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How to Use LinkedIn Ads With Email Marketing
How to Use LinkedIn Ads With Email Marketing
LinkedIn Ads and email marketing reach the same people in different contexts, and using them together makes both work harder — ads build the familiarity that gets your emails opened, and email delivers the depth that ads can’t. The most effective B2B teams don’t run them in isolation; they coordinate the two, uploading email lists to LinkedIn so the same contacts see ads that warm them before and alongside your email campaigns. This turns a cold email into a familiar one and reinforces every message across two channels. This guide covers how to use LinkedIn Ads and email together — warming lists, coordinating touches, re-engaging inactive subscribers — and what each channel does best.
Key takeaways
- Ads and email reach the same people in different contexts — together they reinforce each other.
- Upload email lists to LinkedIn as a contact Matched Audience so the same people see your ads.
- Ads warm the list so emails land on a familiar brand rather than a cold one.
- Coordinate timing — run ads before and alongside email campaigns, not at random.
- Use each for its strength: email for owned, direct depth; LinkedIn for paid reach and familiarity.
Why use LinkedIn Ads and email together?
Because familiarity changes how email performs. An email from a brand the recipient recognizes gets opened and read more readily than one from an unknown sender — and LinkedIn ads are how you build that recognition. When the same people who receive your emails have also been seeing your ads, your email arrives warm: they know who you are, so the open, the read, and the response all improve. Running the two channels against the same audience creates a compounding effect that neither achieves alone.
The channels are also complementary in what they can do. Email is owned, direct, and can carry depth — long-form content, sequences, personalization. LinkedIn ads are paid reach in a professional context, strong at building familiarity but limited in depth. Used together, ads create the recognition and email delivers the substance.
How do you warm an email list with LinkedIn Ads?
By uploading the list as a contact Matched Audience and advertising to the same people. Take your email contacts, upload them to LinkedIn as a contact-list Matched Audience, and run ads to that audience — so the people receiving your emails also see your brand in the LinkedIn feed. This warms the list: by the time your email lands, the recipient has been exposed to your brand and message, so the email feels like a continuation rather than a cold interruption.
This is especially powerful for a nurture sequence or a campaign to a defined list, where you want every email to land warm. The ads run in the background, building the familiarity that lifts email engagement, while the emails do the direct communicating.
How do you coordinate LinkedIn Ads and email?
By aligning timing and message across both. Rather than running ads and email as separate programs on separate schedules, coordinate them:
| Use case | How the channels combine |
|---|---|
| Warming a list | Ads run to the email list before and during email sends |
| Reinforcing a message | Ads and email carry the same theme, so each reinforces the other |
| Nurture sequences | Ads reinforce the sequence, keeping the brand present between emails |
| Re-engaging inactive subscribers | Ads reach subscribers who’ve stopped opening, warming them again |
The principle is consistency: when the ad and the email say related things to the same person around the same time, the two touches reinforce each other, and the message lands harder than either would alone.
How do you re-engage inactive email subscribers?
With ads, because they reach subscribers your emails no longer do. Every email list accumulates inactive subscribers who’ve stopped opening — they haven’t unsubscribed, but your emails aren’t landing with them anymore. Uploading those inactive contacts as a LinkedIn Matched Audience lets you reach them in a different context, in the feed rather than the inbox, re-establishing familiarity. A subscriber who’s been ignoring your emails but starts seeing your ads may re-engage, and the ad exposure can revive an email relationship that had gone cold. It’s a way to reach people you technically “have” but have effectively lost through the inbox.
The channel-coordination framework
Coordinate the two channels deliberately:
- Upload your email lists to LinkedIn as contact Matched Audiences so the same people see your ads.
- Warm before you send — run ads to the list ahead of and during email campaigns.
- Align the message — keep ads and emails on the same theme so each reinforces the other.
- Re-engage the inactive — reach subscribers who’ve stopped opening with ads in the feed.
- Use each for its strength — email for owned, direct depth; ads for paid reach and familiarity.
What does each channel do best?
Email is your owned, direct, permission-based channel — cheap to send, able to carry depth and personalization, and under your control. Its weakness is that it depends on deliverability and attention in a crowded inbox, and its reach is limited to your list. LinkedIn Ads are paid reach in a professional context — able to build familiarity, reach beyond your list, and reinforce your brand, but limited in the depth they can carry and costly per impression. The point of combining them is to cover each channel’s weakness with the other’s strength: ads extend reach and build the familiarity email needs to get opened, while email delivers the depth and direct communication ads can’t. Neither replaces the other; used together, each makes the other more effective.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1. How do you use LinkedIn Ads with email marketing?
Upload your email lists to LinkedIn as contact Matched Audiences so the same people see your ads, then run ads to warm the list before and during email campaigns. This makes emails land on a familiar brand rather than a cold one. Coordinate timing and message across both channels so each reinforces the other.
Q2. Can you upload an email list to LinkedIn Ads?
Yes. You can upload a list of contacts as a contact-list Matched Audience, and LinkedIn matches those contacts to its members so you can target them with ads. This lets you reach the same people who receive your emails, warming them with ad exposure so your email campaigns land with a familiar audience rather than a cold one.
Q3. Does running LinkedIn Ads improve email performance?
It can, by building familiarity. An email from a brand the recipient recognizes gets opened and read more readily than one from an unknown sender, and ads build that recognition. When the people receiving your emails have also seen your ads, the email arrives warm, improving opens, reads, and responses through the compounding effect of two coordinated channels.
Q4. How do you warm an email list with LinkedIn Ads?
Upload the list as a contact Matched Audience and run ads to those same people, so the recipients of your emails also see your brand in the LinkedIn feed. By the time an email lands, they’ve been exposed to your brand and message, so the email feels like a continuation rather than a cold interruption — lifting engagement across the sequence.
Q5. How do you coordinate LinkedIn Ads and email campaigns?
Align timing and message. Run ads to your email list before and during sends, keep the ads and emails on the same theme so each reinforces the other, and use ads to keep your brand present between emails in a nurture sequence. The key is consistency — related messages to the same person around the same time land harder together.
Q6. Can you re-engage inactive email subscribers with LinkedIn Ads?
Yes. Upload inactive subscribers — people who’ve stopped opening but haven’t unsubscribed — as a LinkedIn Matched Audience and reach them in the feed rather than the inbox. A subscriber ignoring your emails may re-engage after seeing your ads, so ad exposure can revive an email relationship that had gone cold, reaching people you effectively lost through the inbox.
Q7. What does email do better than LinkedIn Ads?
Email is owned, direct, and permission-based — cheap to send, able to carry depth and personalization, and under your control. It can deliver long-form content and sequences that ads can’t. Its limits are deliverability, inbox attention, and reach confined to your list. Email’s strength is direct, in-depth communication with people who’ve opted in.
Q8. What do LinkedIn Ads do better than email?
LinkedIn Ads provide paid reach in a professional context — they build familiarity, reach beyond your existing list, and reinforce your brand across a targeted audience. Their strength is reach and recognition rather than depth. Ads extend beyond your list and create the familiarity that helps email get opened, covering email’s reach limitation with paid distribution.
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