I've had several calls recently with B2B SaaS founders, reaching out, trying to figure out when to start running LinkedIn ads.

Most of the time the trigger and insight is dead simple. “My audience is on LinkedIn. What’s the best way to reach them?”

That is a great starting point, but having an active audience alone is not enough.

There are other pre-conditions that can make or break your LinkedIn ads.

First. Kind of obvious, but often overlooked. Do you have the budget? My minimum recommendation is to be able to invest at least $5k/month. If going after US market, then more towards $10k/month. CPMs are expensive ($100+) and CPCs for senior audiences can easily be $20-35. That means that even with $3k/month campaign budget, you’re only getting 3-5 clicks per day. That’s bare minimum to collect enough data and figure out what’s working.

Second. Do you have a marketing person in-house. Who is going to sign off content, campaigns, audiences, creative? I’m working directly with several founders who are marketing savvy. But the reality is that you do need a marketing generalist in house if you really want to scale your LinkedIn ads (or paid ads in general). Founders have 100 other things going on, so there will never be enough time to dedicate to marketing decisions.

Third. CRM. Is it set up properly? Are you recording all your leads and deals correctly? If you are an early stage B2B startup, your CRM can be a mess. It’s difficult to see what is working, if your CRM is all over the place. And get Hubspot, if you can.

Forth. Are you PLG or SLG? LinkedIn ads work best for sales-lead growth, where your CTA is to book a demo or discovery call. If you’ve built a product-lead flow, with free sign-ups, LinkedIn ads will struggle to feed the machine with enough sign-ups.

Fifth. Do you already have organic traction (PMF)? Are you closing deals and signing customers without any paid ads? It might be through events, conferences, referrals. It doesn’t matter. But ideally there is solid traction for your product before you jump into paid ads. LinkedIn ads will not create demand out of thin air. It scales what already works.

Sixth. What is your average contract value? I’d recommend having at least 10k ACV. When your CPL is over $100 and often over $500 it’s difficult to get positive ROI for $50/month SaaS subscription business. ACV matters.

These are six points I always bring up in discovery calls, when people are thinking about running LinkedIn ads.