Introduction

HockeyStack spent $2 million on LinkedIn ads. Here's how they booked 353 high-value meetings, what worked, and what they wish they knew earlier.

What's the problem it solves?

Running LinkedIn ads can cost a lot and bring little in return if you don’t know what you’re doing. This article explains how one company avoided waste and used smart planning to get real results from their LinkedIn budget.

Quick Summary

HockeyStack’s co-founder Emir shared how his team turned a large LinkedIn ad budget into real meetings and deals. Instead of guessing, they followed five clear goals: show the product, build trust, use proof from happy customers, target specific companies, and retarget people who already showed interest. Each goal had its own ad style and plan. They also worked with a partner agency, Understory, to fine-tune what worked best.

They tested different types of content like founder posts, customer videos, and influencer campaigns. For targeting, they used company signals, personalized ads, and tracked user actions to keep ads relevant. Along the way, they learned a few hard lessons: spending more doesn’t always mean better results, retargeting without enough new viewers is a waste, and having too small a target list can make ads expensive. But with constant testing and feedback, they built a system that brings in meetings without burning money.

Key Takeaways from the article

• They split their ad budget across five key types: product, leadership, social proof, content, and retargeting.
• Simple messages with screenshots and strong calls to action worked best in product ads.
• Founder and influencer posts ran as ads after performing well organically.
• High-quality customer videos outperformed Zoom-style case studies.
• Personalized ABM ads helped target specific companies one by one.
• They used tools to track how people moved from seeing ads to booking meetings.
• Mistakes included overspending without broader planning and relying too much on retargeting.
• Expanding their target list dropped ad costs and boosted click rates.
• Using LinkedIn lead gen forms made sign-ups easier and improved tracking.

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