LinkedIn Ads Targeting by Industry
Reach companies in your best-fit verticals — and avoid wasting budget on industries that will never convert.
What is Industries targeting on LinkedIn?
Industry targeting on LinkedIn lets you show ads to members who work at companies classified under specific industry categories. Unlike job title targeting, which is based on individual profiles, industry targeting is a company-level attribute derived from the company page's self-declared industry. This makes it a powerful top-level filter for B2B advertisers who sell into specific verticals, but it comes with important nuances — LinkedIn's industry taxonomy does not always match how you segment your market internally.
How industries targeting works
The industry associated with a LinkedIn member comes from their employer's LinkedIn Company Page. When a company admin creates or edits the page, they select an industry from LinkedIn's predefined list. This means the accuracy of industry targeting depends entirely on whether company admins selected the right category. Large companies generally have accurate industry classifications, but smaller companies often pick broad or incorrect categories — especially when LinkedIn's taxonomy does not have a perfect match for their business.
LinkedIn's industry list is hierarchical, with broad parent categories and more specific subcategories. For example, "Technology, Information and Internet" is a parent category, while "Software Development" and "IT Services and IT Consulting" are subcategories within it. When you select a parent category in Campaign Manager, it includes all subcategories beneath it. You can also select individual subcategories for more precise targeting. Always drill into subcategories rather than using parent categories to avoid an overly broad audience.
Each company on LinkedIn is assigned a single primary industry. A company like Salesforce is classified under one industry even though they serve dozens of verticals. This means if you are targeting by industry, you are targeting where the company operates — not who they sell to. A marketing agency classified under "Advertising Services" will not appear in your "Financial Services" targeting even if 80 percent of their clients are banks. Keep this one-to-one mapping in mind when building audiences.
Effective targeting combinations
This is the most natural combination for B2B campaigns. Select your target industry (e.g., "Financial Services") and layer on the job function (e.g., "Marketing") to reach marketers specifically within financial services companies. This avoids the problem of targeting all job functions within an industry — which would include HR, IT, Finance, and other roles that are not your buyers. The resulting audience is focused enough to write highly relevant ad copy while being large enough to scale.
Different company sizes within the same industry behave very differently as buyers. A 50-person fintech startup and a 10,000-person bank are both in "Financial Services" but have completely different buying processes, budgets, and decision-making structures. Combining industry with company size lets you create campaigns tailored to specific market segments — like mid-market healthcare or enterprise financial services — with messaging and offers that resonate with how companies of that size actually buy.
If you are running top-of-funnel campaigns to build awareness within a vertical, combine industry targeting with seniority targeting (Director and above). This ensures your ads reach people with budget authority and strategic influence, not junior employees who may engage with your content but cannot drive a purchase decision. This combination works especially well for thought leadership content campaigns where you want to position your brand with senior leaders in a specific vertical.
- Map Your ICP Industries to LinkedIn's Taxonomy: Before building campaigns, open LinkedIn's Campaign Manager and search through the full industry list to see how your target verticals map to their taxonomy. Your internal segmentation might say "Fintech," but LinkedIn does not have a Fintech category — those companies are scattered across "Financial Services," "Technology, Information and Internet," and "Banking." Create a mapping document that translates your ICP verticals into the specific LinkedIn industry categories and subcategories you need to target.
- Run Separate Campaigns per Industry Vertical: If you sell into multiple verticals, create separate campaigns for each one. This lets you write industry-specific ad copy ("Built for healthcare teams" vs. "Built for financial services"), use vertical-relevant case studies, and direct clicks to industry-specific landing pages. It also gives you clear reporting on which verticals produce the best CPL and pipeline, so you can reallocate budget toward your highest-performing industries each quarter.
- Account for Overrepresented Industries on LinkedIn: LinkedIn's user base skews heavily toward certain industries. Technology, Financial Services, and Professional Services are massively overrepresented, while Manufacturing, Agriculture, and Construction are underrepresented. This matters for two reasons: overrepresented industries will have larger audiences and more auction competition (higher CPMs), while underrepresented industries will have smaller audiences that may be harder to scale. Check audience sizes before assuming your vertical has enough reach on LinkedIn.
- Use Industry as a Negative Filter Too: Industry exclusions are just as powerful as inclusions. If you are targeting "Marketing Manager" by job title, you probably want to exclude industries where marketing managers are not your buyers — like "Primary and Secondary Education" or "Government Administration." Adding 5-10 industry exclusions to a broad targeting campaign can dramatically improve lead quality without significantly reducing reach. Review your CRM data to identify which industries have the lowest close rates and exclude them.
Common mistakes to avoid
Using Parent Categories Instead of Subcategories
Selecting a broad parent industry like "Technology, Information and Internet" targets millions of people across dozens of subcategories — from SaaS engineers to crypto traders to IT helpdesk staff. This is almost never what you want. Always drill into subcategories and select only the ones that match your ICP. If you sell to SaaS companies specifically, select "Software Development" and "Computer and Network Security" — not the entire tech parent category. The extra specificity reduces wasted spend significantly.
Assuming LinkedIn's Industry Matches Your Market Definition
B2B marketers often assume that targeting an industry on LinkedIn will perfectly match how their sales team defines a vertical. It will not. LinkedIn's taxonomy is standardized and generic. Your market might be "Series B+ B2B SaaS companies," but LinkedIn has no such category. You will need to approximate using a combination of industry subcategories plus company size and potentially other filters. Accept that industry targeting is a blunt instrument and plan your layering strategy accordingly.
Ignoring the Misclassification Problem for SMBs
Small and mid-size companies frequently have incorrect industry classifications on their LinkedIn Company Pages because the page was set up hastily or by someone who did not think carefully about which category to choose. A 20-person marketing analytics startup might be listed under "Market Research" or "Technology" or "Advertising Services" depending on who set up the page. If your ICP is primarily SMBs, be aware that industry targeting will miss a meaningful portion of your audience due to misclassification. Supplement with other targeting dimensions.
Frequently asked questions
How many industries does LinkedIn's taxonomy include?
LinkedIn's industry taxonomy includes over 140 industry categories organized into parent categories and subcategories. The exact number changes periodically as LinkedIn updates the list to reflect new and evolving industries. In Campaign Manager, you can browse the full list by clicking into the industry targeting field and scrolling through the hierarchy. Note that the taxonomy available for company pages (what companies select) and the taxonomy available for ad targeting are the same list, though some very niche categories may have audiences too small to target effectively.
Can a company be listed under multiple industries on LinkedIn?
No. Each LinkedIn Company Page can only select one primary industry. This is a meaningful limitation for conglomerates and diversified companies. General Electric, for example, operates in aviation, healthcare, energy, and more — but their LinkedIn Company Page lists a single industry. Members who work at GE will all be classified under that one industry regardless of which division they are in. For targeting purposes, this means you should not rely solely on industry targeting to reach buyers at large, diversified companies. Layer in other dimensions like job function or skills.
Is LinkedIn industry targeting based on the company I work at or the industry I work in?
It is based on the company you work at — specifically, the industry selected on your employer's LinkedIn Company Page. There is no self-reported "I work in this industry" field on personal profiles. This means a marketing consultant at Deloitte is classified under "Business Consulting and Services" even if they exclusively serve healthcare clients. If your buyers frequently work at companies outside your target industry but serve your target industry, industry targeting alone will miss them. You would need to supplement with skills targeting (e.g., targeting the skill "Healthcare Marketing") to capture those cross-industry professionals.