LinkedIn Ads Size and Image Best Practices to Boost Your ROI

January 25, 2021

LinkedIn Ads Size and Image Best Practices to Boost Your ROI

LinkedIn has come a long way in the past five years, transforming from a place where people shared resumes and job updates to something more like a professionally-focused version of Facebook. People are engaging, they’re networking, and they’re creating and reading great content. Your LinkedIn Ads can be a part of that, tapping into an enthusiastic community.

And when it comes to LinkedIn Ads, we know that the visuals matter. We know that people recall images and videos easier than text, and that a great image can be what’s needed to stop the mindless scrolling through our feeds.

So how do you create great visuals for your LinkedIn campaigns? In this post, we’re going to take a look at everything you need to know about images for this PPC platform, including the ideal LinkedIn Ads size and best practices.

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Different Types of Visuals to Use for LinkedIn Ads

If you aren’t sure what types of visuals you should use for LinkedIn Ads, let’s take a look at a couple different use cases.

Consider Showing a Tool in Action

If you’re promoting a SaaS tool, try to use an image or video that shows it in action. By showcasing how it works and what the interface looks like, you can show how easy it is to use and capture user interest.

Types of visuals you should use for LinkedIn Ads

Share a Review

Reviews are one of the most powerful types of marketing material that you could have, so there’s no reason not to use them in your LinkedIn Ads — images included!

Sharing a short snippet of a great review that really highlights what makes you exceptional can go a long way in capturing user interest.

Feature Your USP

Your unique selling proposition is all about what makes you different and explains why users should care. Taking the time to highlight this in text overlay on an image is a great choice, because users may notice this even if they were skipping over the ad copy.

Best Practices

When you’re creating LinkedIn Ads, the visual component is a central part of whether or not your campaign will succeed. This means that it’s always worth it to stay up to date on the ideal LinkedIn Ads size for each format and best practices.

Speaking of best practices, make sure to consider the following:

Use bold colours that will jump out at users
Consider using contrasting colours in your image to make it pop
Take advantage of design tools like Snappa, Canva, and Animoto to create high-quality images and videos
Split test different images and videos to see what works best for your target audience, and know that it may be different than what performs well on other platforms

The Ideal LinkedIn Ads Sizes Advertisers Need to Know

There are several different types of LinkedIn Ad visuals you can create, meaning there are a few different LinkedIn Ad sizes that you’ll want to know. Let’s look at each one.

Single Image Ads

Single image ads are going to have different image qualifications than other visuals. They’ll appear in a user’s newsfeed.

Here’s what you need to know:

The maximum image size is 7680 x 7680 pixels
Any images under 400 pixels will display as a thumbnail image
Horizontal images should have an aspect ratio shorter than 1:1, and can appear on desktop and mobile
Square images must have an aspect ratio of 1:1, and can appear on desktop and mobile
Vertical images must have a taller aspect ratio of 1:1 (and ideally are 16:9), and are only displayed on mobile
The file size must be 5MB or smaller

Carousel Image Ads

Carousel image ads on LinkedIn must use at least two cards and no more than ten. Users can scroll through these cards in an ad, adding a more interactive layer to your campaigns.

Here are the technical image requirements:

Recommended image specs of 1080 x 1080 pixels, or a 1:1: aspect ratio, even though the max image dimensions are 6012 x 6012 pixels
Images will be scaled down to 312 x 312 pixels
JPG, PNG, and non-animated GIF formats accepted
The max file size is 10MB

Banners in Message Ads

You can have ads appear so that users see them when checking their inbox as a type of Message Ads.

You can see this in the example here:

Image source: LinkedIn

The image requirements are as follows:

The image should be 300 x 250 pixels
There’s a maximum file size of 40KB
You can use JPG, non-animated GIF, and no-flash PNG files

Images for Text Ads

Text ads are short, sweet, and to the point, and they’ll appear on multiple pages on LinkedIn’s desktop site. You’ll see them most commonly on the right-side rails.

Though ads can appear in a variety of sizes, your best bet is to stick to the following:

100 x 100 pixels, and a 1:1 aspect ratio
Use a JPG or PNG file
Maximum file size of 2MB

Video Ads

Video can perform exceptionally well in LinkedIn Ads, so they’re definitely worth testing.

These are the requirements you need to keep in mind for LinkedIn Ads size for videos:

The width must be between 640- 1920 pixels
The height must be between 360 and 1920 pixels
The aspect ratio must be between 1.779 and .5652
Different ideal video sizes include:

Horizontal videos at 1920 x 1080 pixels
Horizontal videos at 1200 x 675 pixels
Vertical videos at 720 x 920 pixels

It must be 3 seconds to 30 minutes (though we strongly recommend keeping them under 15 seconds)
MP4 files are accepted
The file size must be between 75-200 MB
It must have fewer than 30 frames per second

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About the author

Jonathon Tanner

Jonathon Tanner is the Co-CEO of Social Media College, Australia's leading educator and trainer for social media.

He co-authored the Diploma of Social Media Marketing, the world's first and only Australian Government recognised course in social media marketing, delivered by 25 leading colleges and TAFEs across Australia, and articulating into several Bachelor programs at Australian Universities.

His deep expertise in social media spans content marketing, social media strategy, 15 different social media networks, paid social advertising, personal branding, email marketing, and social media conversion.

Jonathon has also co-founded several other businesses, as well as spending 12 years as a management consultant specialising in mergers & acquisitions for private equity firms, growth strategy, and operational improvement.

Jonathon holds a combined Bachelor of Laws (Honours) and Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Sydney.