Frequency cap per account on LinkedIn

LinkedIn lets you cap how often one person sees your ads, but not how many impressions one company gets. In ABM that matters: a large account with thousands of employees in your target roles can take most of a campaign's budget, while smaller accounts on the same list barely see you. IntentBid adds a daily frequency cap per account on top of LinkedIn's own delivery.

How the cap works

1. You set a cap in impressions per company per day, for example 10. It counts every impression to anyone at that company today (UTC), across the campaign.
2. Every 3 hours, IntentBid reads LinkedIn's company report for the campaign and adds up each company's impressions today.
3. A company that has reached its cap is taken out of the campaign's targeting for the rest of the day. The other companies keep getting impressions, so the budget spreads across more of your list.
4. At the start of the next day (UTC) it comes back into the targeting automatically. If every company is at its cap, the campaign is paused instead of targeting everyone, and resumed the next day.

You can also set an optional spend per account per day, which works the same way with money instead of impressions.

Set it up

In a new LinkedIn campaign, Frequency cap per account is its own step, right after the companies. It's on by default.

• Default: impressions per account a day applies to every company without its own cap. 0 means no impression cap.
• Own cap next to every account: every account of the campaign is listed with a cap field beside it. Type a higher cap for key accounts and a lower one for the long tail, or filter by list or name, tick accounts and set one cap for all of them.

On the campaign page, the section Frequency cap per account (daily) lists every account with today's impressions, its cap and whether it is at the cap; change any cap there at any time.

Choosing a number

There's no universal right cap; it depends on how many people at each account match your roles. A few rules of thumb:

• Start around 5–15 impressions per account per day for a list of a few hundred accounts with a buying committee of 5–10 people each.
• If many accounts reach the cap early in the day, the list is saturated: lower the cap only if you want reach across more accounts, or add accounts.
• If almost no account reaches the cap, it isn't limiting anything. Lower it, or leave it as a safety net.

Be aware: LinkedIn's company data is approximate

The cap can only be as precise as the data LinkedIn shares, and that data has limits:

• Approximate counts. LinkedIn reports impressions and clicks by company as estimates, and only for the top companies per creative per day. Companies with few impressions may be missing from the report or rounded.
• A few hours behind. LinkedIn's company report can arrive several hours after the impressions happen. A company can go somewhat over its daily cap before it's taken out. Treat the cap as a strong limit on average, not an exact ceiling.
• People, not companies. LinkedIn decides which company an impression belongs to from members' profiles. Someone who lists an old employer, or a company LinkedIn can't match to your list, is counted elsewhere or not at all.
• Small totals can differ. Per-company totals in IntentBid won't always add up to the campaign total in Campaign Manager, because companies below LinkedIn's reporting threshold aren't listed.

None of this affects your bill: LinkedIn charges for the campaign's real impressions or clicks, not for the company report.

Where to see it

• The campaign page shows each account's impressions today against its daily cap, and which accounts are at their cap.
• Account engagement shows every account's LinkedIn impressions, clicks and engagements next to its website visits and pages read.

LinkedIn reports companies, job functions and seniority, never individual people. IntentBid doesn't identify people either.

FAQ

Is this the same as LinkedIn's frequency setting?

No. LinkedIn's setting limits impressions per person. IntentBid's cap limits impressions per company per day, summed over everyone at that company. The two work together.

Why did an account go over its cap?

Because LinkedIn's company figures arrive a few hours late, the impressions served in that gap still count. Small overshoots are expected; large ones usually mean the cap is low compared with how many people at that account match your roles.

Does the cap work on ChatGPT Ads?

No. ChatGPT Ads doesn't target or report by company, so there's nothing to cap per account. The cap is for LinkedIn campaigns.