What Are LinkedIn Ads?

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All Stars Digital
  • Date Published
  • Categories Blog
  • Reading Time 9-Minute Read

Will your business reap the benefits from Linkedin as much as it does from Facebook and Google? Let’s find out!

So you are successfully running ads on Google and running promotions on Facebook. You are getting a great response and the click-through-rate is good too!

But have you figured out Linkedin Ads yet?

Perhaps, with Google and Facebook grabbing the spotlight, brands/businesses often neglect other mediums that have a credible audience and can prove to be a great channel for getting leads that turn into sales.

LinkedIn is one such platform that holds true potential for businesses – especially for the ones operating in the B2B space.

With over 690 million active professionals worldwide and 2 new members being added every second – Over 92% of marketers include Linkedin in their digital marketing mix.



Indeed LinkedIn can be a viable space to market your brand/business. But is LinkedIn the right platform for you? Will your business reap the benefits from Linkedin as much as it does from Facebook and Google?

Let’s find out!

Linkedin Ads – What Are They?

LinkedIn Ads are a great advertising option for B2B marketers.

But LinkedIn isn’t like your regular social media websites (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc.) There are no typical display purchases or typical advertising techniques. LinkedIn has its own style of advertisements which may suit your business if you operate in any of the segments listed below:

  • Business-to-Business products/services
  • Products/Services pertaining to the business-minded audience
  • Business professionals

Being an up-and-coming player in the digital marketing world, Linkedin has reincarnated itself as an ad service provider with social media content. And therefore, Linkedin Ads have become a strong choice for marketers to reach their target market.

Types of LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn offers a spectrum of Advertisement options for you to choose from, based on your marketing plan. So if your marketing aim is any of the following, LinkedIn can be a great platform to explore.

  • Brand Awareness
  • Website Visits
  • Engagement
  • Lead Generation
  • Job Applicants
  • Video views

To match the needs of different marketing mixes, LinkedIn outlines a range of advertisement offerings, some of which are exclusive to the platform!

Sponsored Content

These are the native ads that appear on the LinkedIn feed across desktop and mobile – Just like Facebook, Instagram, etc. You can add images, videos, carousels, etc like a regular social media post with a link to sponsor and boost the post to appear on the audience’s timeline.

Sponsored Messaging / InMails

Sponsored messages or InMails allow you to strike up a conversation with your target audience informally through one-on-one messages to your audience’s LinkedIn Messaging. Since they are not displayed ads, you can use an informal and conversational tone. Here, brands/businesses can target laser-focused groups with enough space for personalization. These are of two types:

Conversation Ads – With multiple call-to-action buttons on your InMails, Sponsored content, etc, you can keep your audience engaged and bring in leads with a create-your-own-experience module. This is one of the best modes for brand awareness on LinkedIn.

Message Ads – Direct messages are sent to your target audience to spark immediate action. Here there is only one CTA.

Video Ads

Captivate your audience with Video Ads on their mobile and desktop LinkedIn feeds. You can share insights into your brand, customer reviews, or deliver a strong message through short videos that generate accurate leads.

Text Ads

Operating on a pay-per-click option, LinkedIn Text Ads are the closest you can get to Google or Bing search ads. They are featured in the sidebar like a basic block with a headline and a company logo.

Dynamic Ads

This allows you to personalise the ads for your audience by featuring their profile data in order to attract more attention. LinkedIn puts up the advertisement on the side-bar, search page, or timeline of the users for maximum engagement.

Carousel Ads

Entice your audience with a swipeable series of cards in a single ad to tell a story, showcase multiple products, or give insights into your brand. The carousels help you target multiple products while making them take action. Carousel Ads encourage professionals to interact and thus hold strong potential to generate leads.

Elevate

This feature of LinkedIn isn’t a mainstream ad, per se, but it works like one. Elevate is much like a platform where the company boosts its reach by promoting content that resonates with its employees and makes them more likely to share across platforms. Optimizing on the data of the employees, the company elevates its reach across its target audience.

Why Should You Choose LinkedIn Ads?

It’s pretty simple!

If you are in the business-to-business sphere and are looking for more professionals or deals to crack – LinkedIn is your mettle!

While other social networks have a lot of personal demographics, on LinkedIn the career-related filters help you narrow down your audience through credibility i.e. school they went to, companies they work for, designation, city, followers, etc. A feature you aren’t likely to find anywhere else!

If your products are made for the CEOs, Investment Bankers, Managers, or even executives of companies – LinkedIn is where you should be advertising.

Want to focus on healthcare, IT, or even the Marketing Industry? You can reach them through LinkedIn.

Targeting the HR Managers of some of the best IT Firms of India with 500+ followers – yep, you can do it on LinkedIn!

LinkedIn helps you connect, influence, and market products/services to ‘specific professionals.’

How Much Do LinkedIn Ads Cost?

First things first, as LinkedIn offers a very narrow audience with the greater likeliness of click-throughs and lead generation – Linked Ads costs a little more than your regular social media ad.

But as with any conceptual Ad, the price highly depends on your area of target, criteria, filters, etc.

LinkedIn is known for its click-through-rate i.e. 0.025%, but with a good creative and a defined target audience, you can achieve a much better rate.

One-click in every 1000 impressions is a great target to achieve.

It’s always better to revise your campaigns from time to time and not run more than two Ads at a time to optimize your performance and keep the Marketing budget intact.

Regular testing goes a long way.

Read Digital Marketing and Finance to get more ideas on the costing and ad campaigns

LinkedIn Stats and Market Inclination

With over 690 million professionals on the platform (globally) – LinkedIn is one of the top-rated social media networks where professionals connect, look for jobs, interact with like-minded professionals and find out ways to elevate their careers.

And the platform is getting stronger by the day as it reported a 21% increase in revenue year-on-year for FY20.

Amid the global pandemic and a falling economy, LinkedIn etched a new upward trend with 4 million more hours of content being watched from the onset of lockdowns in March 2020 – a 50% increase month-over-month.

LinkedIn is the most powerful platform among B2B marketers, followed by Twitter and Facebook!

According to Hubspot, LinkedIn is one of the strongest social media networks for lead generation with the highest click-through-rate i.e. 2.74%

As the ad spending of B2B marketers scales up to generate these leads, LinkedIn’s ad revenues are increasing as well. As compared to the forecasted increase in ad revenues by emarketer.com, LinkedIn has shown commendable growth and is one of the few platforms that has gained more traction in 2020.

With a laser-targeted audience, great CPCs, great CTCs and a stronger inclination to drive audiences through the platform – LinkedIn is a powerful platform to uplift your marketing numbers!

How to Set-up LinkedIn Ads

Setting up LinkedIn Ads gets easier through its dedicated Advertising Platform – LinkedIn Marketing Solutions.

Once you open the portal, there are a few steps to go through.

Create Your LinkedIn Ad Campaign – Create a LinkedIn Ad Manager Account and connect your LinkedIn Company Page to it. Link your payment methods, get the account verified and gain access to your dashboard – ‘Campaign Manager’

Set Your Ad Campaign Objective – Tap on the ‘Create Campaign’ and set a suitable name for your reference. Here you can choose from options like Website Traffic, Lead Generation, video views, etc. Choose the marketing objective you want to target and begin.

Design Your Audience – The most important step of LinkedIn Ad marketing is here! Choose the parameters of the target audience to match your Ad Campaign. The choice includes language preference, industry, age group, profession, location, job experience, etc. The right filters will determine the performance of your ads and define your budgeting.

Choose Your LinkedIn Ad Format – You are offered a variety of LinkedIn Ads types that you can choose from to design your Campaign. LinkedIn also offers suggested Ad formats (on the side-bar) based on your campaign objective and audience.

Placement of Ads – Here you can choose if you want your LinkedIn Ads to be displayed on the host website itself or on third-party websites with wider reach and exposure. (This option isn’t available for every ad type)

Ad Campaign Budgeting and Scheduling – Set up your daily marketing budget based on how much you want to spend. You can make your decision as per the reflected CPC, CPM, automated bids, etc. and traffic estimation provided by the platform. You can schedule the campaign for a later date depending upon these parameters and relative costs.

Analytics and Conversion Tracking – This is an optional window for tracking performance and the actions people take after clicking on the ads.

Building LinkedIn Ads – Build up the display of the LinkedIn ads by adding suitable image, tagline, description, Designation URL, etc to make the Advertisement appealing to your audience. Here you define how your Ad appears to the audience and select the page to which you are driving your audience.

Let’s Get Started!

LinkedIn Ads are a perfect choice for B2B businesses or companies focused on offering products/services for professionals.

As LinkedIn provides for a laser targeted audience based on their credibility, you can run small Ad Campaigns and yield great results too.

As industries become more inclined to target LinkedIn audiences as part of their marketing campaigns, it’s time to give LinkedIn a try!

All Stars Digital is a digital marketing and brand scaling agency that designs a dedicated path for businesses/brands to gain traction in the digital space. Through extensive research, quirky marketing campaigns, SEO, SEM, and social media advertising, we help you craft your way to success in the digital marketplace.

Want to give LinkedIn Marketing a go? Let’s connect!