Forecasted results for Classic ad campaigns in Campaign Manager

When you create a new Classic ad campaign, the forecasted results pane automatically generates expected campaign performance details in real time as you walk through the campaign process and select various campaign settings.

To calculate the forecast, Campaign Manager analyzes your campaign selections, such as your objective, audience, ad format, bid, budget, and schedule. It then considers similar campaigns and advertisers. Finally, Campaign Manager simulates the ad auction to generate the projected estimates.

Here's a tip

Forecasted results might not be available if there aren’t enough similar campaigns across LinkedIn to train our forecasting model.

Forecasted results pane

Important to know

• While we strive for accuracy in our forecasts, it's important to remember that forecasted results are an estimate and don't guarantee the actual performance of your campaign.
• Some products are not yet incorporated into forecasted results. A disclaimer at the bottom of the forecasted results pane provides details on any unsupported campaign selections made during the campaign creation process.
• Brand safety controls are not reflected in the forecasted results.

The forecasted results pane provides an estimate of:

Target audience size

The target audience size estimates the number of unique member accounts that fit your targeting criteria. As your Classic campaign serves ads, the number of member accounts that you reach will be lower than the target audience size.

Important to know

LinkedIn’s User Agreement requires members to have only one account per person. However, for various reasons, some members might occasionally have more than one account, and this can impact the recommended audience size.

Segment breakdown of target audience

Segment breakdown provides insights about your target audience, their interests, and where they work. These insights include Function, Seniority, Years of Experience, Company Size, Industries, and Interests. Segment breakdown automatically loads as you select a location and language and when you add at least one targeting segment or matched audience segment. The segment breakdown information is hidden by default. Click Show segments in the forecasted results pane to view the audience breakdown.

Projected spend

Projected spend is the projected amount spent for your Classic campaign. This number varies on your target campaign selections, for example, audience, schedule, budget, and more. Projected spend is available for 1-day, 7-day, and 30-day intervals.

Maximum potential spend

Maximum potential spend is the total spend that is hypothetically available with your bid and target audience, if you had unlimited daily budget and unlimited total budget. The maximum potential spend is hidden by default. To view the maximum potential spend in the forecasted results pane, click the icon and select the Show maximum potential spend checkbox.

Here's a tip

You will not spend the maximum potential spend amount in practice. The amount displayed in the 1-day, 7-day, and 30-day sections shows the actual forecasted spend.

Key result estimate related to your selected objective

The key result that your Classic campaign is optimized for is highlighted by a Key Result icon in the forecasted results pane. The key result for your campaign depends on your campaign objective, ad format, and bidding optimization goal.

Cost per key result estimate related to your selected objective

Cost per key result is the total spend of your Classic campaign divided by the number of results that are based on your objective. For example, cost per key result = spend / key results.

Important to know

Cost per key result, key result, and spend are forecasted independently to maximize accuracy. However, this means that their ranges might not match each other. For example, it is possible that the high end of spend divided by the low end of key results is not equal to the high end of cost per key result.

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