It’s the time of digital marketing, and what can be more business-aligned than LinkedIn? Let’s face it: if you want to get customers – you go to Google, Facebook, or Microsoft. If you want to get contracts – you go for some LinkedIn ads. This platform has repeatedly proven that it’s the social media for professionals. It has an enormous group of individuals willing to invest their hard-earned money and time into new projects, and – they are always looking for great offers. LinkedIn advertising is viral among professionals willing to get into some B2B action all the time!
In this article, we will go over the benefits of LinkedIn Advertising and what it can do for you in addition to simply garnering some leads and conversions. Almost 950 million active users on LinkedIn (according to the site itself) are professionals, and with the advanced targeting options that it provides its users with – you will be surprised how much you can accomplish.
Why LinkedIn?
So – why LinkedIn? It’s a platform for professionals with 300 million decision-makers and senior-level influencers, according to the site! LinkedIn is the only platform that can grant you access to the most important people in critical places.
With lots of targeting options based on the demographics and additional information based on their actual LinkedIn profiles – that would mean a lot of in-depth data on different ways you can target the specific individuals on the site.
According to Hootsuite, LinkedIn has about twice the buying power of regular internet users, so targeting those individuals can get you pretty far. LinkedIn Ads can help professionals with contacting other professionals.
So, let’s review some of the critical elements of LinkedIn Ads that will help you garner attention.
Business Targeting
The first and, let’s face it, probably the most important part of LinkedIn Ads is its targeting. In other words – how well it knows its users. We should probably start with why people even go to LinkedIn in the first place. What are the reasons behind joining this particular social media?
The platform is well-known for its professional attitude towards people seeking employment or promoting their careers. Many people have their complete CVs on the site, where they lived, what they did, and how good they were at their job with the clever recommendations button.
It’s an enormous base of highly detailed information about one of the most important things about human beings – their job. Additionally, it can allow you to build B2B partnerships, find employees, create your position on the market as an expert, and gain more knowledge as a whole.
LinkedIn is great at finding just the right people for the job, but also – just the right people to promote to. It allows you to get the specific job titles, where they live, what industry they worked in, and even what schools they attended. It’s an enormous database that can help you create the perfect social media advertising and get you the opportunity to get just the right clients.
Professional Audience
With LinkedIn, you can prompt your business to professional audiences worldwide. Additionally, LinkedIn will allow you to narrow it down to the details of just what kind of people you are trying to reach.
Here, you can check for:
- Job title
- A skill that people possess
- Degrees they acquired throughout their careers
- What kind of company they are working for – and not only that – the specific company they are working for
- The whole industry they are providing their skills for
- And even some interests that they may have based on their profile
Audience Testing
Next up, we have the ever-growing popularity of the audience testing feature. It’s not all about better targeting. Sometimes, it’s about getting the right audience to engage with. This feature allows you to find potential business partners, but you can always go for another if one does not work out.
If you choose to use the audience testing feature, you can increase the reach of your posts, impressions, or your goal. A/B testing will also allow you to see what kind of audience is working out for you, who would be interested in getting involved in your company, and get more potential customers to learn more about your company.
Custom Targeting
LinkedIn Ads also allows you to use custom targeting. It’s a set of matching audiences that you can advertise to additionally. It’s like Facebook and Lookalike Audiences. The goal is to create new potential markets and get more conversions and impressions while not setting up a whole new campaign. Additionally, it’s beneficial for retargeting purposes. Here are the most common types of custom targeting.
Account Targeting
The first type of customer targeting is account targeting. You can simply upload the list of names that will be chosen for targeting purposes. It’s even possible to create an entirely new Excel file of all the companies you want to target.
Website Retargeting
Next up, we have the website retargeting options. This is pretty simple – those who have interacted with your website will be able to interact with it again! The whole Microsoft network will make sure of that.
Each time someone enters your website, adds something to the cart, or does another thing that you deem worthy of retargeting, they will be shown the ad among all the websites in Microsoft’s empire. Sometimes with an additional accessory, maybe a sale, or whatnot. According to Hootsuite, it has about 2x the conversion rate of regular posts, so that you can imagine – it’s pretty interesting.
Contact Targeting
And finally, we have the contact targeting. You can upload a whole list of email addresses into your LinkedIn (similar to Facebook) and target those individuals individually. It’s highly effective, as those people have already been in contact with you, so you can be sure they know your company and can be persuaded to invest in you.
B2B Friendly
Another important aspect of LinkedIn is the fact that it’s hugely B2B-friendly. Millions of companies all over the world use LinkedIn pages for their benefit. And – so can you! Getting leads for some big-money contracts has never been easier. You can just go ahead and find the heads of companies and get them engaged with the concept.
Advertising with LinkedIn marketing is precisely what you need – attacking where the people are. Brand and acquisition messages as a part of your LinkedIn marketing strategy can help you tremendously grow your brand in the industry and gain recognition. That’s why professionals so cherish LinkedIn Ads. LinkedIn allows you to connect with the right people for your business.
Conversion Rates…Are Also Friendly
Additionally, LinkedIn can help you get what’s most important for the company – conversions. This would be LinkedIn data, so you could argue it’s skewed. LinkedIn data claims that they have a lower cost per acquisition than other platforms, two times higher conversion rates for marketing purposes, and two times the engagement rate. There are three goals you can choose between:
- Awareness – it’s pretty straightforward; you create an ad that is supposed to spread your company name, get people invested, interested, and involved.
- Consideration – this means anything that is getting some traffic to your website, maybe some more engagement with your posts; consideration is all about the reach and growing it, so if you want to emphasize that part of your company, then it’s the way to go.
- Conversion – here, it’s all about the money; getting conversions, leads, and, in some cases – people ready for the job is the goal at hand.
LinkedIn will also allow you to track conversions with great detail. Getting better results with this program is easy, thanks to the amount of data gathered by the conversion rate tool. You can be sure that your ROI will be satisfying for you and the board.
Brand Awareness
Another significant aspect of LinkedIn Ads is that you can use it to grow awareness of your brand. It’s essential in the professional world; with that information, you will be able to get people on board with your concepts in no time. If the industry knows about you, sooner or later, the whole market will know you. That’s why spreading the word on platforms like LinkedIn is crucial for the success of your B2B campaign.
If you want to generate leads rather than build brand awareness – you can certainly do that as well. Even better – why not both? As the data from the site itself states – LinkedIn has proven a sound branding investment, which is why 97% of B2B marketers utilize it for their content marketing efforts.
Modifiable Budget
And finally, we have the budgeting aspect of LinkedIn. As it turns out, it’s extremely flexible to use LinkedIn Advertising, as you can pause or resume any campaign whenever you want. With the addition of A/B testing, it’s a great way of getting leads and conversions.
You can even modify each campaign for different audiences, different demographics, and even – different objectives. LinkedIn gives a lot of freedom to marketers. Whether you would like to get a more professional audience or something more simple like spreading the awareness of your brand – you can do that and much more!
Of course, let’s not beat around the bush; LinkedIn Ads are not the cheapest of them all. But, if you put it into perspective by simply comparing the conversion rate between Google or Microsoft and even Facebook Ads, you will notice that the cost of getting to the customer is much lower with LinkedIn Ads. The only high is the entry price, but the CPC (Cost-Per-Conversion) is lower than with the other marketing entities.
For example, the average cost-per-conversion across Google Ads is $56.11 in the search network and $90.80 for the display network, according to Wordstream.com. The same article claims that for Facebook Ads, it’s $16.68. On the other hand. LinkedIn Ads, as the site states, have a CPC of $3-6, with Dynamic Ads being a bit higher at $6-8.
LinkedIn Ad Types
Let’s now go over the most common LinkedIn ad types you can use. For now, those are the main ways you can use LinkedIn Ads, but we are positive that as time goes by, there will be new and improved concepts for you to advertise with. Essentially, each ad can be divided into four categories:
- Sponsored content
- Sponsored messaging
- Dynamic ads
- Text ads
Sponsored content is basically the ads in the LinkedIn Feed. For example, if you are scrolling down the website, you will see some ads coming up from time to time. That’s what’s called sponsored content. It can be a link to a website, a single image, or some other type of ad you have created.
Sponsored messaging, or LinkedIn Message Ads, utilizes LinkedIn messages in order to market directly to customers, straight into their Inbox. If you use LinkedIn Daily, you must have noticed that
Dynamic ads are used for personalization of ads. For example, if your name is Derek, the Ad will engage with you directly, using your name and all the data it knows about you.
And finally, we have the text ads. It’s pretty much the same thing as those ads in your feed, just on the side.
How to Start with LinkedIn Ads?
Let’s now go over the ways to start your very own LinkedIn campaign. The first thing you need to do is to create a Campaign Manager account. It’s a fast process, so don’t worry about it; you will be guided along the way.
Objectives and Goals
The next thing to do is to choose the objective you want to achieve. As we have stated, there are four main ones, so make sure you choose the right one for you.
Targeting
Another thing to do is the target options. We have shown you a few ways that you can choose your audience more effectively. In the end, it’s all up to you.
Ad Type
The next thing you need to do is to find the right ad type for your target audience. As mentioned before, you can choose Sponsored Content, Message Ads, Dynamic Ads, Text Ads, or a mix of them.
Budget
Now, set your budget. Be sure to do it wisely, as you will be losing money for constant tryouts, especially if you’re putting down some big amounts.
Review and Optimize
And finally – review and optimize! It’s the crucial element during which you need to change your ads in order to make them more efficient. Be sure to do that in order to be even more effective with your LinkedIn Advertising.
Why LinkedIn Ads – Conclusion
Thanks for stopping by! We hope that with our help, you will be able to spread awareness about your website, business, or even a LinkedIn page. If you liked this article, be sure to check out the other ones on our site. We have a lot of fantastic texts on PPC marketing and SEO that you will surely enjoy. See you in the next one!
A PPC specialist who started with organic social media. For several years, the core of his activities are:- Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, Meta Ads, TikTok Ads, Twitter Ads, Linkedin Ads. He has led campaigns with a global reach, e.g. for FootballTeam, G2A, ETOTO, as well as many smaller campaigns in the sports, construction and financial industries. Has full focus on ROAS. Privately, a fan of football, history of wars and Star Wars.