LinkedIn Advertising is one of the most underutilised marketing platforms, a hidden gem in the digital marketing landscape that many companies simply aren’t aware of. While platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok dominate discussions around social media, LinkedIn has quietly gone from strength to strength in recent years, now boasting over 1 billion members and one of the best paid advertising platforms that businesses can easily utilise.
Businesses working in the B2B space will find LinkedIn Advertising a particularly useful resource, helping them to grow their network, expand visibility in their industry and engage their specific audience in a way that other social media networks simply aren’t capable of. With its advanced targeting options and robust analytical tools, LinkedIn Advertising is a terrific resource that smart businesses should be utilising if they want to connect with professionals and gatekeepers within their industry.
In this article, we dive deeper into the power of LinkedIn’s powerful paid advertising platform, how to setup your advertising campaigns and optimise for performance using the platforms detailed analytics tools.
The Unique Advantage of LinkedIn's Audience
LinkedIn’s primary strength lies in its user base. Unlike other social networks, LinkedIn users are predominantly business professionals who may be industry decision-makers, influencers, business owners and executives within your target audience. This makes LinkedIn an ideal place for B2B marketing, where the target audience is often specific roles or gatekeepers within organisations.
When jumping into LinkedIn’s paid advertising platform, users will quickly find that there are wide range of specific targeting options that can be utilised to granularly define their specific audience. Campaigns can be setup to run to very specific filters, targeting people by job title, industry, company size or even specific skills or business interests. These options could quickly help you connect with business owners who may have a need for your specific services or find the right candidates for the new role your company is offering.
Because of these detailed targeting capabilities, you may also find that leads generated through the LinkedIn Ads platform are of a higher quality compared to other social media platforms. While platforms like Facebook and Instagram can generate substantial traffic, the leads may not always align with business goals, especially in B2B contexts. LinkedIn users, by contrast, are often in a business mindset, actively seeking solutions and opportunities. This makes LinkedIn a powerful tool for connecting with an attentive, professional userbase with the ability to make decisions for the businesses they are engaged in.
Setting Up Your LinkedIn Advertising Campaigns For Success
On its surface, setting up a LinkedIn Ads campaign may seem very similar to Meta Business Suite’s advertising platform. Their campaigns are similarly structured with matching goals that businesses can utilise to set up their campaign for success. But the core advantage of the LinkedIn Ads platform is the specific targeting goals you can select. In addition to common options like demographic, interests and traits is the ability to industry specific variables, including but not limited to the below:
- Job title
- Job function
- Seniority
- Years of experience
- Industry
- Specific skill
- Educational background
Utilising these targeting options properly when setting up your campaign will help your ads get in front of the right people for your business, and should align with your campaign’s end goal. Picking the right type of ad format to suit that end goal will also be an important part of the success of your campaigns, with four main ad types to choose from:
Sponsored Content
Sponsored Content ads appear natively among organic posts, making them less intrusive and more likely to capture user attention with the right piece of content.
Businesses can use Sponsored Content to promote articles, videos or images, helping your message better reach the targeted audience you’ve selected. These are some of the most common ads you can see as a user on LinkedIn, and utilising this format may be particularly useful if there is a piece of high-quality content you want to push out to the world.
Sponsored Messaging
Sponsored Messaging on LinkedIn allows advertisers to send personalised messages directly to users’ inboxes, offering a direct and interactive form of communication. This ad type includes Message Ads and Conversation Ads, which can be tailored to initiate real-time engagement with potential clients.
With high open rates and the ability to include multiple call-to-actions, Sponsored Messaging can be a powerful tool for engaging your audience with the right copy and follow-up conversational engagement with your target audience.
Lead Gen Forms
Lead Gen Forms are able to be integrated into Sponsored Content and Sponsored Messaging ads, allowing users to submit their information without leaving LinkedIn. The pre-filled fields with LinkedIn profile data make it easy for users to respond, significantly increasing response rates.
This ad type is beneficial for collecting high-quality leads as it reduces friction and captures accurate information direct from LinkedIn. Businesses can use these forms to gather insights, schedule meetings and even distribute content like brochures and eBook, making this particular ad format a strong option for businesses who are able to offer discounted services or free quotes to their customer base.
Text and Dynamic Ads
Text and Dynamic Ads on LinkedIn are versatile advertising formats designed for precise targeting and high visibility. Text Ads appear in the right sidebar of LinkedIn pages and consist of a short, compelling message and a small image. They are cost-effective and great for driving traffic to landing pages or company websites.
Dynamic Ads, on the other hand, are personalised based on the user’s profile, displaying their name, photo, or job title within the ad. This personalisation can increase engagement and click-through rates. Both ad types are effective for raising brand awareness, promoting job opportunities and potentially driving interest in the service offerings of your business.
Being able to select the right format for your advertisement along with optimising your target audience options will go a long way to driving the success of your advertisement campaigns. While the costs of LinkedIn Ads is generally a bit higher than their Facebook, Instagram and Twitter counterparts, over time you may find that the benefits of LinkedIn outweigh the short-term costs of these campaigns as you test and tweak for performance as the weeks progress. To make those adjustments you’ll need to utilise and explore LinkedIn’s robust analytics tools, giving you exact insight into how your campaigns are performing and what advertisements your customers are engaging with.
Assessing The Performance Of Your LinkedIn Advertising Campaigns
As mentioned above, the LinkedIn Ads platform has some advanced target facilities that make this platform stand out from the crowd, allowing for much more granular industry and role targeting in your campaigns. The same can be said for the analytics featured on this paid advertising platform, allowing you to track how people in different industries, job roles and company sizes are engaging with your ad campaigns, in addition to more standard data on demographics, location etc.
The longer your ads run the more data you’ll have to analyse in these campaigns, with options to track important metrics like impressions, click-through rates and conversions. Knowing how to tweak your advertisements in response to this data will be huge in the long-term performance of your campaigns, so if you’re unsure of how to assess this data and make those changes that may be where you need to engage the services of a digital marketing consultant.
Picking the right consultant to either setup or assess your campaigns will help to improve their total performance and ensure that the goals you have in mind for these LinkedIn advertising campaigns are being met through your ads. Here at Sky High Digital, we’ve helped a number of our clients achieve success through LinkedIn Ads campaigns, assisting them to better engage their customer base and grow their digital presence through the B2B networking power of LinkedIn.
Learn more about our paid advertising services and how we can grow your business today by calling our team on (03) 9723 1783 or emailing us at hello@skyhighdigital.com.au.
