap consistently outperforms uncapped Maximum Delivery by 20-50% on effective cost.
Bidding by objective
Section titled “Bidding by objective”| Objective | Start | Mature |
|---|---|---|
| TOFU / Awareness | Max Delivery or CPM Manual | Manual or Cost Cap after learning |
| BOFU / Lead Gen | Max Delivery | Cost Cap or Manual after learning |
| Retargeting | Manual or Cost Cap | Manual or Cost Cap |
Common mistakes
Section titled “Common mistakes”- Leaving Maximum Delivery on forever. The most common mistake. LinkedIn will happily spend your budget at 2-3x what a capped strategy would cost. Most accounts never switch away from the default.
- Switching to Cost Cap too early. Moving to Cost Cap before you have enough conversion data starves the algorithm. Wait until you have at least 7-14 days of data.
- Setting Cost Cap too low. If your cap is below what LinkedIn needs to win auctions, delivery drops to near zero. Set it at 110-120% of target, not at target.
- Ignoring Manual CPC. LinkedIn pushes automated bidding, but experienced buyers report that Manual CPC with aggressive early bids gives them 20-50% better efficiency once they have benchmark data.
How to fix it
Section titled “How to fix it”- Check campaign age. If the campaign is under 14 days old and using Maximum Delivery, leave it alone.
- For campaigns over 14 days on Maximum Delivery: Switch to Cost Cap. Set the cap at 110-120% of your target CPL (or your actual CPL from the first two weeks, whichever is higher).
- Monitor for 3-5 days after switching. If delivery drops significantly, raise the cap by 10%.
- For mature campaigns with stable data: Consider Manual CPC. Start at your current average CPC and adjust based on delivery.
- Track CPL, not CPC. The right bidding strategy is the one that delivers leads at your target cost, not the one with the lowest click price.
When to ignore this check
Section titled “When to ignore this check”- Brand awareness campaigns using CPM bidding are not evaluated by this check. CPM is appropriate for awareness objectives.
- Campaigns under 14 days old are automatically exempted. Maximum Delivery during learning is correct.
- Accounts with very small budgets (under $30/day) may not have enough data for Cost Cap to function well. Maximum Delivery may be the only viable option.
Want someone to handle this? The Click Makers team manages LinkedIn Ads accounts for companies spending $10K+/month. Get in touch to see if we are a fit.