LinkedIn Audience Network, and why Adwarp turns it off

LinkedIn Audience Network shows your Sponsored Content on third-party apps and sites, with the same targeting, bid and budget as the ad set it belongs to. LinkedIn switches it on for every new single image, carousel, document and video ad set (LinkedIn Help). If the ad set is aimed at a set list of accounts or roles, turn the network off and clear the Audience Expansion box on the same setup page. Switch the network back on only as a test you can measure.

What LinkedIn Audience Network is#

LinkedIn describes the network as a way to extend an ad set's reach past the feed, to members on third-party apps and sites whose settings allow it (LinkedIn Audience Network help page). The placements are native and interstitial, on a vetted list of approved publishers (Audience Network FAQs).

Serving starts with the publisher. An app or site with an ad slot to fill sends a bid request to bidders, LinkedIn among them. A signed-in member who fits your targeting is the easy case, and LinkedIn can serve the ad. When nobody is signed in, LinkedIn may use a model to estimate whether the request probably comes from a member who fits.

That model reads cookies, the Google Ad ID on Android, user agent, IP address, timestamp, page URL or app name, and hashed emails. LinkedIn keeps this observation data for up to 90 days and pseudonymizes it before use. In the European Economic Area and Switzerland it doesn't collect third-party visit data for the model, except from advertisers' own sites that run the Insight Tag with consent (help page).

Which formats can run there#

Only 4 formats are eligible, and everything else stays in the feed.

Cost#

There's no separate price for the network. LinkedIn honors your bid and budget across LinkedIn and the partner sites, and the FAQ mentions no extra charge. More impressions become available, so an ad set can run through its budget faster (Audience Network FAQs).

You can't buy the network on its own, either. LinkedIn has no way to run an ad set only off LinkedIn, so a checked box means partner apps and sites in addition to the feed.

Why Adwarp turns it off#

Every ad set Adwarp creates has the network switched off (safety page), for 5 reasons. The first 4 come from LinkedIn's own help pages, and the last is Adwarp's call.

1. LinkedIn checks the box on every new single image, carousel, document and video ad set (a420372). Unless someone clears it, the network spends.
2. LinkedIn relies on signals from publishers, and where a publisher's compliance with Media Rating Council guidelines hasn't been validated, Audience Network impressions and clicks aren't accredited by the council (a423409).
3. Conversions from network placements are reported at ad set level only. You'll also see rows marked Uncategorized, where LinkedIn doesn't know which placement the impression came from (a418906).
4. The network needs a call-to-action button with a destination URL. When an ad has none, LinkedIn adds one for network placements, which affects the Clicks to Landing Page metric (a423409).
5. An account-based ad set has a fixed list and a budget set for that list. Adwarp would rather spend all of it in the feed, where the audience was sized and every metric reads down to the ad.

When leaving it on can make sense#

The network adds reach, so it fits ad sets where reach is the goal. LinkedIn suggests at least 300,000 members for Sponsored Content (audience size help page), and on a broad awareness ad set that size, more impressions is the whole idea. Video is the other case: network video runs as outstream and in-stream placements, and the Placements breakdown separates the 2 in reporting (a423409).

LinkedIn's product page argues for the network with customer quotes. Susie Hamlin, RingCentral's vice president of brand activation, says it lets the company "zero in on core audiences and engage them across other trusted sites." HP's quote, from its head of global media, praises LinkedIn's data in general. There's no number on the page to check either one against.

How to turn it off#

The box sits in the ad set's Placements section, and you can clear it while you build an ad set or later on a running one. These steps follow LinkedIn's help page on enabling and disabling the network.

On a new ad set#

1. In Campaign Manager, open your ad account.
2. Click Create in the left menu, then Ad set or ads.
3. Set the campaign, name, objective and target audience.
4. Under Ad formats, pick single image, carousel, document or video.
5. Under Placements, clear the LinkedIn Audience Network box.
6. Finish the ad set as usual.

While you're on that page, clear Enable Audience Expansion in the Audience section too (more on that below).

On a running ad set#

1. In Campaign Manager, open your ad account and click Advertise in the left menu.
2. In the Campaigns tab, click the campaign name.
3. In the Ad sets tab, hover over the ad set and click Edit.
4. Under Placements, click Change and clear the LinkedIn Audience Network box.
5. Scroll to the bottom and click Next.

This works after launch, since LinkedIn locks only the objective and the ad format once an ad set is live (editing an ad set).

Through the API#

In LinkedIn's Marketing API an ad set is called a campaign, and the network is the field offsiteDeliveryEnabled. It's required on every new ad set and has no default, so each create request has to say true or false. audienceExpansionEnabled is optional and defaults to false. The same page notes that offsiteDeliveryEnabled can't be true on a Lead Generation campaign (Create and Manage Campaigns, Microsoft Learn, version 2026-10).

{
  "type": "SPONSORED_UPDATES",
  "offsiteDeliveryEnabled": false,
  "audienceExpansionEnabled": false
}

For getting API access itself, see the LinkedIn Ads API guide.

If you keep it on: block lists and category exclusions#

If the network stays on, decide where it can run. Start with LinkedIn's publisher list, which names the apps and sites in the network (downloading the publisher list):

1. In Campaign Manager, open your ad account.
2. Click Account settings in the left menu, then Brand safety.
3. On the LinkedIn suitability controls tab, click Edit in Block and allow lists.
4. Click Download publisher list and choose Web and mobile app list. The other choice covers connected TV ad sets.

The list arrives as a CSV file. LinkedIn notes that publishers can join or leave the network before the file reflects it, so download a fresh copy before each review. Then take LinkedIn's list template, add the publishers you want to block or allow, and apply the list to every active ad set in the account or only to the ones you pick.

The network help page adds 2 more controls:

• You can exclude publishers by Interactive Advertising Bureau category. The categories come from Pixalate and can change during a run, so LinkedIn says to review them regularly.
• If you use DoubleVerify Pinnacle profiles, you can import them for Audience Network ad sets, by request through your LinkedIn sales representative.

Lists apply account-wide from the Brand Safety & Suitability Hub, or to 1 ad set while you create it. In Business Manager you can share a list across ad accounts.

How to test it fairly#

Build 2 ad sets with the same targeting, ads, bid and budget, and turn the network on in only 1 of them. Since the network can't run alone, the second ad set tests the feed plus the network. Compare the 2 at ad set level, the only level where network conversions are reported (a418906).

To read the split in Campaign Manager, click Advertise, open the Ad sets tab and pick On/Off Network in the Breakdown dropdown. Rows for On LinkedIn and Audience Network appear under each ad set. For a file, click Export and choose Audience network ad performance, a timeframe and a column view.

Each side needs about 1,000 impressions before its clicks mean much, and 3 conversions before you compare cost per conversion. Adwarp's audit skill holds itself to the same floors: no click trend read under 1,000 impressions, no cost per conversion compared under 3 conversions. Running 2 ad sets on 1 audience also puts you in the auction twice, and LinkedIn doesn't publish how it handles 2 bids from the same advertiser, so a small gap between them is probably noise.

The linkedin-ads-audit skill runs this check across a whole account. It fails an ad set when the network takes 25% of the spend or more and costs over 2 times as much per conversion as the feed, or when it has spent 2 times the feed's cost per conversion without a single conversion. It also fails Audience Expansion on any ad set built on a matched list. Here it is on the skill's made-up example account:

The linkedin-ads-pause-rules skill reads the same export before it pauses a creative. A low click-through rate can come from the partner apps rather than the feed, and the export shows which.

Audience Expansion, the other box#

Audience Expansion shows your ads to members with attributes similar to your target audience (LinkedIn Help on audience expansion). In LinkedIn's example, an ad set that targets the skill Online Advertising might also reach members who list B2B Marketing. It's turned on automatically wherever it's available, and LinkedIn pitches it for awareness and consideration. Dynamic formats (follower, spotlight and jobs ads) can't use it, and neither can auto-generated audiences such as Auto-Targeting, buyer groups and predictive audiences.

On a precise ad set, 2 details work against you:

• The forecast leaves expansion members out. The audience size in Forecasted Results, and in saved audience counts, covers only the people you targeted.
• Reporting mixes the 2 groups. Performance and demographic metrics combine your audience with the expanded one, and no breakdown separates them.

LinkedIn won't expand into attributes you've excluded. On an account-based or matched-list ad set, expansion still reaches similar people at companies that aren't on the list, which undoes the reason you built it. To turn it off, edit the ad set and clear Enable Audience Expansion in the Audience section.

Audience Network and Audience Expansion compared#

By Stan Rymkiewicz, maintainer of adwarp. Published November 7, 2026.