Put ad money behind the founder's best LinkedIn posts, aimed at a named account list, instead of behind a company advert.
Smokeball, the Australian legal practice management software company, cut a three-minute testimonial into 30-second clips, had them posted by the two people featured, George and Abi, and promoted the posts as Thought Leader Ads to its Matched Audiences, running the same videos as standard ads for comparison. The Thought Leader versions earned twice the view rate, 8.7 times the completion rate, a 50% lower cost per view and a 186% increase in return on ad spend (LinkedIn case study, undated).
Snowflake ran a Thought Leader Ad from its principal developer advocate, Dash Desai, for Dev Day 2024, and it reached a 21.2% click-through rate (LinkedIn case study).
B2B companies with a founder or expert who posts, selling to a defined list of accounts.
People engage with people. Across 2,828 ads from 211 companies, Thought Leader Ads had a median click-through rate of 2.68% against 0.42% for single-image ads, at $2.29 a click against $13.23 (ZenABM, February 2026). That click-through measures engagement with the post, not visits to your site, which run far lower.
Vendor. ZenABM's 2026 LinkedIn benchmarks: 2,828 ads across 211 B2B companies, medians (February 2026), and Smokeball's and Snowflake's figures from LinkedIn case studies.
Cost to test. Under $1,000 of media over four weeks, plus the founder's posts.
Kill it if after four weeks the engagement comes from outside your target accounts, or the accounts that engaged produce no conversations.
Cheap engagement is not pipeline, so judge it on meetings. The founder has to keep posting. Boosting a sales pitch kills the effect: boost the teaching posts.
The Founder Feed, Engager Mining, Podcast as Business Development
A 30-minute call first. If it fits, two calls in one week and a written growth plan you keep.