LinkedIn Ads
Shares rank 5 of 7 advertising platforms by recommenders
People recommend LinkedIn Ads for narrow B2B targeting that reaches a specific professional audience. The most common caveat is that it is very expensive per click.
People recommend LinkedIn Ads for narrow B2B targeting that reaches a specific professional audience. The most common caveat is that it is very expensive per click.
13 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 6
- approval share
- 54%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 1.1 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Powerful niche audience targeting options
“they also tend to have the highest conversion since you can get pretty niche with your targeting”
Comment from 2 Apr 2026 in “LinkedIn Is Illegally Searching Your Computer” “Linkedin has powerful targeting options, but the fact that it's tied to GMT drives me nuts.”
Comment from 29 Dec 2025 in “Meta's ads tools started switching out top-performing ads with AI-generated ones” “their targeting is amazing, but because they skew towards desktop people run ad blocks”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “Uber is turning data about trips and takeout into insights for marketers” - Comment from 15 Mar 2026 in “Marketing for Founders”
- Comment from 15 Jul 2026 in “Ask HN: How do you do marketing in the age of slop?”
- Comment from 2 Dec 2025 in “It’s been a very hard year”
Works for reaching target professional audiences
“maybe a couple of linkedin campaigns if you've a sharp First Target Customer Profile”
Comment from 15 Mar 2026 in “Marketing for Founders” “the only useful places to advertise online these days are LinkedIn and Instagram”
Comment from 12 Sep 2026 in “I spent $220 on Google app ads and 60% of the installs were robots” “LinkedIn does still work, but it has gotten extremely expensive.”
Comment from 12 Sep 2026 in “I spent $220 on Google app ads and 60% of the installs were robots” - Comment from 13 Sep 2026 in “I spent $220 on Google app ads and 60% of the installs were robots”
- Comment from 2 Dec 2025 in “It’s been a very hard year”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Very expensive per click
“LinkedIn is very expensive and really only worth it for highly targeted ads.”
Comment from 15 Jul 2026 in “Ask HN: How do you do marketing in the age of slop?” “LinkedIn does still work, but it has gotten extremely expensive.”
Comment from 12 Sep 2026 in “I spent $220 on Google app ads and 60% of the installs were robots” “The problem with LI is that it is tremendously expensive.”
Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Meta's ads tools started switching out top-performing ads with AI-generated ones” - Comment from 27 May 2026 in “Pay humans to engage in ads, not LinkedIn”
Poor, broken user interface
“you are faced with a severely broken product: broken buttons, obviously wrong metrics, and other glaring bugs”
Comment from 12 Sep 2026 in “I spent $220 on Google app ads and 60% of the installs were robots” “The UX was terrible. Like awful and basic things like save and exit were completely broken.”
Comment from 26 Apr 2026 in “GitHub unwanted UX change: issue links now open in a popup” “I recently set up LinkedIn ads and realized the UX is abysmal”
Comment from 26 Apr 2026 in “GitHub unwanted UX change: issue links now open in a popup”
Other advertising platforms people recommend
The four most recommended other advertising platforms, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Ads | 25 | 144 | 15% | 11 | 16 yrs10 owners | — |
| Meta Ads | 14 | 28 | 33% | 6 | — | — |
| Instagram ads | 12 | 4 | 75% | 8 | — | Approved |
| Google AdSense | 11 | 47 | 19% | 6 | 20 yrs6 owners | — |
| LinkedIn AdsThis page | 7 | 6 | 54% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
16 of the 17 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Facebook/Instagram & linkedIn work to a certain extent.”
“the only useful places to advertise online these days are LinkedIn and Instagram”
“LinkedIn does still work, but it has gotten extremely expensive.”
“I decided to stop burning money on these ad systems.”
“you are faced with a severely broken product: broken buttons, obviously wrong metrics, and other glaring bugs”
“LinkedIn is very expensive and really only worth it for highly targeted ads.”
“paying $5-$15 on LinkedIn for just a CLICK”
“I recently set up LinkedIn ads and realized the UX is abysmal”
“The UX was terrible. Like awful and basic things like save and exit were completely broken.”
“they also tend to have the highest conversion since you can get pretty niche with your targeting”
“maybe a couple of linkedin campaigns if you've a sharp First Target Customer Profile”
“The problem with LI is that it is tremendously expensive.”
“Linkedin has powerful targeting options, but the fact that it's tied to GMT drives me nuts.”
“LinkedIn are the only platform with a half decent ads manager”
“their targeting is amazing, but because they skew towards desktop people run ad blocks”
“where your target audience hangs out”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.