LinkedIn Ads Updates October 2025: The Complete Guide to AI and CTV

The world of B2B marketing has reached a very interesting crossroads as we move into the final months of 2025. If you have been running ads on LinkedIn for a few years, you probably remember when the platform felt a bit stiff and predictable. You would pick a job title, upload a square image, write a headline, and hope for the best. But as we sit here in October 2025, that old playbook feels like it belongs in a museum. The landscape has shifted from simple targeting to a complex ecosystem driven by artificial intelligence, video consumption, and a deep need for human connection. I have spent a lot of time recently looking at how these changes are affecting my own clients, and the biggest takeaway is that the “corporate” voice is fading while the “personal” voice is louder than ever.

October is always a critical month for anyone in the advertising world, but this year it feels even more intense. This is the start of the fourth quarter, which is when most companies are looking to finish the year strong and burn through their remaining budgets. It is also the time when decision makers are planning for the next year. Because of this, the competition for attention on LinkedIn usually goes through the roof in October. Prices for ads typically climb, and users get bombarded with messages. This year, LinkedIn has timed its most significant updates to help advertisers cut through that noise. If you do not adapt to these specific October updates, you will likely find that your costs will go up while your leads go down. I’ve noticed that the advertisers who are winning right now are the ones who aren’t afraid to let the new AI tools take the wheel while they focus on the creative strategy.

The Rise of the Human Brand: Thought Leader Ads 2.0

One of the most exciting updates this month is the massive expansion of Thought Leader Ads. When these first came out, they were a bit limited because you could only promote posts from people who actually worked at your company. While that was great for building the profiles of CEOs or sales reps, it still felt a little bit like a closed loop. As of October 2025, LinkedIn has broken those walls down. Now, you can actually partner with people outside of your company—like industry influencers, happy customers, or strategic partners—and sponsor their content directly. This is a huge shift because it allows you to leverage “third-party credibility.” If a famous industry analyst writes a post about why your software is the best in the market, you can now put money behind that post to make sure your entire target audience sees it.

The reason this works so well comes down to basic human psychology. In 2025, people have become incredibly good at ignoring traditional ads. We see a corporate logo and our brains instantly register it as “someone trying to sell me something,” so we keep scrolling. But when we see a person’s face and a post that looks like a genuine thought or a story, we stop. We trust people far more than we trust brands. I recently ran a test for a SaaS client where we split the budget between a standard “Company Page” ad and a “Thought Leader” ad from one of their lead engineers. The personal post got nearly triple the engagement. This update means you need to stop thinking like a broadcaster and start thinking like a talent scout. You need to find the people who are already talking about your industry and figure out how to collaborate with them.

Generative AI: Your New Creative Co-Pilot

If you had told me two years ago that I would be letting an AI write my ad copy and pick my images, I probably would have laughed. But the October 2025 updates to LinkedIn’s “Accelerate” campaign feature have made me a believer. This is no longer just a basic tool that suggests a few keywords. The current version of Accelerate is a full-scale campaign engine. You can now provide the AI with a link to a landing page, and it will scan the entire page to understand your product, your tone of voice, and your target audience. From there, it builds multiple versions of an ad in just a few seconds. It creates different headlines, different body text, and even generates AI images or short video clips that match your brand’s style.

What makes this truly powerful is the multi-variant testing. In the past, if I wanted to test five different headlines, I had to manually set up five different ads and wait weeks to see which one performed better. Now, the AI does this in real time across hundreds of different combinations. It might show a long-form, data-driven version of the ad to a CEO who likes to read, while showing a short, punchy, image-heavy version to a busy marketing manager. I have seen this drastically reduce the “learning phase” for new campaigns. Instead of wasting money for two weeks while the system figures out who to show the ad to, the AI usually finds the right audience within 48 hours. It takes a lot of the guesswork out of the process, though I still believe a human needs to keep an eye on the final output to make sure it doesn’t lose that unique brand spark.

B2B Video: Going Vertical and Going Big (CTV)

We are officially living in the age of vertical video, even on LinkedIn. For a long time, LinkedIn was the last holdout where horizontal, professional-looking videos were the standard. But the mobile app has changed, and the way people consume content has changed with it. The October update has prioritized vertical video in the feed, giving it more “real estate” on the screen. If you are scrolling on your phone, a vertical video takes up the whole screen, which means there are no other distractions. I’ve found that these videos feel much more authentic and “raw.” You don’t need a high-end camera and a lighting crew anymore. In fact, some of my best-performing video ads lately have been simple “selfie-style” videos where a founder explains a solution to a common problem. It feels like a FaceTime call with a friend, which builds immediate rapport.

But while video is getting smaller and more vertical on mobile, it is also getting much bigger elsewhere. LinkedIn has fully launched its Connected TV (CTV) ad placements this month. This means your B2B ads can now show up on actual television screens through streaming services. You might think, “Why would I want my accounting software ad to show up while someone is watching a movie?” The answer is that B2B buyers are people, and they watch TV too. Being on the big screen gives your brand a level of prestige that you just can’t get from a tiny banner ad. It makes your company look “established” and “trustworthy.” The targeting is still handled through LinkedIn, so you aren’t just blasting it to everyone; you are showing it to people who work in specific industries or at specific companies while they are sitting in their living rooms. It is a powerful way to build brand awareness before your sales team even makes a call.

Targeting in a Privacy-First World

The way we track people online has been under attack for years, and by October 2025, the old-fashioned “cookie” is essentially a thing of the past. LinkedIn has spent a lot of time preparing for this, and the latest updates focus on what they call “Intent Signals.” Since LinkedIn has so much data about what people are actually doing on their platform, they don’t need to follow you around the rest of the internet as much as they used to. They know which articles you are reading, which groups you are joining, and which jobs you are looking at. The new targeting updates allow advertisers to tap into these signals more deeply. For example, you can now target people who have “shown interest” in a specific topic over the last 30 days, even if they haven’t visited your website yet.

This is a move away from “demographic” targeting (like age or gender) and toward “behavioral” targeting. I think this is a much smarter way to do business. Just because someone has the job title of “Marketing Director” doesn’t mean they are currently looking for a new agency. But if that person starts attending webinars about SEO and joining LinkedIn Groups for marketing strategy, that is a huge signal that they might be in the market for help. LinkedIn is also pushing its “Conversion API” (CAPI) very hard this month. I highly recommend setting this up if you haven’t already. It allows your website to talk directly to LinkedIn’s server, which makes your data much more accurate and helps you see the true return on your investment, even without traditional tracking pixels.

Interactive Newsletter Ads

Another feature that has really taken off in the October update is the sponsorship of LinkedIn Newsletters. Almost every major industry leader now has a newsletter on the platform, and the engagement rates on these are massive. Unlike a post in the feed that might be gone in a second, a newsletter lands in a user’s inbox and stays in their “My Network” tab. LinkedIn has now introduced “Interactive Newsletter Ads” which allow you to place a Lead Gen Form directly inside someone else’s newsletter.

This is a very low-friction way to get leads. If I am reading a newsletter about the future of AI in finance, and there is a small ad for a whitepaper on that exact topic, I can click “Download” without ever leaving the newsletter. The form is already pre-filled with my LinkedIn information, so I don’t have to type anything. For the advertiser, this is gold. You are catching people when they are already in a “learning mindset” and are highly engaged with the content. I’ve noticed that leads coming from newsletter sponsorships tend to be much higher quality than those coming from the general feed because the audience is much more self-selected and focused.

Personal Opinions and Strategy Tips

After spending the last few weeks digging into these updates, I have a few strong opinions on what you should do next. First, do not let the AI do everything. It is a great tool for saving time, but it can sometimes make your brand sound a bit generic. Use the AI to generate ideas and handle the boring parts of setting up campaigns, but always have a human editor go over the copy to make sure it sounds like it came from a real person. I’ve seen some “AI-only” campaigns that were technically perfect but felt completely soulless, and they just didn’t convert as well as the ones with a little bit of human personality.

Also, if you are not using Thought Leader Ads yet, you are falling behind. This is the single biggest opportunity on LinkedIn right now. If I were starting a campaign today, I would spend at least 40% of my budget on sponsoring posts from real people rather than my company page. And finally, be patient with the new CTV and Video formats. These are “top of the funnel” tools. They are meant to make people aware of who you are, so don’t expect them to generate a bunch of sales overnight. They are long-term plays that make your “bottom of the funnel” ads (like Lead Gen Forms) work much better because people will already recognize your name when they see your offer.

One mistake I see people making with the October rollout is trying to use all the new features at once. It can be overwhelming. My advice is to pick one—maybe it’s vertical video or maybe it’s the new newsletter ads—and master it before moving to the next. Marketing is a marathon, not a sprint, even in the fast-paced world of 2025.

Conclusion

The LinkedIn Ads updates for October 2025 show a clear path forward for the industry. The platform is becoming more automated through AI, more visual through vertical video and TV placements, and more human through the evolution of Thought Leader Ads. Success in this new era requires a mix of technical savvy and creative storytelling. You have to be willing to trust the algorithms to handle the targeting and testing, but you also have to work harder than ever to make sure your content feels authentic and valuable to the person on the other side of the screen. As we head into the busiest time of the advertising year, those who embrace these changes will be the ones who see the best results.

FAQ

Q: Are Thought Leader Ads more expensive than regular image ads?
A: Generally, the Cost Per Click (CPC) can be a bit higher because these ads are highly engaging and compete for premium space in the feed. However, the higher conversion rates often lead to a lower Cost Per Lead (CPL) in the long run.

Q: Do I need a huge budget to try Connected TV (CTV) ads on LinkedIn?
A: Not necessarily. While TV sounds expensive, LinkedIn allows you to set daily budgets just like any other ad. You can start small by targeting a very specific list of companies (ABM) to see how it works before scaling up.

Q: Can the AI create videos for me in the “Accelerate” campaigns?
A: Yes, the 2025 update allows the AI to pull assets from your website or existing image library to create short, motion-based video clips that work well for the feed.

Q: What is the most important thing to do for Q4 2025?
A: Focus on “Human” content. Whether it is vertical video or Thought Leader Ads, make sure your brand has a face and a voice. Purely corporate advertising is becoming less effective every month.

Q: How do I get permission to sponsor someone else’s post for a Thought Leader Ad?
A: You simply enter the URL of the post in Campaign Manager. LinkedIn then sends a notification to that person asking for their permission. Once they click “Approve,” you can add your budget and targeting to their post.