I’ve been wanting to write on the LinkedIn advertising for a long time, but couldn’t find the chance. Since its advertising board is completely restructured, I wanted to prepare a detailed guide which includes all the current information and changes. We have a long article ahead.
We know how important is LinkedIn among other social media platforms, especially when it comes to B2B. If we were to discuss the numbers, right now it has 562 million members from over 200 countries. You can visit LinkedIn’s about page for current numbers. https://about.linkedin.com.
Speaking of numbers, let’s not forget that Microsoft bought LinkedIn in 2016 for 26,2 billion dollars.
Yes, LinkedIn is a wide social network. And yes, it’s a social network, just like Facebook or Twitter. But what does it make it different from others? Why you should invest in advertising on LinkedIn?
When It Comes To B2B, LinkedIn is The Best
If your company is not a B2C company and you conduct B2B marketing activities, then LinkedIn is the best source for you. It differs greatly from other platforms with its detailed targeting qualities and various ad models.
LinkedIn Ad Types and Templates
When you enter LinkedIn advertising board, it gives you a couple of options for creating an ad. You’re not permitted to use the same models at the same campaign more than once but you can create different campaigns with the same targetings and you can divide various ad types between other campaigns. Let’s look at different ad types and models:
Sponsored Updates
When you enter LinkedIn advertising board, it gives you a couple of This is the most successful and widely used ad model of LinkedIn. In this model, your ad is presented to your target audience as if it’s a regular post on their LinkedIn news feed. If you use an interesting visual text you can have really effective results.
Sponsored Content
This includes promotion works on the regular updates posted by your company. Let’s say you posted an update but didn’t draw the attention you expected or you want more people to see your update. When you enter LinkedIn advertising board, you can see this update and choose this update among other posts. After choosing and targeting, you may activate your ad campaign.
Direct Sponsored Content
Let’s say you want to create LinkedIn ads by posting updates but you don’t want these updates to appear on the company’s news feed. Or you want to create completely different ads for different target audiences and sectors and you don’t want them disrupting the integrity of your news feed. This is where the direct sponsored content steps in. This posts which you activate when creating campaigns, help you promoting and using LinkedIn ads effectively without appearing on your news feed and disrupting it.
Carousel Ads
Carousel ads, which are set into motion in the third quarter of 2018, are used in order to present different segments/services at the same time. These ads integrated into LinkedIn after proving their success on Facebook and they catch the eyes of professionals who use LinkedIn more than other posts. If you have services and products that you can’t explain in only one visual, you can use carousel ads and attract the users’ attention much more quickly.
Text Ads
Used as an alternative to sponsored content, text ads appear on both LinkedIn’s news feed and on the upper and side sections of company and profile pages. Generally, their numbers are four ads per page. CTR (If you wonder about what this CTR is, you can find out in our Marketing Terms Wordbook) have a low percentage but with the right offering methods, it’s ROI is not beneath sponsored content. When it’s used in combination with sponsored contents, it’s quite beneficial to brand recognition and campaign efficiency.
Sponsored InMail
Inmail may be the most distinguishing part of LinkedIn ads. As you already know, InMail is actually a system in which you correspond with other users that you have a first level connection with. Before Premium users who are reading this article starts correcting me, I should add that you can, of course, send a certain amount of InMail to the users whom you don’t have a first level connection with, but only if you have a Premium account. But this model which delivers your messages to online users who fit your determined criteria automatically is ideally suited for activities such as organizations that you would need immediate results or vertical products/ services that you have created on a sectoral basis.
The operating logic of Sponsored InMail is not really that different than sponsored content. In all the models of LinkedIn ads, an audience is identified and offered in a similar fashion. But in this one, you can use a long text and place a 300×250 sized visual in the right section. You can both plant the desired link in this visual and customize the text as you like when sending it to the target audience via InMail.
Banner Ads
They’re transferred into AppNexus by LinkedIn and can be bought with programmatic. They can be targeted just like other ad models through AppNexus board, but can only be targeted on domain-based through other programmatic service providers.
LinkedIn Targeting Criteria
- Location: First, we determine a target location. So we only reach users on a specific location. (LinkedIn has brought forward a new feature for this step, therefore we only reach users on that location. So when a user had traveled and became a member of your target audience, LinkedIn doesn’t show them your ad.)
- Company Name
- Company Industry
- Company Size
- Job Title
- Job Rank
- Education
- Department
- Diploma Grade
- Abilities
- Group Participations
- Gender
- Age
- Years of Experience
- Company Followers
- Company Connections
All the criteria above are whole different worlds by themselves. Since they can be crossed together, you can exclude some if you want to. In addition to this criteria, you can create custom audiences in LinkedIn board and can reach past users who had contacted you before, by remarketing.
LinkedIn Ad Costs
LinkedIn is more costly when compared to other social media platforms but it’s worth using when its return rate is considered. If your target audience spends more time LinkedIn, makes their purchase decisions by using LinkedIn or if their decisions are quickened by it, then you should most definitely use LinkedIn ads. For example, it’s almost impossible to reach a senior executive of a Fortune 500 company by using a social media platform other than LinkedIn.
Price and cost vary by the target audience. On larger targeting, click-through fees can be around 2,5-3$, but in smaller targetings, this cost can rise up to 5-6$.
Like other ad models, CPM and CPC proposals can be used in LinkedIn ads as well. You can limit the budget your ad will spend per 1000 appearance or you can pay per click-through by using CPC. A small tip: You can use more intriguing ads and move forward with CPM offer in order to reduce cost.
LinkedIn Ad Places
LinkedIn ads are used on both mobile and desktop computers. Sponsored contents and video ads are displayed in news feed and InMail ads are sent directly to the users’ inboxes. Text ads are displayed in pairs or triples on the right column, they can also be displayed in a lengthy version on the upper part of the page, just under the LinkedIn menu. Other than these models, 300×250 sized banner ads are sometimes displayed under the text in the right section.
LinkedIn Advertisement Board
You can use https://www.linkedin.com/ad-beta/accounts link to reach LinkedIn ads board which has just recently regenerated. A more interactive board than the old one awaits us. We can report campaigns and check their status more quickly, resulting in taking quick action. We won’t be lying when we say we don’t miss the old, slow board. Another renewal that’s been brought forward short time ago is the campaign and ad group design that you recognize from Google Adwords’ (or Google Ads with its new name). Now we can divide campaigns and ad groups and work on them on LinkedIn too.
In short
If you provide B2B services and want new customers, then LinkedIn ads may be your primary way for customer contact. Creating new or already existing campaigns on LinkedIn can be advantageous for you on both cost and time.