Mason

Market research · 47,985 ads · 658 advertisers

We searched 30 days of the LinkedIn Ad Library.
Who works the leads?

A sweep of LinkedIn ads, then a check of each small advertiser's staff. Most had no sales team or a small one.

Read the findings Get the checklist
Ads shown 21 Sep to 19 Oct 2026By Shreyan Rajesh

Mason / Research · Published 9 November 2026

465 of 658small LinkedIn advertisers we checked had no sales team or a small one
178 of 187at 11 to 25 staff
52 of 183at 51 to 100 staff

Of the 658 small LinkedIn advertisers we checked, 465 had no sales team or a small one to work the leads. We searched 30 days of the LinkedIn Ad Library, then read the staff of advertisers of 100 people or fewer. Thin teams were a minority only at 51 to 100 staff.

THE QUESTION

Is anyone there
to work the leads?

An ad buys attention. Someone still has to answer the form, call back and run the meeting. We wanted to know how often a company paying for LinkedIn ads has a sales team to do that. Running ads alone is not a trigger event; the gap behind the ad might be.

HOW WE CHECKED

One 30-day sweep, ads shown in the US.
Then the staff of each small advertiser.

The LinkedIn Ad Library is public and free to search. We ran 250 keyword searches, opened each advertiser, and read the staff list of the small ones. A model read every job title; code set the band.

47,985 ads4,929 advertisers658 staff lists with a resultAds shown 21 Sep to 19 Oct

01 / The sweep

From 47,985 ads to 658 companies

Most of the work is the narrowing. Each step has its own count, from the run's own log.

47,985

ads from 250 keyword searches

658

small advertisers with a sales-team result

One sweep, ads shown in the US, 30 days to 19 October 2026
StepCountWhat the step did
Ads returned47,985250 keyword searches of the Ad Library: 153 for software and tech sellers, 97 for services firms.
Kept as relevant42,665A model read each ad card and kept those that fit the search.
Advertisers opened4,929One detail page per advertiser, not per ad.
After cuts3,267Shown inside the window, 11 to 500 staff, in a country we cover.
Fit the B2B profile2,691A model judged whether each company sells to businesses.
Staff lists read729New companies of 11 to 100 staff by the contact database's size, smallest first. 1,766 more were deferred for budget, and 196 were already known.
With a result658The other 71 dropped out before a result.

02 / The teams

Behind most of these ads, six or fewer in sales

"No sales team" means 2 or fewer people in sales or revenue roles at a company of 100 or fewer. "Small" means 3 to 6. A model read every title on the staff list; code set the band.

271

no sales team

and
194

a small one, of 658

Of 658 advertisers with a result
Sales teamCompanies, of 658People in sales
No sales team0 to 2
Small3 to 6
Growing7 to 15
Sales floor16 or more
Could not readn/a
78 of 658

Nobody at all.

No one in a sales or revenue role on the staff list. Another 105 had exactly one person, and 88 had two.

326 of 445

Software and tech.

Advertisers found by the tech searches. Services firms were close behind: 139 of 213.

1 ad

Most run very little.

The median thin-team advertiser had one live ad. 83 of the 465 ran 5 or more, and one ran 109.

03 / Size

The smaller the company, the thinner the team

The share with no sales team or a small one, by staff on the company's LinkedIn page. Part of this trend is built into the rule: the bands count people, not a share of staff, so a bigger company crosses them sooner.

117 of 120

1 to 10 staff.

Nearly all. 109 had no sales team at all by our rule.

178 of 187

11 to 25 staff.

Still nearly all: 112 with no sales team and 66 with a small one.

118 of 168

26 to 50 staff.

Most, and mostly small teams: 79 small, 39 none. 43 had a growing team.

52 of 183

51 to 100 staff.

A minority. 88 had a growing team and 39 a sales floor.

Bigger advertisers (26 to 500 staff)

We read a sample a week later: 100 advertisers across 26 to 500 staff and unknown size, 92 with a result. For 50 of them the staff list was too partial to trust.

Where we could read it

20 of the other 42 had no sales team or a small one.

In the same week, 95 of 100 at 5 to 25 staff did.

So a thin team behind the ads is a small-company pattern. Thin teams are a minority only at 51 to 100 staff (52 of 183), and only 78 of all 658 had literally nobody in sales.

04 / Where

US advertisers were thinner than UK ones

The sweep searched ads shown in the US, so most advertisers are American. The headquarters split below is by the company's own record; the UK group is small.

330 of 457

US-headquartered

vs
18 of 38

UK-headquartered

88 of 126

Other countries.

Canada (34), Germany, Sweden and others, advertising to the US. 29 of 37 more had no country on record.

35,688

The UK is big too.

Ads shown in the UK in 30 days to 4 November, at about 10,500 advertisers. That run stopped before any staff were checked.

US first

What this means.

The sales-team numbers on this page are a US-shown sweep. A UK-shown sweep would be needed before saying the same of UK firms.

05 / Honest notes

Limits of this report

  • We read small companies first. Budget let us read 729 staff lists, and we chose new companies of 11 to 100 staff, smallest first, by the contact database's size. The bands on this page use the staff count on LinkedIn instead, which puts 120 of them at 1 to 10. Either way, every one of the 658 results is at 100 staff or fewer. Do not read 465 of 658 as a share of all advertisers.
  • Staff lists are partial. They come from contact databases and public profiles. In the "no sales team" group the median company had 73% of its staff listed, and 91 of 271 had under half. A low count can be a gap.
  • One sweep, ads shown in the US. 30 days to 19 October 2026, by keyword search, not the whole Ad Library.
  • Not a response-time study. We counted who could answer, not how fast anyone did.

Mistakes we caught

  • A 7-day search that was 30. Before 25 October, every run labelled 7 days really searched the last 30, with nothing saying so. This report uses the sweep that was meant to be 30 days. Check the window in the address the search loaded, not the setting you passed.
  • Too many browsers, no error. At 5 browsers on one machine, 15 searches were refused and 74 stopped scrolling, while the run reported nothing blocked. We search at 2 and top up.
  • The wrong company on the ad page. The first company link on an ad's page can be one the ad mentions. We take only the advertiser LinkedIn marks as the payer.

06 / Takeaway

Is anyone answering?

If you run LinkedIn ads at a company under 25 people, almost every company like yours that we checked had no sales team or a small one. The checklist is for you. The data has every count on this page, with no company names. It works the same for an agency or a market-entry consultant reading a client's ads.

Download the data (CSV)

Is anyone answering
  1. 01

    Count who in the company can take a lead today, by name. Founders count; a marketer who also sells counts once.

  2. 02

    Look at your own ads in the LinkedIn Ad Library. Each live ad is a promise someone will reply.

  3. 03

    Write down who replies to a form, a message and a comment, and within what time.

  4. 04

    If one person answers everything, spend on fewer, better-chosen accounts before more clicks.

  5. 05

    Before you hire a seller, decide which ten accounts they should call first.

  6. 06

    Check it again each month. The gap closes the week a sales hire starts.

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