We Analyzed 170 Companies. 68% of Them Are Running Thought Leader Ads
Back in 2023, LinkedIn introduced a native Thought Leader ad type.
Great move on their end.
The platform that thrives on thought leadership content now allows these thought leaders to expand their reach and garner more attention for their content.
Now the question is:
How many of them actually take advantage of Thought Leader (TL) ads?
We set out on a data exploration journey to answer this question.
Let’s see what we found out.
Objective and Methodology
For this study, we’ve evaluated 170 B2B SaaS companies to see if they run:
Thought Leader (C-Suite) ads;
Employee Thought Leader ads;
Community Thought Leader ads (ft. a creator/influencer).
Main goal: to see how many B2B SaaS companies use TL ads and how many miss out on the benefits of this ad type.
The data was collected from the LinkedIn Ad Library.
Key Takeaways
Here’s a quick glimpse into our findings:
From the 170 B2B SaaS companies we reviewed for this study:
68% ran TL ads;
65% ran TL ads featuring company employees;
66.5% ran Community TL ads featuring a creator or an influencer.
However, there are some caveats to these results.
Time Frame, Disclaimers, and Limitations
It warrants mentioning a few limitations based on the time frame of the collected data, as well as the methodology and exclusions.
Time frame
The data collection happened between 28 August and 18 September 2025, and represents our findings for that period.
Data limitations
LinkedIn Ad Library doesn’t allow users to filter ads based on the campaign type or objective. We had to review each company manually.
Additionally, during the data collection period, the companies that hadn’t run any type of TL ads within that time frame could have launched them.
Exclusions
We factored out the companies with a seemingly innumerable number of active ads.
For example, Twilio had ~200,000 ads listed in the LinkedIn Ads Library, making manual review impractical for our analysis.
Now, let’s review what we found.
How B2B SaaS Companies Use TL Ads: Data Overview
As a reminder, we researched 170 companies to find out whether they use TL ads, using the LinkedIn Ad Library.
Let’s go into detail.
Are companies using TL ads?
More than half of them—54 (32%)—aren’t using TL ads.
Specifically, the ads feature a C-Suite exec or a decision-maker.
Author’s Note: One company from our list – Fivetran – was excluded from the count since it ran over 5K ads on LinkedIn, making it hard to pinpoint the TL ad type.
How many companies feature their employees in TL ads?
58 companies in total do not use TL ads featuring company employees.
Yet, the majority (65%) have taken advantage of paid LinkedIn campaigns featuring this ad type.
Author’s Note: Five companies from our list – Intuit, Fivetran, Mixpanel, Browserstack, and Pipedrive – were excluded from the count due to the lack of data.
How many companies feature their community in TL ads?
Thought Leader ads featuring communities seem to be vastly underappreciated.
Only 33.5% of reviewed companies ran Community Thought Leader ads, e.g., featuring a creator, within the given time frame – 72 brands in total.
Author’s Note: The number of reviewed companies in this instance is 143. We had to exclude 27 companies due to the lack of data.
Now, what does all this data tell us?
Let’s sum up.
The Verdict
Here’s a quick overview of the data above:
68% did and 32% didn’t run TL ads, specifically featuring C-Suite execs;
65% did and 35% didn’t run TL ads featuring company employees;
66.5% did and 33.5% didn’t run Community TL ads featuring a creator or an influencer.
So, we can conclude that the interest in TL ads among the B2B SaaS companies is high.
Yet, on average, 33.5% of reviewed brands seem to be missing out on the benefits this advertisement format can bring.
These companies lose the advantages that some of their competitors are already capitalizing on:
Improved relatability of the brand;
Positioning as category leader;
Significant impact on purchase decisions;
Improved brand awareness;
A tight community of like-minded people.
Finding these points too vague to convince you that TL ads are worth your investment?
Here’s some tangible data.
Effectiveness of TL Ads
Overall, Thought Leader content is highly popular among decision-makers and C-suite executives.
According to Edelman’s 2024 survey, 52% and 54% of them, respectively, consume this content at least one hour a week.
More than half of them also say TL content made them interested in the author’s offers and capabilities.
The same report shows that TL content significantly impacts the decision makers’ intent to buy.
Moreover, a more recent research by Edelman says TL content attracts as many hidden (55%) as target decision-makers (56%).
But what about the TL ads specifically?
When LinkedIn launched the Thought Leader Ad category, it ran a report on the effectiveness of these ads.
Early pilot advertisers stated TL ads had 1.7X higher CTR and 1.6X higher engagement rate compared to single-image sponsored content.
Do these numbers change significantly on a case-by-case basis?
Let’s review the following examples.
If we compare the CTR in these examples to the average CTR of a single-image ad on LinkedIn (0,47%, according to Huble), it’s clear that TL ads deliver significantly higher performance.
Which makes them a noteworthy strategy to consider for your marketing budget.
Yet, this investment will only pay off if you launch the ad campaign correctly.
Here’s how you do it.
How to Launch a TL Ad on LinkedIn?
TL ads on LinkedIn differ from other ad types in that they are promoted directly from personal LinkedIn profiles rather than company profiles.
Here’s a quick overview on how to launch them.
There are three crucial points to consider when launching a TL ad on LinkedIn.
The person chosen for the TL ad is central to the success of the campaign. It’s not just about their profile being public; it’s about it being consistently active.
Not all already available content on their profile will be eligible for the ad; you might need to publish more strategically.
As the graph above implies, these ads need A/B testing in the initial phase. Without it, you risk targeting the wrong audience.
Sounds like too much of a burden?
We’re here to help.
Final thoughts
People trust people.
This is the main reason why Thought Leadership ads work.
And one of the reasons most of the B2B SaaS companies we reviewed (68%) run TL ads of some form.
Yet, many still overlook the potential of these ads.
The biggest open lane is the Community TL advertisements, with only 33.5% of companies actively using them in campaigns.
Of course, you should treat these numbers as a point-in-time floor, given the time frame for this study.
Yet, these limitations do not impact the main conclusion of our analysis.
Thought Leadership ads matter to your brand and ability to drive growth.
Not running them means gifting reach and visibility to your competitors.
If you need help with your LinkedIn ads, request a free intro call with our team.
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