Choose LinkedIn when your buyer is defined by job title, seniority or company; choose Facebook when the buyer is a small-business owner or a broad role, or for cheaper retargeting. LinkedIn leads cost more and match the buying group more closely; Facebook leads are cheaper and need more qualifying. Many B2B advertisers run both and compare cost per qualified lead.
Targeting: the job or the person
LinkedIn's ad targeting reaches members by job title, company name or industry, seniority and interests, and LinkedIn puts its membership at more than one billion. That lets a campaign reach "operations directors at manufacturers with 200 to 1,000 staff" directly, or a list of named accounts. Facebook and Instagram target by interests, behavior, location and customer lists. They can reach business owners and broad roles, but they cannot reliably pick out a job title at a given company size.
Reach
Pew Research Center's social media fact sheet (19 October 2026; survey 30 January to 18 June 2026) puts Facebook at 70% of US adults, Instagram at 51% and LinkedIn at 33%. Facebook's larger audience matters when the buyer is common, such as small-business owners, and for retargeting people who visited your site. LinkedIn's smaller audience is the one that carries job data.
Cost
LinkedIn prices through an auction. Its pricing page says the cost to win depends on your bid and the desirability of the audience, and that you pay for the billable event of your objective, such as a click for website visits. Its budget guidance sets a minimum daily budget of $10 for any ad format, a $100 minimum lifetime budget for new campaigns, and suggests $25 a day for new advertisers. LinkedIn publishes no average cost per click, and audiences of senior roles cost more to reach.
For Meta, WordStream by LocaliQ's Facebook ads benchmarks (last updated 14 September 2026; 726 US lead campaigns, April 2024 to June 2025, medians) put the cost per lead at $27.66, the cost per click at $1.92 and the conversion rate at 7.72%. For business services, the traffic-campaign cost per click was $0.75.
Lead quality
A lead's cost means little until you know whether it was a buyer. LinkedIn's Lead Gen Forms come pre-filled from the member's profile, with fields such as name, contact details, company name, seniority and job title, so the job data is there when the lead lands. Facebook leads often come from people outside the buying group and need qualifying. Compare the two on cost per qualified lead, meetings booked and pipeline created, taken from your CRM.
Rules that change the answer
On Meta, ads for financial products and services, housing and employment run as special ad categories when they reach the US, Canada or parts of Europe. Meta's documentation lists the limits: age set to 18 to 65+, no gender choice, no lookalike audiences, and location areas of at least a 15-mile radius. For a B2B financial firm, that removes much of what makes Meta targeting useful, and LinkedIn's job targeting becomes the stronger tool.
This is a summary of platform policies, not legal advice; check the current policies before you launch.
When to run both
A common B2B split uses each platform for what it does well:
- LinkedIn for prospecting the buying group by title, seniority and account list.
- Meta for retargeting people who visited your site or watched your video, at a lower cost per impression.
- Meta for broad roles, such as owners of small businesses, where interest targeting reaches them.
- One measure across both: cost per qualified lead and pipeline in your CRM.
Conclusion
LinkedIn targets the job, so it fits B2B buyers defined by title, seniority or company; leads cost more and match the buying group more closely. Facebook targets the person and reaches far more people, 70% of US adults against LinkedIn's 33%, with a median cost per lead of $27.66 in WordStream's 2025 data. Many B2B advertisers prospect on LinkedIn and retarget on Meta, judging both on cost per qualified lead.
PromotEdge International is an international strategy, technology, marketing and design company, and our delivery team is in India. Our LinkedIn advertising reaches buyers by job title and account, and our paid social team runs Meta alongside it, in ad accounts that stay in your name.
Facts we rely on: see our company facts for what we state about ourselves and where each fact comes from.