Social Rocket
Creators are becoming ever more important to LinkedIn's advertising business. In its latest fiscal quarter, the number of ads featuring creators rose by 63 percent year on year, according to LinkedIn. Traditional paid video ads grew by 25 percent. At the same time, members spent 15 percent more time with content on the platform.
The new figures come directly from LinkedIn's leadership
The figures were published by LinkedIn CEO Daniel Shapero on 29 October 2026 in connection with Microsoft's quarterly results. In his public LinkedIn video, he spoke of accelerated use of the feed and a positive effect on the advertising business.
According to the platform, the number of registered members has now reached more than 1,4 billion worldwide. This is the size of the member network, not the number of monthly active users. For marketers, the combination of rising time spent and growing ad formats is more meaningful than the raw member count.
B2B advertising is becoming more personal
For a long time, advertising in the LinkedIn feed consisted mainly of company messages, lead forms and job ads. Creator Ads extend this model: brands can tap into the reach of people whose expertise and perspectives are already known to their audience. These can be industry experts, executives or specialised creators.
At its core, it's about credibility and topic expertise. A product video from a company account competes directly with a post from a person the target audience already follows. LinkedIn has expanded its creator discovery features for B2B marketing for this purpose. Rules on fees, rights and labelling are also becoming more relevant, as our article on the prices of sponsored LinkedIn posts shows.
Video is no longer just an add-on format
The 25 percent increase in paid video fits LinkedIn's push to orient the feed more strongly towards video and regular use. The benefit for brands lies not only in additional video views: short explainers, expert conversations and personal experience reports can make complex B2B topics more tangible. A LinkedIn study on Gen Z B2B marketing underlines the role of experts and short videos for younger audiences.
The platform is simultaneously developing other revenue streams. Shapero reported 121 percent growth in Premium Company Pages and 25.000 organisations using LinkedIn's AI-powered recruiting products. Microsoft itself has changed its separate LinkedIn revenue reporting with the new segment structure; the specific advertising figures come from Shapero's platform update.
What German companies should test now
For B2B teams, the most practical entry point is a clearly defined collaboration: a suitable expert, a strong topic, one video or post and a concrete campaign goal. Afterwards you can measure whether reach, qualified contacts or demand emerge. If you already work with experts, you can deliberately extend content that performs well organically, rather than producing a new company ad each time.
LinkedIn's new monetisation offers for creators show that the platform also wants to create economic incentives for these partnerships.
LinkedIn's latest figures are a signal for B2B marketing: The company page remains important, but people with professional voices are taking up an ever larger share of paid reach.
Sources: Daniel Shapero, LinkedIn update from 29 October 2026; Microsoft, Q1 FY2027, 28 October 2026; Social Media Today, LinkedIn analysis.
Image: LinkedIn for Marketing, official visual for Thought Leader Ads.