Advertising on LinkedIn: An Overview
It’s hard to believe that LinkedIn, the professional social network, has over 330 million members. That’s an awful lot of professionals who use the site to connect with each other. And just as on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites, marketers can use the LinkedIn advertising platform to precisely target the professionals who are most receptive to their offerings. In this blog post, we’ll walk through the different self-service advertising on LinkedIn options so you can get up and running in no time!
Types of LinkedIn Ads
LinkedIn has two primary types of ads available to any business with a LinkedIn company page (You do have a LinkedIn company page, right?). These are: Sponsored Ads and Sponsored Updates. In addition to these two main ad types, LinkedIn also offers the “LinkedIn Audience Network” which displays ads on other sites. Here’s a screenshot showing where these ads appear on LinkedIn:
Sponsored Ads
Sponsored ads, sometimes referred to as “Ads You May Be Interested In”, typically appear on the right side of most LinkedIn pages. They’re similar to Google AdWords in that they’re primarily text-based, though they also contain a small space for an image. When prospects click your ad, they can be directed to your own landing page or to a LinkedIn page.
Sponsored Updates
Sponsored updates are a bit different. Typically these are posts you’ve already posted on your LinkedIn company page, but these can also contain custom content. These are displayed inline, on all devices (desktop, tablet, etc.). LinkedIn also offers an option for “Direct Sponsored Content” which doesn’t show up on your LinkedIn company page.
LinkedIn Audience Network
This is an option to display your sponsored ads on other sites that have partnered with LinkedIn. Similar to the Google Display Network, LinkedIn uses the same targeting algorithm to determine when to display your ad on partner sites as a way to extend the reach of your ads.
Ad Creation
When advertising on LinkedIn, the ads that perform best are the ones that are relevant to your audience and have a clear message. If you’re using Sponsored Updates, these are easy to set up. You simply choose one of your previous company page posts to use as your ad. For text ads, you’ll need to supply the following:
Headline (25 characters)
Make sure your headline stands out and really grabs your audience.
Description (75 characters split across two lines)
Give people a reasons to click to learn more. Make sure to include a strong call to action like Sign Up, Download, Try, etc.
Image (50×50 pixels)
Images are optional, but strongly recommended. Because the size is so small, it’s best to stick with bright colors to help grab your audience’s attention.
Destination URL
Provide a link to your landing page. Don’t forget to include utm campaign tracking parameters if you’re using a web analytics solution like Google Analytics.
Targeting Options
Once you’ve determined your ad content, you’ll be presented with options to select your desired audience. There are a number of levers you can pull to get just the right audience for your offer, from location, company, geography, seniority, etc. As you make adjustments, you’ll get an estimate from LinkedIn showing the number of people who fit your specifications. Make sure you target carefully — too broad an audience and you’ll be wasting money on an offer that’s irrelevant for many people. Similarly, if you go too narrow, LinkedIn may not serve your ad at all. Here are the primary options available:
Location
Where does your audience live? Are you trying to reach people globally or just in the United States? It’s best to avoid getting too specific here as your audience will drop off dramatically.
Companies
Want to target specific companies? How about specific industries? With these options you can mix and match and get as granular as you’d like to define your audience. For example you could target Financial Services companies with more than 100 employees. You can use the same levers to exclude specific companies or company sizes.
Job Title
Just like with Companies, with Job Title, you can select by specific titles or by categories like job function or seniority. When choosing specific job titles, keep in mind that these are entered by users and could really be anything. As you add or remove titles from your choices, keep an eye on your audience size so that you can be sure you’re targeting the most effective titles possible.
Bids and Budget
Make sure you pay attention to your daily or total budget so you don’t spend more than you’d like. When advertising on LinkedIn, you can choose either a CPC or CPM cost models, but the rates are different depending on the type of ad you’re running.
For Sponsored Ads, LinkedIn offers a CPC model with a minimum bid of $2 a click or a CPM model with a minimum bid of $2 per 1,000 impressions. The daily budget must be at least $10.
For Sponsored Posts, LinkedIn offers a CPC model with a minimum bid of $5 a click or a CPM model with a minimum bid of $21 per 1,000 impressions. Sponsored posts also have a minimum daily budget of $10.
In both cases, you can set a daily budget and/or total budget so you can be sure you don’t exceed your budget. Once you hit your limit, LinkedIn will stop running your ads.
One thing to keep in mind: Even though LinkedIn may suggest a bid range of $2.20 for your ad, you might need to bid much higher to get impressions for your ad (It is an auction, after all).
Optimization
LinkedIn ads can be very effective in helping you reach targeted professionals. But it really comes down to your goals and the ROI associated with them to determine if your investment is paying off. Here are our tips for optimizing your campaign depending on your goals.
I want more clicks at a lower price
If you want to get more clicks at a lower CPC, test new ad variations. If you can hit on a variation that increases your click-through rate, this will certainly lower your CPC. Once you start to see the numbers drop from ad fatigue, replace your ads. The golden number is to shoot for a click-through rate of at least 0.025%. If your CTR is lower than this, change your ad or refine your target audience.
I want more leads
To get more leads, make sure your ad targeting matches both the geographic location of where you’d like to do business AND that the targeting is set to reach your perfect customers. If you’re seeing decent click throughs but low lead numbers, the problem is likely with your landing page. Make sure your landing page is aligned with your ad copy and that it’s immediately clear what you’d like your visitors to do when they hit your page.
I want more people to become aware of my offering
If you’re after exposure, test paying by CPM instead of CPC. When you pay by CPM, you pay every time your ad is shown 1,000 times, which may be more cost effective. You can also experiment with different images in your ads.
I want my ad shown more often
To get your ad shown more often you have two options: improve your ad copy or increase your bid amount. Ads are shown based on their historical performance as well as the amount each advertiser is willing to pay. If your ad is an awesome performer, your ad will be shown more often than a poor performing ad, even if that advertiser is willing to pay a higher amount than you for each click.
Now you’re well on your way to ruling LinkedIn’s self-service ad options! If you want help setting up your campaigns, get in touch. We’d be happy to help you launch a killer LinkedIn advertising campaign.
Want to learn more how your business can dominate LinkedIn? Check out our guide!
Photo by: Adriano Gasparri
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