What is the LinkedIn Audience Network?
The LinkedIn Audience Network (LAN) is a campaign-level placement setting. When enabled, your ads extend beyond LinkedIn and can appear in third-party apps and websites that partner with LinkedIn.
This can include placements in news apps, productivity tools, and lifestyle sites. The intention is to increase reach and impressions, but advertisers often find that LAN delivers lower-quality inventory where conversion rates don’t justify the extra volume
Why should I turn it off?
Opting into the LinkedIn Audience Network can cause several problems:
Lower conversion quality. Ads show on broad consumer sites where users aren’t in a business mindset.
Reduced transparency. Limited reporting makes it hard to see exactly where your ads ran.
Budget leakage. Spend can slip into placements that look good for impressions but don’t deliver ROI.
Risk of invalid traffic. Some advertisers have raised concerns about bot activity or suspicious clicks on third-party partner sites.
How does this Improvement work?
Opteo checks whether your campaigns are opted into the LinkedIn Audience Network and brings them to your attention.
Instead of having to dig into placement settings for every campaign, we show you exactly which ones are extending to partner sites. You’ll also see how long LAN has been enabled, so you can judge whether it’s been quietly active for weeks or was only just switched on.
From the Improvement, you can disable the LinkedIn Audience Network in one click. That way, you can be sure your budget is directed at LinkedIn’s high-quality environment - not spread across placements you may never have chosen yourself.
When is LAN bad?
Here are common cases where LAN underperforms:
High-value B2B offers. Expensive clicks wasted on consumer browsing rather than professional intent.
Campaigns with tight budgets. Money spread too thin across lower-quality sites.
Niche targeting. Expansion into general news or lifestyle apps erodes audience precision.
Brand safety concerns. Less control over third-party environments compared to LinkedIn’s feed.
When can LAN actually help?
LAN can make sense in limited scenarios:
Broad awareness campaigns. When the goal is reach rather than conversions.
Large budgets. If efficiency is less critical and extra impressions have value.
Testing new markets. As a way to explore additional reach before scaling.
If it makes sense to leave LAN on, you can dismiss the Improvement in Opteo.