In 2002, LinkedIn launched as a networking site for professionals. Fast forward 18 years and LinkedIn has grown to be one of the top social media platforms with almost 700 million active users. The platform has countless company pages, discussions and posts. And, due to their expansive advertising opportunities, LinkedIn is the second most used platform of B2B marketers.
LinkedIn’s ad platform provides everything marketers need to make sure they’re reaching the right audience with an effective ad spend. A powerful tool for inbound marketing, LinkedIn ad campaigns have the potential to drive high-quality traffic to your site, bring in new leads and possibly sales. But it’s not cheap and you need to commit to the effort.
We’ve compiled the top five reasons B2B marketers should use LinkedIn advertising. If you’re been hesitant to give the platform a try, these just might change your mind.
Accurate audience information
Although LinkedIn’s audience numbers are less than the number of users on Facebook or Instagram, it offers a unique advantage because it provides insights into work history. And, while there’s a chance that user information is inaccurate or outdated, you can feel confident that you’re being provided the latest details on your audience’s work experience and skillsets. That’s because this platform is professionally focused so users tend to update their profiles more frequently.
The platform allows for specific audiences, letting you narrow your audience to the people that really matter. For example, you can reach users by including or excluding:
- Location
- Job title
- Company name
- Industry
- Degree
- Professional interests
You can also use your company data to retarget website visitors or reach known contacts and accounts. LinkedIn’s ad platform offers a great opportunity for your company’s account-based marketing (ABM) campaign, which we will explore later on in this post.
A large selection of ad formats
LinkedIn provides a long list of ad formats, from text to images and even video. There are several different formats including carousel ads, email advertisements, display ads, dynamic ads and more.
Before you launch your campaign, it’s important to review the different formats to find the one that will best meet your goals. As an example, LinkedIn’s dynamic ads engage prospects with ads that are automatically personalized to them. With this format, you can tailor your ads to build brand awareness, drive traffic and convert prospects.
Alternatively, LinkedIn’s sponsored content lets you promote content in the LinkedIn feed. And you can even incorporate lead gen forms to capture leads.
A huge selection of ad objectives
We can’t forget about ad objectives, either. Just as important as the format, if not more, is choosing your ad objective, which helps LinkedIn streamline and customize your campaign creation.
LinkedIn offers some fantastic objectives for B2B marketers, including:
- Brand awareness: These are impression-based campaigns that are great for top-of-funnel brand building.
- Website visits: If clicks to your website are a priority, this objective is for you.
- Engagement: This is all about getting users to interact with your posts by clicking on your ad, commenting or getting more company followers.
- Video views: Looking to get some relevant eyeballs on your new video? LinkedIn’s got you covered.
- Lead generation: This objective uses LinkedIn forms that are pre-filled with members’ profile data. It makes it easy to get leads on the platform.
- Website conversions: You define what website action is most valuable to you, like downloading an ebook, and the campaign will be optimized for that specific conversion.
From awareness to conversion, LinkedIn’s advertising platform supports full-funnel objectives.
Take your ABM campaign up a notch
Simply put, ABM focuses on a set of target accounts within a market. If your company is investing in ABM campaigns, LinkedIn advertising should be seriously considered given that its ad options are designed to support ABM marketing. Companies can leverage LinkedIn’s personalization options to tailor ads.
LinkedIn’s Sponsored InMail, now referred to as Message Ads, is another way to enhance your ABM campaign. With Message Ads, you can send customized messages to specific audience members, aka contacts your targeting for your campaign. You can invite these users to download exclusive content, like an ebook or white paper, or you can encourage them to register for an event like a webinar. These placements only work if you are highly personal and focus entirely on the reader — what they get out of the experience matters more than anything, so make it useful and as helpful as possible.
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This article was written for Business 2 Community by Kim Caro.
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