LinkedIn Vertical Video for B2B: 4:5 or 9:16, and at What Cost

On LinkedIn, B2B vertical video is played in 4:5 by default and in 9:16 only for the mobile video feed: the platform accepts four ratios for Video Ads, two of them vertical, for durations from 3 seconds to 30 minutes. The format decides nothing. What decides is the buying unit, a target account reached rather than a view, and the clock: a LinkedIn creative is judged at day 30 and day 90, never at day 7. What follows is the full grid: ratio by placement, marginal cost of verticalisation, a sustainable monthly output.

LinkedIn vertical video: what are you really buying in B2B?

You are not buying a view, you are buying a target account reached, and you pay three to four times the price of an Instagram impression for it. That is the only sentence that changes anything about how a B2B LinkedIn video should be built. On the French accounts we have been managing since 2024, LinkedIn CPM runs between €45 and €80 depending on how tight the targeting is, compared with €10 to €20 on Instagram for broad audiences. This is not an anomaly to fix: it is the price of a list of 600 finance directors at mid-sized companies rather than 600,000 people ‘interested in finance’.

The consequence is arithmetic. Take an ABM list of 800 accounts, five identifiable decision-makers per account, so 4,000 reachable people. At a €60 CPM and six useful impressions per person, you spend €1,440 in the month. That works out at €1.80 per target account actually exposed. Put that figure in front of a sales director and they get it immediately. Show them a 3-second retention rate and they look away.

The rest of the reasoning follows from this. If the buying unit is the account, the creative's job is not to stop a distracted thumb in an entertainment feed, but to be recognised by the same handful of people, several times, over several weeks. Two different jobs. The second tolerates a slightly slow 45-second video far better than a TikTok feed would.

Organic reach, meanwhile, has changed scale. In a field test published by Adweek on 5 November 2024, journalist Caroline Giegerich reports that her worst-performing video post reached almost three times as many people as her best written post. Her conclusion, which you never read in dimension guides: video there is mainly a top-of-funnel lever. In other words, coverage, not meetings.

4:5 or 9:16 on LinkedIn: which ratio for which placement?

4:5 is the default ratio in B2B; 9:16 only wins in the full-screen mobile video feed, and loses ground everywhere else. The official Video Ads specifications page lists four accepted ratios, 4:5 (0.8), 9:16 (0.57), 16:9 (1.78) and 1:1, with a 5% tolerance on the ratio, a file size of 75 KB to 500 MB, and durations from 3 seconds to 30 minutes. The dimension limits: 360×450 to 1080×1350 pixels in 4:5, 360×640 to 1080×1920 pixels in 9:16.

The trap is familiar to anyone who has opened Campaign Manager, yet it appears in no ‘LinkedIn video format’ guide: a considerable share of B2B viewing still happens on a computer screen, during the working day, between two meetings. On the accounts we monitor, desktop regularly accounts for between a third and half of impressions. A 9:16 served in a desktop feed becomes a narrow strip in the middle of the screen, with 28-pixel text that is unreadable. 4:5 holds up in both environments without serious compromise.

A position our clients don't always like: ‘vertical performs better’ is wrong by default on LinkedIn. On several B2B accounts we ran in 2025 with all three ratios in parallel within the same ad group, 4:5 and 1:1 beat 9:16 on cost per qualified click. Not everywhere, not always, but often enough for us to stop delivering 9:16 on its own. The rule remains the one we apply on Meta and TikTok: the ratio is chosen by placement, not by platform.

What we don't know, and need to own up to in front of a committee: Campaign Manager does not give, creative by creative, a clean breakdown between desktop feed, standard mobile feed and mobile video feed. We approximate it by cross-referencing device and viewing behaviour. Any agency that tells you otherwise with a three-colour pie chart is inventing the measurement.

Why is hook rate the wrong primary metric on LinkedIn?

Hook rate measures the thumb stopping; in B2B, a stopped thumb costs almost nothing and predicts almost nothing. In a professional feed, a video starts muted, in the middle of a text post that is skimmed, often on a screen where it takes up less than a third of the surface. The ‘3 seconds viewed’ signal is so noisy there that it is useless as a budget arbiter.

What we look at instead, in this order:

• Cost per target account reached at a useful frequency (at least 3 exposures over 30 days). This is the metric that replaces bare CPM.
• 25% completion rate and 10-second views, far more discriminating than a hook on an audience of 4,000 people.
• Share of the ABM list exposed: how many accounts have seen at least two different creatives from the same angle.
• Direct traffic and branded search over the campaign window, the best proxy for a non-click LinkedIn effect.
• Opportunities created in the CRM on exposed accounts versus unexposed control accounts.

This last line requires a discipline few teams maintain: keeping 15 to 20% of the target list out of delivery for a quarter. It is uncomfortable, it means forgoing potential contacts, and it is the only way to get a clean answer to the question ‘is this actually doing anything?’. We recommend it every time; we get it roughly one time in three.

Sound-off remains the basic rule: burnt-in subtitles, the speaker's name and job title shown within the first two seconds, one idea per video. Nothing new there. What is new is refusing to cut a creative because its hook rate is lower than another's, when it is reaching the right accounts.

How much does a LinkedIn vertical video really cost, line by line?

The right question is not ‘how much does a LinkedIn video cost’ but ‘how much does it cost to convert my existing assets to 4:5 and 9:16’, and that delta is counted in hundreds of euros, not thousands. Most B2B companies already have material: a webinar replay, an executive interview filmed for the website, a product demo, trade show footage. Reformatting this stock costs a fraction of a new shoot.

Beware the trap of crude cropping. Taking a 16:9 and switching it to 9:16 with automatic reframing gives you a shot where the speaker is cut off mid-face and the slide becomes unreadable. That is not verticalisation, it is mutilation. The real work: rebuilding the frame shot by shot, re-editing slides as full-screen inserts, redoing the typography, retiming the subtitles.

Ranges taken from our French quotes in 2025, for a studio specialising in vertical, editing included, excluding media spend and actors' rights. They vary with the quality of the original footage: footage shot in 4K with room in the frame costs half as much to verticalise as tightly framed 1080p.

The media floor matters as much as the production. Below €1,500 a month on a narrow LinkedIn audience, you are not buying performance: you are buying statistical noise. With a €60 CPM, a €1,000 monthly budget gives you 16,600 impressions, or four exposures for 4,000 people. That is barely the threshold where measurement starts to exist.

What are the four possible vertical video set-ups on LinkedIn?

An executive post, a brand awareness Video Ad, a conversion Video Ad and a Thought Leader Ad are not bought, framed or judged in the same way. Confusing them is the leading cause of campaigns rated poorly internally: a brand video gets judged on cost per lead, or an ABM campaign on view count.

Media ranges observed on our French B2B campaigns in 2025, for audiences of 15,000 to 80,000 members. They only make sense with a clean account list as input.

The filmed executive: who speaks changes the price

A Thought Leader Ad amplifies a person's post, not a page's. Technically, it adds nothing to the video. Humanly, it changes everything: a recognised face in a niche sector generates a direct-message response rate the company page will never reach. The price of this set-up is a price of availability: you need to capture 6 to 10 talking pieces in half a day, because an executive won't reshoot three times a month. Choosing the spokesperson follows the same logic as elsewhere, who speaks: the four spokespeople and their costs.

A detail that costs dearly when forgotten: the teleprompter. A founder reading a script written by marketing is spotted within two seconds, and what they gain in polish they lose in credibility. We shoot in question-and-answer format, with the interviewer off camera, and then edit. On the organic side, the video only lives if someone replies to comments within the hour; the topic is covered in detail in our guide to building community around these videos.

When Can You Judge a LinkedIn Creative: Day 7, 30 or 90?

At D+7 you judge delivery, at D+30 you judge pipeline, at D+90 you judge the money, and you never cut a B2B creative before D+30 on the strength of its hook. This is the most expensive difference in timing between e-commerce and B2B. For an online shop, a media test is settled in five days. On a software buying cycle with a €40,000 ACV, the journey from click to qualified opportunity takes one to two months according to benchmarks shared by several B2B analytics vendors, and that is also what we see in our clients' CRMs.

The protocol we apply, inspired by our general method on how long it takes to see results from creative ads:

• D+7, technical check. Is the creative delivering? Frequency, CPM, distribution of impressions across variants. We only cut what isn't spending or what blows the CPM out by more than 50% compared with the group.
• D+30, audience check. How many accounts on the list have seen at least three impressions? Which creative is generating direct visits, connection requests, replies? We reallocate the budget; we don't kill anything yet.
• D+90, economic check. Opportunities created on exposed accounts versus control accounts, cost per opportunity, value of influenced pipeline. Only at this point does a creative die or become a standard.

A LinkedIn video campaign stopped after three weeks hasn't failed: it has never been measured. If the budget can't last a quarter, you're better off not launching it and putting the money elsewhere.

We learnt this the hard way. In 2024, for a French SaaS vendor with €4M ARR, we cut two "slow" creatives at D+18 in favour of a punchier edit. The two opportunities signed the following quarter came from accounts exposed to the creatives we had cut. Since then, the 30-day freeze has been written into our B2B contracts: no changes to creatives before D+30, except for technical issues.

What Production Volume for B2B: 2, 4 or 10 Videos a Month?

Two to four vertical videos a month are enough in B2B, compared with twelve to twenty in e-commerce, because your audience is a hundred times smaller and your cycle ten times longer. Volume is calculated from the audience, not from ambition. With a LinkedIn audience of 20,000 members and €3,000 of monthly media spend, you serve around 50,000 impressions; spread across four creatives, each one gets enough to be judged. Across ten creatives, you get ten unreadable signals.

Ad fatigue sets in faster on a narrow audience, and it shows in frequency, not on the calendar. Beyond 8 to 10 impressions per person per month on the same creative, cost per click climbs and comments turn hostile. Two levers: alternate faces, and rotate angles rather than visual treatments.

The right breakdown looks like this over a typical B2B quarter: three angles (a business-problem angle, a customer-proof angle, a market-vision angle), three to five variants per angle, produced over two shoot days. That makes nine to fifteen masters for twelve weeks, each delivered in 4:5 and, for half of them, in 9:16. Calculating the adaptations follows the same logic as everywhere else: the 3 then 5 to 8 variants per angle rule.

An honest caveat: this calibration applies to targets of a few thousand to a few tens of thousands of decision-makers. If you sell to very small businesses with a target of 400,000 people, you are actually closer to a B2C model and volume needs to go up. The criterion isn't the "B2B" label but audience size and contract value.

What Mistakes Kill a LinkedIn Vertical Video Campaign?

Seven mistakes account for almost all the B2B LinkedIn video campaigns that produce nothing, and none of them is a format mistake. Here they are, in the order we come across them in audits.

• 16:9 cropped automatically. Logo cut off, unreadable slide, off-centre speaker. Visible in a second, and it signals how much care the company is perceived to take.
• An audience that's too narrow. Below 15,000 to 20,000 members, LinkedIn delivers poorly and CPM soars. ABM is built with broad account lists and a tight message, not the other way round.
• The default "Learn more" CTA. It says nothing about the action expected. "Watch the 4-minute demo" or "Download the comparison" shift the qualified click-through rate far more than a change of ratio.
• Cutting at D+5. Covered above: it's the e-commerce clock applied to a two-month buying cycle.
• The executive reading from a teleprompter. Perfect diction, dead eyes, zero credibility. Film them in an interview, then edit.
• The Lead Gen form with no sales follow-up. A LinkedIn lead not called back within 48 hours is worth roughly nothing, whatever its acquisition cost.
• Media budget lower than production cost. Spending €6,000 on a shoot for €800 of monthly delivery is funding a corporate film, not a campaign.

The Statistic Everyone Has Been Recycling for Fifteen Years

In almost every sales deck on B2B video, you'll find the same statistic: 59% of executives would rather watch video than read text. It comes from a Forbes Insights study, "Video in the C-Suite", which states that if both text and video are available on the same topic on the same page, executives are more likely to choose video. The detail nobody mentions: the study dates from 2010. Before Reels, before TikTok, before LinkedIn's mobile video feed. Citing it as a current argument says a lot about the depth of the analysis that goes with it.

On the question of who produces it, external studio, freelancer or in-house team, the threshold is the same as elsewhere: below about ten videos a month, bringing production in-house costs more than it returns, and B2B rarely exceeds that threshold. A software vendor with a communications officer and a properly set-up iPhone can handle the weekly executive post very well; they won't have the time or the tools to manage twelve ad adaptations and their iterations.

One last thing, which matters more than everything above. LinkedIn vertical video works when it says something your competitor can't say: an implementation figure, a regulatory constraint in your sector, an unflattering customer review owned up to. 4:5 won't rescue a hollow message; it simply makes it easier to read on a 6-inch screen, at €1.80 per account reached.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which vertical video format should you use on LinkedIn for B2B?

4:5 first and foremost, with dimensions between 360×450 and 1080×1350 pixels. It's the only vertical ratio that works on both the mobile feed and the desktop feed, which is still very present in B2B. 9:16 (up to 1080×1920) is reserved for clips intended for the full-screen mobile video feed and for event content.

Does vertical video really work on LinkedIn?

Yes for reach, not automatically for conversion. Video reaches far more people than text organically, but it works mainly at the top of the funnel. In our multi-ratio tests in 2025, 4:5 and square sometimes beat 9:16 on cost per qualified click: vertical isn't a winner by default.

How much does a LinkedIn video cost for a B2B company?

An executive shoot day producing 6 to 10 videos costs between €3,500 and €7,000 in France, editing included. If you start from existing assets, converting a master to vertical costs €250 to €450 in 4:5 and €120 to €220 for the 9:16 version. Ranges taken from our 2025 quotes, excluding media spend.

What minimum budget do you need for LinkedIn video ads?

Allow a floor of €1,500 a month on a targeted audience. With a CPM of around €45 to €80, three to four times that of Instagram, a smaller budget doesn't generate enough impressions to reach a useful frequency on your account list. Below that, you're buying statistical noise.

How long before you judge a LinkedIn video campaign?

Three windows: D+7 to check delivery is healthy, D+30 to measure target account coverage and pipeline signals, D+90 to make the economic call. The journey from click to qualified opportunity takes one to two months in B2B: cutting at D+7 on an attention metric is like judging a long-distance race at the first kilometre.

How many videos should you produce per month for LinkedIn in B2B?

Two to four masters a month are enough for an audience of a few tens of thousands of members, compared with twelve to twenty in e-commerce. Beyond that, media budget gets spread too thin and no creative receives enough impressions to be evaluated. The right pace: three angles per quarter, three to five variants per angle, two shoot days.