So, we’ve all seen ads by our favorite brands on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat…but now, more popular than ever is advertising on LinkedIn. I bet you’re asking yourself, “Why would I want to advertise on LinkedIn when I primarily use it to share job statuses or things regarding the industry I work in?”
Advertising on LinkedIn?
It’s a thing. A BIG thing. Just like Facebook, LinkedIn can serve up ads to its users. Current LinkedIn advertising messaging touts its ability to help you reach your ideal customers on the world’s largest professional network. LinkedIn allows you to target users by industry, company size, job title, geographic area, and more. In addition, LinkedIn lets advertisers set campaign flights, budgets, and how they would like to pay for ads, whether they be on a CPM or CPC model. To help meet overall campaign goals, advertisers have the option to set campaign objectives as either “Awareness,” “Website Traffic,” or “Leads.”
The Benefits of LinkedIn’s Advertising Platform
LinkedIn is the #1 platform for B2B lead generation, as rated by marketers. Depending on your business and campaign goals, it could be the right medium to help gain awareness and generate leads.
One of the biggest benefits of LinkedIn is how narrow you can target your ads to reach the qualified audience you are looking for. On LinkedIn, advertisers are able to reach a more professional audience, which is likely due to the fact that users skew older and more educated than those using other platforms. Knowing this, you’re able to target your ads on variables such as Job Title, Job Function, Industry, Skill, Company Name, etc. From these targeting capabilities, business customers and even consumer-based products can focus on specific industries, degrees, and job titles, thereby benefiting from the opportunities provided by LinkedIn’s narrow targeting.
Not only is the targeting highly specific on LinkedIn, but thanks to the LinkedIn Audience Network, advertisers also have the option to expand and reach other users through third-party data. This is a feature that allows you to improve the reach of your campaign and get more impressions on your Sponsored Content by delivering your ads beyond the LinkedIn feed, on third-party apps and sites across the internet. When you use LinkedIn Audience Network for your Sponsored Content campaign, you can manage your LinkedIn Audience Network preferences by blocking app and website categories, or by uploading a block list of specific sites or apps. Blocking categories or specific third-party apps or sites means that LinkedIn won’t serve your ads on partner apps or sites that match your blocking criteria.
How To Start It Up?
So, you’ve read about the benefits of LinkedIn advertising and are now thinking you want to start a campaign on LinkedIn? Here’s how to get started!
- Make sure you have a company page on LinkedIn, if not, create one!
- Create and sign into your Campaign Manager account that is linked to your company page.
- Create a campaign that is based on the desired campaign goal, whether it be Awareness, Website Traffic or Leads.
- Set up your targeting and budget.
- Choose your ad format: Sponsored Image, In-Mail, Video, etc.
- Upload all your assets and copy.
- Preview the ads.
- Launch!
What’s Next?
If you have the chance to create your own media plan, make sure you review the media brief to determine what the campaign’s objectives are. If a specific audience is perhaps more nuanced than some of your other campaigns, you might want to consider LinkedIn to reach that qualified audience. Remember, LinkedIn is widely believed to be the world’s largest professional network and 80% of LinkedIn members drive business decisions in the end.
Sources:
https://www.linkedin.com/help/lms/answer/83631/linkedin-audience-network-overview?lang=en
https://www.socialmediacollege.com/blog/benefits-linkedin-advertising-get-started
