The £300K Analysis: Six Metrics Compared
We analysed £300K in LinkedIn thought leader ad spend across 25+ B2B SaaS accounts, comparing engagement and brand awareness campaign objectives head-to-head. Here's what we found:
| Metric | Engagement | Brand Awareness | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPC | £4.80 | £7.90–12 | Engagement ✓ |
| Dwell time | Slightly higher | Slightly lower | Engagement ✓ |
| Engagement rate | Nearly 2× higher | Lower | Engagement ✓ |
| Reactions & comments | Astronomical cost | Astronomical cost | Draw |
| Penetration / unique reach | Lower unique reach | Broader distribution | Brand Awareness ✓ |
| Pipeline influence | Leaning engagement* | Less conclusive | Engagement ✓ (leaning) |
*Pipeline comparison is not fully apples-to-apples because engagement-optimised accounts often had more outbound running alongside. However, engagement still leans ahead.
Why Engagement Wins
The CPC difference is the most striking data point. At £4.80 versus £7.90–12, engagement optimisation gives you 2–3× more website clicks per pound spent. That means larger retargeting pools, more website visitor data for outbound, and more total impressions for the same budget.
The engagement rate being nearly 2× higher matters because every like, comment, and click is a warm outbound signal. When someone engages with your thought leader ad, that data flows into tools like Trigify, gets enriched through Clay, and triggers outbound sequences. Brand awareness doesn't generate these signals at the same rate — it optimises for impressions, not interactions.
Dwell time being slightly higher on engagement means people are actually spending more time reading and watching your content, not just scrolling past. LinkedIn's algorithm delivers the ad to people more likely to engage, which self-selects for people who are actually interested in your topic.
The One Thing Brand Awareness Wins
Brand awareness wins on unique reach — it shows your ads to more unique LinkedIn members. The algorithm optimises for breadth of distribution rather than depth of engagement. This means a higher percentage of your target audience sees the ad at least once.
But here's why that doesn't matter much in practice: engagement optimisation with frequency capping achieves similar penetration levels. You can set frequency caps to ensure your ads reach a broad audience while still optimising for engagement. The result is comparable penetration with far better cost efficiency and more actionable engagement data.
Based on £300K in data, we use engagement optimisation on virtually every thought leader ad campaign we run. The only scenario where brand awareness might make sense is if you're running a pure brand play with zero outbound integration and your only goal is maximising unique impressions at the lowest CPM. For any B2B SaaS company running a full-funnel strategy with outbound flows, engagement is the clear winner.
What About Reactions and Comments?
Both objectives produce astronomically expensive cost-per-reaction and cost-per-comment numbers. This is normal — don't optimise for reactions or comments as a primary metric. They're a nice byproduct of engagement optimisation, and each one is a signal for outbound, but the cost per individual reaction is too high to justify on its own.
Focus on CPC, engagement rate, penetration rate, and downstream pipeline influence. Those are the metrics that actually correlate with revenue.
Whichever objective you choose, track your penetration rate (percentage of target audience who've seen your ads at least once) and frequency (average impressions per person per month). Target 50%+ penetration and 5–8× frequency per month. If engagement optimisation isn't hitting these thresholds, consider adding a small brand awareness campaign alongside to broaden reach — but keep the majority of spend on engagement.