LinkedIn Ads, designed to facilitate professional connections, can be one of the best platforms in your marketing arsenal if you know how to use it.
Why should you advertise on LinkedIn? The platform has over 850 million members, with 40% of visitors engaging with a page every week. For more data from LinkedIn, check out this article, including paid engagement statistics.
Ready to learn how to advertise on LinkedIn? Let’s get started.
LinkedIn Ad Options: An Overview
LinkedIn used to be quite limited in its ad options, which didn’t give marketers much choice to achieve their goals.
But that has changed. LinkedIn appears determined to give advertisers the freedom to create ads based on specific objectives:
- Brand awareness.
- Website visits.
- Engagement.
- Video views.
- Lead generation.
- Website conversions.
- Job applications. The most commonly used goals in LinkedIn advertising are lead generation, job applications, video views, and website visits, but you can successfully use the platform for any of these goals.
Why Advertise on LinkedIn?
Describing itself as “the world’s largest professional network,” LinkedIn has over 875 million members in more than 200 countries and territories.
And as the only social platform exclusively focused on business-to-business connections, it’s an ideal place for B2B marketing. Whatever industry you’re targeting, you’ll find most of the key players on LinkedIn. More importantly, LinkedIn is where you’re most likely to find the actual decision-makers you’re looking for. Want to identify C-suite executives at a manufacturing firm? You need to look on LinkedIn. Targeting mortgage brokers at small to medium-sized firms? LinkedIn gives you the ability to do that.
Hiring for a new sales role and only want candidates with 5+ years of experience? You guessed it, LinkedIn is where you need to look. According to the platform’s own research, 80% of LinkedIn members influence purchasing decisions for their organizations, have twice the buying power of the average web audience, and are six times more likely to convert. So again, if you’re not already using it, you should jump on the LinkedIn Ads bandwagon right away.
How Do LinkedIn Ads Work?
Using LinkedIn Ads is a fairly straightforward process, especially if you already have experience with pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. To get started, sign up for LinkedIn Business Manager. This provides a single place where you can manage all your ad accounts and pages.
In this step, you can invite team members and partners, set permissions, and add assets. After that, you just need to choose a goal (awareness, consideration, or conversions), select your targeting options (location, characteristics, etc.), choose your ad format, and set your budget.
LinkedIn Ad Types
Depending on the goal you choose, four different ad types will be available to you:
Sponsored Content
Think of this as a promoted post. You’re promoting an article or post from your company page that appears in the LinkedIn feed. Screenshot from LinkedIn, January 2023 Note that these ads typically have the highest CPC, so proceed carefully and make sure the content you’re promoting is well-thought-out.
Text Ads
These are the small ads you might have noticed on the right sidebar of the LinkedIn feed. Think Facebook Ads circa 2010. Screenshot from LinkedIn, January 2023 In addition to the right column, these ads may also appear under the “People You May Know” section. This is where the text content can really make or break your ad conversions.
Test a few different strategies, but really get to the point with these ads.
Sponsored InMail
This is a super fun way to spam someone’s LinkedIn inbox. But if done correctly, it can convert at a higher rate than other LinkedIn ad options. Because these ads should come from a personal profile rather than a branded company page, people feel like they can actually communicate with a business representative instead of feeling like they’re being sold to. Screenshot from LinkedIn, January 2023 Please don’t copy and paste templates to your demographic. Take the care to make each InMail personal.
Video Ads
A bit self-explanatory here, but LinkedIn’s video ads help promote your videos to your ideal target market. You should be creating tons of video content. Screenshot from LinkedIn, January 2023 Test a variety of videos to see which type of video (topic, length, real life/animation) brings you the most conversions.
Need help with ad sizes and specifications? Here’s all the information you need for each ad type and goal when you start creating ads for LinkedIn:
- Ad Guidelines.
- Ad Specs for Dynamic Ads.
- Ad Specs for Sponsored Content.
- Ad Specs for Sponsored InMail.
- Dynamic Job Ads Specs for Talent Media.
- Ad Specs for Text Ads.
- Ad Specs for LinkedIn Image Ads.
How Do You Track LinkedIn Ad Conversions?
Site-Wide Insight Tag
This tag gives you insight into what actions are being taken on your website thanks to your LinkedIn ad.
Like the Facebook pixel, you can install this tag once and watch the data roll in.
It won’t break your website speed, but it will allow you to track what happens on your website as a result of your LinkedIn ad.
BONUS: Once you’ve installed the Insight tag and have regular site visitors, you can also set up LinkedIn retargeting ads.
Event-Specific Pixel
This tracking pixel is designed more for the lead generation type of goal. If there’s something you want someone to fill out a form for from your LinkedIn ad, but you don’t have a thank-you page set up or linked,
You can install this code and track a “conversion event” for every time the form is completed. If you haven’t set up conversion tracking, you can also add conversion tracking to existing campaigns – so don’t fret if you haven’t set up conversion tracking.
LinkedIn Ads Best Practices
Now that you know how you can use LinkedIn Ads, let’s dive deeper into how you should use LinkedIn and discuss some best practices to help you get the best results.
Define Your Target Audience
To help you identify and target the most likely-to-act prospects, you need to ask some questions:
- Who is your demographic, more than just male/female, age/location?
- Have they worked in the same industry their entire lives?
- Are they generally junior management or senior management?
- Do they stay at each job for two to four years?
You should already know the answers to all these questions, and if for some terrible reason you don’t, find the answers.
LinkedIn offers great targeting options for B2B marketers, but knowing the professional side of your demographic can help your ads convert.
Knowing how they take their coffee is great for Facebook, but on LinkedIn, you need to know if they’re in college today, what they majored in college, and choose those relevant factors as targeting options.
Optimize Your Ad Campaigns
It’s important to continuously monitor and optimize the performance of your LinkedIn ads. You can optimize your campaigns by considering many factors, including:
- Targeting: Evaluate whether you are reaching the right target audience.
- Content: Check if your ad copy and visuals are effective.
- Budget: Adjust your budget to get the best results.
- Timing: Determine which days and times your ads perform best.
Conduct A/B Tests Create different ad versions to determine which elements yield the best results. For example, you can test different headlines, visuals, or calls to action.
Measurement and Analysis LinkedIn offers a range of tools to help you measure and analyze your ad performance. Use these tools to determine which ads are performing best and where you can make improvements.
Conclusion LinkedIn Ads, when used correctly, can be a powerful tool for B2B marketers. This guide provides the basic information to help you create effective ad campaigns on LinkedIn. However, continuous testing, measurement, and optimization are important to achieve the best results.