LinkedIn ads can help your business reach powerful business audiences. LinkedIn members are not only influential, but they also have twice the purchasing power of the average web crowd.
A recent overhaul of LinkedIn's advertising platform, Campaign Manager, added a few new tools to the LinkedIn Marketing Program Toolkit. Along with more precise targeting options, the platform has opted for goal-oriented advertising. This means that advertisers can now run campaigns around clearly defined goals, such as brand awareness, lead generation, or engagement.
This guide will cover the different ad formats available, a step-by-step guide on how to advertise on LinkedIn, and a recap of best practices, with exclusive information provided by LinkedIn to Hootsuite that you won't find anywhere else.
Types of LinkedIn ads
Learn how to advertise on LinkedIn with the different self-service ad formats.
Sponsored content
Sponsored ads are basically promoted LinkedIn posts.
Three different formats are available for sponsored content ads: single image, video, and carousel.
Campaigns can be served as native news feed announcements and Lead Gen Forms.
This is a good type of ad if your goals include engagement, especially as engagement with feeds has increased. 50% from 2017 to 2018.
Pro tip: Hootsuite users can promote sponsored content from the Hootsuite dashboard. The video below, titled Hootsuite Academy, provides step-by-step instructions on how to do this.
Directly sponsored content
The difference between direct sponsored content and sponsored content is that these ads are not published on your LinkedIn page feed. But they still look like a regular post from LinkedIn.
Why is this an advantage? For starters, you can customize the ad to target a specific audience. Also, you can test different iterations without messing up your page.
InMail Sponsored
This ad format sends targeted messages to the inboxes of LinkedIn members. According to LinkedIn, these ads are more effective than email at driving conversions.
Keep in mind that LinkedIn members can opt-out of receiving InMail ads.
Text ads
LinkedIn text ads appear in the right bar and in the top desktop banner. They include a short title, blurb, and a small square image.
These ads are measured by pay-per-click or cost-per-impression.
Dynamic ads
LinkedIn's dynamic ads also appear in the right rail and look the same, with one difference. Each ad can uniquely target its viewer with their profile picture and respond by name.
Dynamic ad formats include follower ads, job postings, content, and company announcements.
To create a dynamic content ad, you need to get in touch with a LinkedIn representative.
LinkedIn audience network
LinkedIn Audience Network is a feature that allows advertisers to target the desired audience with sponsored content on thousands of partner apps and websites. You can enable this feature when creating your campaign so that your ad is also shown outside of LinkedIn.
LinkedIn advertising partners
If setting up self-service advertising campaigns doesn't cut you off, consider using LinkedIn's Marketing Partner program.
The program matches companies with a hand-picked roster of companies with the expertise to help you achieve your marketing goals. Whether you need help targeting your audiences more effectively, building engagement, or scaling your campaigns. Over 60 partner companies are available, including Hootsuite.
LinkedIn ads are no longer offered on the platform.
How to Advertise on LinkedIn: A Step-by-Step Guide
Follow these steps to start your first LinkedIn advertising campaign.
Need help setting up a business page first? Our LinkedIn for business guide covers all the bases.
1. Log in to Campaign Manager or create an account.
From there, click Create Campaign.
Don't forget to add a name. LinkedIn suggests including these details in the name:
- A sector of activity/product
- Reference under the marketing campaign
- Campaign type (Webinar, white paper, etc.)
- Geo / region
- A unique campaign ID that matches other channels
- A date range for the campaign period
Here is an example: "Product_CampaignName_CampaignType_ Geo_UniqueID"
2. Choose your advertising target.
3. Configure your audience targeting settings.
LinkedIn recommends starting with an audience of over 50,000 members, especially for a new campaign. For Sponsored InMail, aim for more than 15,000 members.
- Choose a recent or permanent location.
- Add the places you want to include or exclude the places you don't want to include.
- Select the language of your target audience's profile.
- Add audience attributes. These include company, demographics, education, work experience, and interests.
- Use “or” to broaden your audience. For example, your audience might include "photographers" or "graphic designers".
- Use "and" to limit your audience. In this case, you might want to target someone who is a photographer and graphic designer.
- Enable Audience Increase Show ads on LinkedIn with similar attributes.
You can also add a matching audience, which consists of a list of newsletter subscribers, website visitors, and more. Simply select Matching Audience and add a link to your corporate website to retarget visitors, or download a list to create an audience.
Make sure you hit Save as Template before proceeding to the next step. So, if you need to target the same audience again, you can recover your settings under Saved audiences.
4. Select the ad format you want to use. Most formats require you to enter your company or Showcase Page before proceeding.
5. If possible, consider activating the LinkedIn Audience Network.
6. Set your campaign budget and schedule.
You can choose to set a total budget or both a daily budget and a total budget.
For the auction type, choose between cost per click and cost per impression depending on your goals. If you create a sponsored InMail campaign, you choose the cost per send.
LinkedIn reports seeing a 33% higher return on investment when advertisers placed offers within suggested limits.
7. Optional: create a conversion. This allows you to track the actions people take on your website after viewing your LinkedIn ad.
You can install a site-level Insight tag, as recommended by LinkedIn, or use an event-specific pixel to track conversions.
8. Configure your ad.
While creating your ad, you will be able to preview its appearance. For Sponsored InMail, you can send yourself a test message.
9. Review and launch your campaign.
Before they go live, LinkedIn will review your ads to make sure they meet platform standards.
Usually takes around 24 hours, but may take longer. Check the status column in Campaign Manager to see if your ads have been approved.
10. Optimize performance.
Once your campaign is launched, use the campaign manager. Performance chart to track metrics and make informed adjustments.
For more format-specific instructions, check out these LinkedIn advertising resources:
Best Practices for LinkedIn Ads
Consider the best practices of these LinkedIn ads before you create your next campaign.
Target the right LinkedIn audience
An advertising campaign on LinkedIn will only be the target audience. If your target is too broad, you risk not meeting your performance goals and your budget. Too small, you reduce the chances of connecting with valuable LinkedIn members.
LinkedIn's targeting features allow you to target audiences based on location, company, industry, age, gender, education, work experience, title position, interests, groups, etc.
A good place to start is to become familiar with LinkedIn Member Demographics and look for overlap with your customer profiles. Next, consider the location and language of the members you want to reach. Also, consider dividing your campaigns by region in order to uniformly target each time zone.
Be strategic with your next choices. For example, LinkedIn finds using the job function versus the job title can result in greater reach and a higher click-through rate (CTR).
Here are some LinkedIn targeting suggestions :
- Target by geographic region / industry / seniority (eg UK / High tech / manager) ‹
- Target by geography / specific skills (France / PPC, SEM, for example) ‹
- Target by geography / type of LinkedIn group (e.g. AUS / Recruitment, HR)
Matching Audience Lists and website retargeting are tools that can help you exclude or include current customers who are already engaged members. Audience increases can help you reach a larger audience, which is especially useful for awareness campaigns.
Remember not to overdo it. The more audience parameters you add, the smaller your audience will be.
And don't forget to retarget the ads. Studies have shown that retargeted ads (ads that are shown to the same member more than once) are 70% more likely to convert and have 10 times higher CTR on average.
Keep the content short
Use LinkedIn Ad Copy to grab attention and deliver essential information. Attention span is short on social media. If your blurb is too long, your audience might scroll.
Here are the suggested character and time limits for each LinkedIn ad format:
Sponsored content
- Titles must be under 150 characters.
- The descriptive copy must be less than 70 characters. Text over 100 characters will be truncated on the desktop.
- According to LinkedIn, posts with fewer characters have an 18% higher engagement rate on average.
Sponsored video
- Videos for brand awareness and consideration goals should be less than 30 seconds long. LinkedIn finds that videos of this length have a 200% higher Completion Rate than videos that are longer.
- The video used for marketing later in the funnel should be around 90 seconds. The lower funnel can last from two to six minutes. This means that if you target people who are already involved with your brand, they are likely to be more receptive to longer content.
InMail Sponsored
- Messages must be under 1000 characters including a link.
- LinkedIn finds that body copy under 500 characters has a 46% higher CTR on average.
- Fun fact: Members click Sponsored InMails the most during the weekend. But it is especially Tuesdays that open the most in Sponsored InMails.
Dynamic ads
- Keep the copy short and to the point. If you don't need it, don't use the secondary title.
- In testing, LinkedIn found that ads with only one main headline have a 25% higher CTR on average.
Be frank with your message
Don't beat around the bush. Go straight to your LinkedIn ad message hunt.
Immediately share the value you want to deliver to your members, whether it's information that will help them excel in their professional careers, market knowledge, or professional networking opportunities.
For videos, you have two to three seconds to grab attention. Make sure you share your most crucial information within the first 10 seconds before distractions get in your way.
Call remarkable statistics and quotes
A good statistic or a quote is a good way to grab attention. Small bites are often easier to digest in the crowded social media space.
Highlight a hard-hitting fact or pull a quote to draw people in, then make a compelling offer.
Tested by LinkedIn an update with a statistic and without one to measure the differences in performance. The results are revealing. The update with a stat had a 37% higher CTR and 162% more impressions.
Do not count the quotes. Overall, LinkedIn finds that citations exceed stats with a 30% higher CTR.
Why? Much of the content that performs best on LinkedIn tend to prioritize people. Choose a short quote that people can relate to and consider including a picture of the person being quoted.
Choose a clear call to action
It's easy to ignore calls to action when they're confusing or overly complicated. Choose an action compatible with your advertising objective and use simple and direct language.
The main sponsored InMail keywords are:
- Try
- Register now
- Reserve
- Join
- To confirm
- Download
If you don't see as many actions as you want, try experimenting with a different keyword. In internal testing, LinkedIn finds that Join outperformed Join by 165% more clicks.
Customize as much as possible
At first, it may seem difficult to personalize an ad for a large audience. However, with the right targeting and these metrics, you can personalize your ads to better connect with the people you're trying to reach.
Text ads
- Speak directly to your audience.
- Examples include: "Are you a teacher?" Or "Attention all teachers:"
Sponsored content
- Appeal to your target audience with direct language.
- LinkedIn ads that speak directly to the target audience have a 19% higher CTR and a 53% higher conversion rate than those that don't.
InMail Sponsored
- Add a personal greeting. You can do this by adding:% FIRSTNAME%,% LASTNAME%.
- Mention the job title of the recipient.
- Use "you" somewhere in the message.
Dynamic ads
- Activate the profile picture. Doing this will put the viewer's profile picture in your ad.
- On average, LinkedIn finds that dynamic ads with the profile picture enabled have a 100% higher CTR and 100% higher conversion rate than those without a photo enabled.
Include people-centric visuals
Basically, LinkedIn is a platform that members join to connect with other people. So it's no surprise that content featuring people tends to perform well.
According to LinkedIn, ads containing people can increase your CTR by 160%.
Remember to avoid images that are too small or of poor quality. For sponsored content, the recommended size is 1200 x 627 pixels.
LinkedIn also says that content with larger visuals has a 38% higher average CTR.
Also, make sure the image is readable on small devices, as over 85% of LinkedIn engagement is on mobile. This means that your subject (s) should not be too far from the lens or drowned out by a busy scene. Shoot or search for images that put people first.
Test the variations for each campaign
You can follow all of the LinkedIn ad best practice tips in the book, but in the end, every campaign requires some tweaking and testing to be successful.
Try to run two or three variations of your campaign. This allows you to test which one works the best and, at the same time, provides some variety to your audience.
There are several ways you can A / B test your LinkedIn ads. Edit the copy or call to action to see which language your audience is most responsive to. You can also change the visual to measure which ones do the best.
LinkedIn recommends that you pause the ad with the lowest engagement and replace it with a new creation. This will improve your ad relevance score and allow you to earn more deals in the process.
Keep track of your results for future campaigns, especially if you plan to target the same or similar audiences.
Easily manage your LinkedIn Page alongside your other social networks using Hootsuite. From a single dashboard, you can plan and share content, engage your network, and promote sponsored content posts. Try it out today.
