Why a nine-layer funnel
B2B SaaS decisions take 60–120 days and involve 3–7 people. A single LinkedIn campaign can’t move a buying committee. What works is a stacked system — each layer with a narrow job, a single creative format, and a single audience segment.
The payoff: when the thinking is separated, the creative output gets sharper, the budget allocation gets cleaner, and you can actually see which stage is the bottleneck.
The nine layers
Layer 1 — Thought leadership (cold)
Single-image and document ads carrying the founder’s POV. Zero CTA beyond “follow the page”. Goal: page follows.
Layer 2 — Video POV
30–60 second vertical videos, speaker-to-camera. Same POV as Layer 1, adapted for video. Goal: video 50% views.
Layer 3 — Insight content
Document ads — 6 to 10 slides of an opinion with data. Gated behind a soft CTA (“see more”). Goal: 60%+ read-through.
Layer 4 — Benchmark or report
A downloadable PDF in exchange for email. Single-image conversion campaign. Goal: MQL at < RM 200.
Layer 5 — Product explainer
Now the ad can talk about the product. Carousel or video, specific use-case. Audience: engaged with Layers 1–3. Goal: micro-conversion (demo video view, feature-page visit).
Layer 6 — Case study
Named customer, specific result, clean numbers. Single-image ad. Audience: engaged with Layer 5. Goal: SQL — qualified demo request.
Layer 7 — Comparison
You vs the alternative (competitor, status quo, DIY). Use only when the comparison is defensible. Audience: recent demo requesters. Goal: second call booked.
Layer 8 — Pricing and trial
Direct response. Trial CTA or pricing page. Audience: warm buying-committee members (comparison visitors + case-study readers). Goal: pipeline.
Layer 9 — Account retargeting
Company-level retargeting for accounts stuck in pipeline. Ads are signed by the founder, addressed to the ICP role. Goal: unstick stalled deals.
LinkedIn Ads is a system, not a campaign. The brands that win here are the ones who stopped asking “which ad converted” and started asking “which layer is the bottleneck.”
Budget split
For a RM 30,000/month test budget, the split I run is:
- Layers 1–3 (thought leadership, cold): 35%
- Layer 4 (lead magnet): 15%
- Layers 5–6 (product + case study): 30%
- Layers 7–8 (comparison + pricing): 15%
- Layer 9 (account retargeting): 5%
Cold (L1–3) looks like a lot because it is. If you haven’t bought page follows for 90 days, the warmer layers starve. Expect L1–3 to look “unprofitable” on attribution reports — it’s the input to the rest of the system, not a standalone channel.
Creative principles that compound
- One face across the funnel. Pick the founder or one operator. Every layer features them. The compounding comes from familiarity.
- Don’t launch pricing in month one. Let Layers 1–3 run for 30 days before turning on Layer 8.
- Every document ad is an essay. 10 slides, each with one idea, one graph, one line of text.
- Ship weekly. LinkedIn ad creative fatigues at around 20% earlier than Meta. Ship a new concept every week for the first 60 days.
How to read the funnel weekly
One page, five numbers: page follows/wk (Layer 1–3), lead magnet MQL (Layer 4), demo requests (Layer 6), second-call conversion rate (Layer 7), weighted pipeline from LinkedIn (Layers 8–9). If any one number drops by > 25% week-over-week, that’s the layer to fix — don’t touch the rest.