Create a Classic ad set in Campaign Manager

Last updated: 3 weeks ago

Create a Classic ad set when you want control over how your campaign runs. Classic ad sets let you choose from a variety of objectives, audience options, placements, and ad formats—giving you the flexibility to tailor your ad delivery, bidding, and measurement to your marketing goals.

With Classic ad sets, you can choose:

  • Who your ads are displayed to by selecting an audience
  • Where your ads are displayed by selecting an ad format and placement 

To create an ad set, you’ll set up a campaign, choose your preferred ad settings and begin creating ads to launch your campaign. 

Here's a tip

You can create an Accelerate or Classic ad set depending on your advertising needs. Learn more about the differences between Accelerate and Classic ad sets

Who can use this feature?

You need campaign manager access or higher to create ad sets.

To create an ad set: 

  1. Go to your ad account in Campaign Manager.

  2. Click the Create  button in the upper-left corner of the page and select Ad set

    • As you create a new ad set, you can use the navigation pane on the left side of the page to keep track of your progress.  
  3. Select the objective for this ad set.

  4. Select how you want to create your ads.  

    • Click the Flexible ad creation button to upload image, video, and text assets that we’ll mix and match in a single campaign. 
    • Or click the Standard ad creation button to create multiple campaigns with any ad format. 
    • Once you make your choice, click the Next button. 

    Who can use this feature?

    We’re gradually making this feature available, and you might not have access to it at this time.

  5. Select one of the recent campaigns and click the Continue button in the lower-right corner.

    • You can also click Create campaign or Search for a campaign.
  6. Review the campaign details and ad sets to ensure you’re adding your new ad set to the correct campaign. Click the Next button in the lower-right corner. 

  7. Select an audience. You can choose to: 

    • Build your own audience - When you build your own audience, you can choose to create your audience using existing audiences, such as Saved Audiences and Matched Audiences, and audience attributes. 
    • Auto-Targeting audience - For Auto-Targeting audiences, you can add data sources, such as contact and company lists, Lead Gen Form audiences, Retargeting audiences, and conversions, and some audience signals to refine your audience.
  8. Select an ad format.  

    • Your ad account must be associated with a LinkedIn Page to select most ad formats. If your ad account isn’t associated with a LinkedIn Page, you’ll only be able to select text ads as the ad format.  
    • If your campaign has Dynamic Group Budget turned on, you can only select Sponsored Content ad formats. 
    • Some ad formats might not be available for every objective. Ad formats have been aligned with each objective to optimize the results of your ad set. Learn more about ad formats for objective-based advertising.
  9. Optional: Add URL tracking parameters for the ads in your ad set.  

  10. Optional: If available for your ad format, you can select the checkbox to enable or disable LinkedIn Audience Network placement for your ads. 

  11. Select a budget, optimization goal, schedule, and bidding strategy.

    • If your campaign has Dynamic Group Budget turned on, the budget, schedule and bidding strategy are set at the campaign level instead of the ad set level. You can set a bid amount if the campaign has a cost cap or manual bidding strategy selected.
    • If you have a brand awareness ad set for Connected TV (CTV) Ads, you can set a custom frequency cap or keep the default frequency cap setting.
    • For lead generation ad sets that meet the qualified leads requirements, the optimization goal defaults to qualified leads and the bidding strategy is maximum delivery. You can change the optimization goal, but it’s recommended that you select qualified leads to ensure your ads are delivered to members who are most likely to convert.
  12. Optional: Add conversion tracking or qualified leads conversions.  

    • Keep in mind, we’ll automatically select conversions to associate with your ad set based on your conversion category and objective selection. You can review, add, or remove conversions as needed.
    • If you selected the qualified leads optimization goal, you must have at least one qualified lead conversion.
  13. Click the Next button to confirm your choices and continue with creating or selecting ads. 

  14. After setting up ads for the ad set, click the Next button.  

    • Use the links below for help on setting up ads for your selected ad format. 
  15. Review the campaign settings, click Next and then click the Launch campaign button.

After you launch an ad set, your ads will be reviewed. If approved, your ads can display impressions based on your ad set settings. 

Important to know

Before you can launch your ad set, you’ll need to associate a valid form of payment with the account.

Learn how to create ads

For help creating ads for your ad set, you can review detailed steps in the articles linked in the following chart: 

Ad types Ad formats
Sponsored Content ads Single image ads
Video ads
Carousel image ads
Event ads
Document ads
Single job ads

Article and newsletter ads

- Using a Company Page post

- Using a thought leader ad

Dynamic ads Spotlight ads
Follower ads
Job ads
Sponsored Messaging ads Message ads
Conversation ads
Text ads Text ads

Related tasks 

Learn more