What's the best way to promote a B2B webinar with LinkedIn ads: Event Ads, a Lead Gen Form or a landing page?

TofuAnswer by the Tofu team · checked

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It depends on where the webinar runs. For a LinkedIn Event, especially LinkedIn Live, use Event Ads: members register in one click and attendees get reminders. For a webinar on Zoom, ON24 or another tool, a Lead Gen Form ad keeps sign-up inside LinkedIn with pre-filled fields, but only works if each registrant reaches your webinar tool quickly. A landing page adds a step, but your webinar tool sends the join link and records who attended. LinkedIn publishes no show-up rates for any of the three, so compare attendance by source yourself.

As of October 2026.

What's the difference between Event Ads, a Lead Gen Form and a landing page?

Event AdsLead Gen Form adLanding page
Where people sign upOn a LinkedIn Event, with "single-click event registration directly from the ad," or on your site for an off-platform event adA form inside LinkedIn, pre-filled from the member's profileYour site or your webinar tool's page
Ad set objectiveBrand awareness, Engagement or Website visits; some LinkedIn help pages add Lead generation (see below)Lead generationWebsite visits or Website conversions
What you collectWith a LinkedIn Event registration form (Page events only): name, email, job title, company and country/regionUp to 12 fields, including up to 3 custom questions, plus up to 20 hidden fieldsWhatever your form asks
Getting registrants into your webinar toolZapier, or a download from the EventA sync through your CRM, marketing automation or a connectorAutomatic, if the form is your webinar tool's own
Who attendedFor Events on your Page, LinkedIn can tell registrants who attended from those who didn'tYour webinar tool, once matchedYour webinar tool

Are LinkedIn Event Ads worth it for webinar registrations?

For an event hosted on LinkedIn, LinkedIn's own numbers say yes, but they compare Event Ads with no promotion, not with Lead Gen Forms or landing pages. Citing internal 2025 data, LinkedIn says company events promoted with Event Ads get "31x more viewers" and "4.4x more registrations than those events without event ads promotion," on average. In November 2025, it said Impact.com "doubled event attendance" with the format.

What makes Event Ads different for a LinkedIn Live webinar:

  • The ad changes by stage: a static image before, the livestream during, the replay after, but only for events hosted on LinkedIn. Members sent to another site see a static ad throughout.
  • One ad set or three: a single ad set runs end to end with a fixed audience, budget and bidding. Three ad sets (before, during, after) let you change audiences and bids and turn on accelerated delivery during the session.
  • Scheduling: standard delivery paces spend to finish by 11:59 PM UTC on the end date, so an early end time can leave budget unspent.
  • Reporting: registrations show in the Performance or Conversions & Leads views, sometimes with a slight delay.

Can Event Ads promote a webinar on Zoom, ON24 or another platform?

Yes, in two ways.

  1. A LinkedIn Event with an external link. When you create the Event, select External event link if you "plan to stream or host your event off LinkedIn but only want to promote your event on LinkedIn." LinkedIn recommends LinkedIn Live where you can, because attendees may drop off when they switch platforms. Page events can add a LinkedIn registration form, which needs a privacy policy link.
  2. An off-platform event ad. LinkedIn's help says: "In April 2026, we are launching off-platform event ads to promote events hosted off LinkedIn." You don't need a LinkedIn Event: in Campaign Manager you enter your event's URL, then its type (Online or In Person), time zone and start and end dates and times, and the ad sends people to your registration page.

Either way, LinkedIn describes attendance audiences only for Events hosted on your Page.

Can I attach a Lead Gen Form to an Event Ad?

LinkedIn's announcement and several help pages say yes, but two help pages say no. In November 2025, LinkedIn announced that marketers "can now choose lead generation as an objective when running an event ad" and "route leads from registration to their preferred CRM or marketing automation platform." Its Lead Gen Forms and Lead generation objective pages list Event as an ad format, and its off-platform event ads page lists lead generation as an objective. PPC Land reported in May 2026 that with this option, "Members submit the event registration form directly from the ad unit."

But LinkedIn's Event ads page lists Lead Generation in one section and, in its limitations table, says event ads are "currently only available with the brand awareness, engagement, or website visits objectives." Its page on creating ads for LinkedIn Events names only those three. Check whether Event appears as a format when you create a Lead generation ad set.

Should I use a Lead Gen Form or my website for event signups?

Use a Lead Gen Form for the shortest sign-up, if LinkedIn leads already reach your webinar tool within minutes. Settings that help:

  • Hidden fields (up to 20, "for tracking purposes") can carry the webinar ID and source, so your sync knows which session to register each lead for.
  • The confirmation message (up to 300 characters) and the landing page URL after submit can point to an add-to-calendar page.
  • Fewer fields. If people open the form and don't submit, see why LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms get opens but no submissions.

Use a landing page when your webinar tool should send the join link right away, when you need questions a form can't hold, or when you want attendance by source without a sync. Run it on Website conversions if conversion tracking records the sign-up, or Website visits if not; see which LinkedIn objective to pick for a cold audience.

Do people who register through a Lead Gen Form actually show up?

We found no published show-up rates by registration path, from LinkedIn or anyone else. General webinar benchmarks:

SourceLive attendance
Wistia (April 22, 2026), Wistia-hosted webinars"About 40% of people who register" attend live
Contrast (updated April 16, 2026), 1M+ registrantsA good rate is "between 44% and 50% of registrants attending live"; 61% watch live or on demand

Tag each registrant's source with a hidden field or UTM, and after two or three webinars compare attendance rate and cost per attendee for each path. PPC Land reported that LinkedIn's April 2026 update added "attendance signals in registration downloads," which may help for events on LinkedIn.

How do I get LinkedIn registrants into my webinar platform?

It depends on the route:

  • Lead Gen Form ads: LinkedIn says Lead Gen Forms can "Sync lead data directly to marketing automation platforms, CRMs, or CDPs." From there, your marketing automation or a connector registers each lead.
  • A LinkedIn Event registration form: LinkedIn's integrations page, last updated two years ago, names Zapier as the only supported integration. Otherwise, download registrants from the Registration section in the Event's Analytics tab. LinkedIn warns of "a four to five-day delay" before a registrant appears there, so a late sign-up can miss your reminder emails. Data stays downloadable for one year, and marketing may go only to members who ticked the consent checkbox.
  • Event Ads with the Lead generation objective: LinkedIn's November 2025 announcement named new Integrate and ON24 integrations, and said ON24-hosted events can be created and managed through an integration on LinkedIn.

How do I follow up with people who registered but didn't attend?

For Events hosted on your LinkedIn Page, Matched Audiences can retarget members who "Registered for your LinkedIn Event but didn't attend," as well as those who attended, clicked to attend, or engaged without registering. An audience needs at least 300 member accounts to run. For Lead Gen Form ads, you can build an audience of members who opened or submitted the form, looking back 30 to 365 days. Show no-shows the replay, and exclude people who attended.

Which should I use for my webinar?

  • On LinkedIn Live: Event Ads, with three ad sets for accelerated delivery during the session.
  • On Zoom, ON24 or another tool, with leads that already sync to it: a Lead Gen Form ad, or an Event Ad with the Lead generation objective if your account offers it.
  • No sync, or you need your own questions: a landing page on your webinar tool, with Website conversions.
  • Not sure: split one webinar's budget between a Lead Gen Form and a landing page, and judge on cost per attendee.

Where Tofu fits

Tofu Ads Agent (our product) plans and builds LinkedIn campaigns, including single image, carousel, document, video and conversation ads with lead gen forms, so it can build the Lead Gen Form route for a webinar. For the landing page route, it can set up a LinkedIn conversion event for a page visit, such as your registration thank-you page. Campaigns are staged in your own ad account switched off, and a person turns them on. Tofu doesn't build Event Ads or LinkedIn Events, doesn't host webinars, and doesn't register people in your webinar tool, send reminders or report who attended. It costs a flat $2,500 per month.

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