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LinkedIn Dynamic Ads: Types, Specs, and When to Use Them
LinkedIn Dynamic Ads: Types, Specs, and When to Use Them
LinkedIn Dynamic Ads are personalized ads that run in the desktop right rail and automatically pull in the viewer’s own name, profile photo, and company. LinkedIn offers three Dynamic Ad formats: Spotlight Ads (drive clicks to a landing page), Follower Ads (grow your Page following), and Jobs Ads (drive applicants). Their strength is personalization and low cost. Their hard limit is that they are desktop-only, so they never reach the 60% to 70% of B2B LinkedIn activity that happens on mobile. This guide covers the three types, the specs, how to create them, and the narrow set of jobs Dynamic Ads are actually worth running for.
Key takeaways
- Dynamic Ads are desktop-right-rail formats that auto-personalize with the member’s name, photo, and company. The three types are Spotlight, Follower, and Jobs.
- Spotlight Ads drive traffic to any landing page, Follower Ads grow your Company or Showcase Page, and Jobs Ads generate applicants.
- Text Ads are a related right-rail format but are not Dynamic Ads, because they carry no personalization.
- Dynamic Ads are desktop-only, so they miss the majority of B2B impressions, which happen on mobile. That single fact should shape how you use and measure them.
- Right-rail CTR is very low by design (near 0.02%), so judge Dynamic Ads on their specific job and cheap reach, never on click rate.
What are LinkedIn Dynamic Ads?
Dynamic Ads are a category of LinkedIn ad that renders in the right-hand column on desktop and personalizes itself to each viewer using their public profile data, typically their first name, profile photo, and company, alongside your logo. Because the personalization is automatic, one ad unit appears slightly different to every member who sees it, which is designed to lift relevance and attention in a low-attention placement.
All Dynamic Ads are built in Campaign Manager, all are personalized, and all share one core constraint: they appear on desktop only. Text Ads sit next to them in the right rail and are often grouped with them, but they carry no personalization, so they are a separate format rather than a true Dynamic Ad.
The three Dynamic Ad formats
Each format does a different job, and choosing the wrong one wastes the placement.
| Format | Goal | Destination | CTA |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spotlight Ads | Drive clicks to a landing page or offer | Any landing page (up to 500 characters) | Custom label (up to 18 characters) |
| Follower Ads | Grow Company or Showcase Page followers | Your LinkedIn Page | Follow / Visit page |
| Jobs Ads | Generate applicants for a role | Your job posting | Apply / view jobs |
Spotlight Ads are the workhorse when you have a destination and an offer. Follower Ads are narrow but useful for building a warm Page audience you can later reach organically or in-feed. Jobs Ads sit in recruitment budgets rather than demand-gen ones, so most B2B advertisers focus on Spotlight and Follower.
LinkedIn Dynamic Ads specs
The specs are tight because the right-rail unit is small. Build to them exactly to avoid truncation.
| Element | Spotlight Ads | Follower Ads |
|---|---|---|
| Company logo | 100 x 100 px, JPG or PNG, up to 2 MB | 100 x 100 px, up to 2 MB |
| Headline | up to 50 characters | up to 50 characters |
| Description | up to 70 characters | up to 70 characters |
| Company name | up to 25 characters | up to 25 characters |
| Optional background image | 300 x 250 px, up to 2 MB | not applicable |
| CTA label | up to 18 characters | Follow / Visit page |
| Destination URL | up to 500 characters | Your LinkedIn Page |
One Spotlight detail matters: if you add the optional 300 x 250 background image, LinkedIn hides the description text and the member’s profile photo. So you are choosing between a personalized text unit and a branded image unit, not getting both. For reference, the related Text Ad format uses a 100 x 100 logo, a 25-character headline, and a 75-character description, with no personalization.
How to create a LinkedIn Dynamic Ad
- In Campaign Manager, create a campaign and pick an objective the format supports: brand awareness or website visits for Spotlight, and the followers objective for Follower Ads.
- Select the Dynamic Ad format for that objective.
- Connect the Company or Showcase Page the ad will draw personalization and branding from.
- Choose whether to display each viewer’s profile photo (the personalization toggle).
- Write one clear headline, description, and CTA, and upload your 100 x 100 logo. For Spotlight, add the optional background image if you want a branded look instead of the text unit.
- Set your audience. LinkedIn recommends starting with location plus two other targeting criteria and not over-narrowing.
- For Follower Ads, exclude your existing followers so budget goes to net-new prospects. Launch and review.
LinkedIn Dynamic Ads best practices
LinkedIn’s own guidance for the format is short and worth following. Keep one clear message and one call to action per ad, since the right-rail unit is too small for more. Enable the profile-photo personalization when it fits the message, because relevance is the format’s main advantage. Keep headlines descriptive so the ad makes sense at a glance. For Follower Ads, always exclude current followers. For Spotlight Ads, test the personalized text unit against a custom background image, and test one variable at a time (copy, image type, or layout) so you can see what actually moved performance.
The desktop-only limitation
This is the fact that should govern every decision about Dynamic Ads. They render on desktop only, with nothing served in the mobile feed. Because roughly 60% to 70% of B2B LinkedIn impressions happen on mobile, Dynamic Ads structurally cannot reach the majority of your audience’s activity (more on that split in the LinkedIn mobile optimization guide).
The right-rail placement also gets far less attention than the feed, which is why text and dynamic CTRs sit near 0.02% rather than the 0.4% or higher of in-feed sponsored content. Neither of these is a flaw to fix; they are the nature of the format. They simply mean Dynamic Ads are a supporting layer, not a primary channel, and that you should never hold them to a feed CTR benchmark.
When are Dynamic Ads worth running?
Dynamic Ads earn their place on a small number of specific jobs, each measured on its own outcome rather than on right-rail CTR. For follower growth, run Follower Ads to a tightly defined audience and measure new followers and cost per follower, treating it as audience-building for later in-feed and organic work. For desktop ABM reinforcement, run Spotlight Ads to your target account list as a low-cost always-on presence, and measure assisted reach and pipeline influence, not clicks. For retargeting, use Spotlight Ads to stay in front of warm desktop visitors between heavier in-feed touches.
What Dynamic Ads should not be is your main line of attack, because desktop-only reach and right-rail attention cap what they can do. Judge each use on the job you hired it for, and keep your primary budget in the mobile-visible feed. If you want help deciding where Dynamic Ads fit against your feed campaigns and pipeline, you can book a demo.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1. What are LinkedIn Dynamic Ads?
LinkedIn Dynamic Ads are personalized ads shown in the desktop right rail that automatically insert the viewer’s name, profile photo, and company alongside your logo. LinkedIn offers three types: Spotlight Ads (drive traffic), Follower Ads (grow your Page), and Jobs Ads (drive applicants). All are desktop-only and built in Campaign Manager.
Q2. What are the three types of LinkedIn Dynamic Ads?
The three Dynamic Ad formats are Spotlight Ads, which drive clicks to a landing page or offer; Follower Ads, which grow your Company or Showcase Page following; and Jobs Ads, which generate applicants for a role. All three personalize with the member’s profile data and appear only in the desktop right rail.
Q3. What is the difference between Spotlight Ads and Follower Ads?
Spotlight Ads drive clicks to any landing page with a custom CTA, so they suit offers, launches, and product pages. Follower Ads send people to your Company or Showcase Page to gain followers. Both personalize with the member’s name and photo, but Spotlight is for traffic and Follower is for audience building.
Q4. Do LinkedIn Dynamic Ads run on mobile?
No. Dynamic Ads, including Spotlight, Follower, and Jobs Ads, render in the desktop right rail only and are not served in the mobile feed. Since roughly 60% to 70% of B2B LinkedIn impressions happen on mobile, this is the format’s biggest limitation and the main reason to treat it as a support layer.
Q5. What are the specs for a LinkedIn Spotlight Ad?
A Spotlight Ad uses a 100 x 100 px logo (up to 2 MB), a headline up to 50 characters, a description up to 70 characters, a company name up to 25 characters, a CTA label up to 18 characters, and a destination URL up to 500 characters. An optional 300 x 250 background image replaces the description and profile photo.
Q6. Is Dynamic Creative the same as LinkedIn Dynamic Ads?
No. LinkedIn Dynamic Ads are a specific personalized right-rail format. “Dynamic Creative” is a general advertising term (used on other platforms) for automatically combining assets into many ad variations. LinkedIn does not offer a Meta-style dynamic-creative toggle, so on LinkedIn “Dynamic Ads” means the Spotlight, Follower, and Jobs formats.
Q7. How do you create a LinkedIn Dynamic Ad?
In Campaign Manager, pick a supported objective (awareness or website visits for Spotlight, followers for Follower Ads), select the Dynamic Ad format, connect your Page, choose whether to show profile photos, then add your logo, headline, description, and CTA. Set targeting, and for Follower Ads exclude existing followers before launching.
Q8. How do you measure LinkedIn Dynamic Ads?
Measure each format on its job, not on right-rail CTR. Track cost per follower for Follower Ads, assisted reach and pipeline influence for Spotlight ABM campaigns, and re-engagement for retargeting. Because the format supports rather than closes, downstream and assist metrics matter far more than clicks.
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