Why LinkedIn Ads Are Important
LinkedIn, as a professional networking platform, has business credibility. With LinkedIn ads, you can generate leads, drive website traffic, and build brand awareness with an audience of more than 850 million professionals. If your advertising strategy includes targeting business professionals, then creating a LinkedIn page and engaging with the global business community is a must.
Why else should you advertise on LinkedIn?
A More Professional Audience Can Be Reached
LinkedIn is a social platform catering directly to business professionals. LinkedIn Ads offer the opportunity to reach decision-makers, executives, and other influential people who act on new opportunities. What does LinkedIn say about its members to justify advertising on the platform?
- 180 million senior-level influencers are on LinkedIn
- 63 million decision-makers use the platform
- 10 million C-level executives can be reached on LinkedIn
- 4 out of 5 LinkedIn members drive business decisions
- LinkedIn’s audience has 2x the buying power of the average web audience
But how do you get this professional audience to promote your brand, product, or services? By using Ad Targeting. It allows you to use accurate, member-generated demographic data to reach the right audience for your business. And one can use two methods of targeting:
Precise targeting: Target the ideal customer based on traits like their company name, job title, industry, professional, and personal interests.
Customized targeting with matched audiences: Reach people you already know with contact, website, and account targeting.
It Can Be More Industry-Specific
LinkedIn is the ideal business-to-business (B2B) advertising platform, as more than 57 million companies have a LinkedIn page. According to LinkedIn data, LinkedIn is rated the number one B2B lead generation platform, and 40% of B2B marketers see LinkedIn as the most effective channel for driving high-quality leads. They also say that audiences exposed to brand and acquisition messages on LinkedIn are six times more likely to convert. But how can you target an industry specified by your LinkedIn marketing strategy?
LinkedIn allows you to target specific industries through audience selection. The category “Company Industry” lets you focus on members that work in a particular sector—but it’s essential to know that this set has limitations. When an organization operates in many industries and verticals, only the primary industry of operation listed on its LinkedIn page is recognized.
It Can Increase Conversion Rates
Doing business is about results—how many sales are made, the profit for the financial year, and what shareholders get. According to LinkedIn data, advertising on their platform offers:
- Up to 2x higher engagement rate for marketers
- Up to 13.5% lower cost per acquisition using LinkedIn’s conversion tracking tool
- Up to 2x higher conversion rates for marketers.
With LinkedIn Ads, you can refine your campaign objective by selecting the best one that fits your marketing goals. Advertisers can choose from three objectives:
- Awareness: creating brand awareness
- Consideration: growing website traffic, driving engagement, increasing video views
- Conversion: lead generation, website conversion, job applicants
Combine that with a choice of eleven advertising formats and access to detailed audience demographics, and conversion rates increase because your target marketing is now focused.
But how do you measure the return on investment (ROI) for the LinkedIn advertising spend and see the actual audience engagement and conversation rates for each campaign? By using the conversion tracking tool that allows you to measure online conversions, offline conversions, URL/Page conversions, and event-specific conversions.
It Promotes Your Business/ Products
LinkedIn ads have multiple purposes, but it all starts with your business goals and campaign objectives. Do you want to promote your business by increasing brand awareness, or do you want to showcase your products? Dynamic Ads from LinkedIn allow you to engage prospects with ads automatically personalized to them. You can choose from several advertisement types:
- Follower Ads: Build brand awareness by promoting your company’s LinkedIn Page
- Spotlight Ads: Showcase your product, service, event, and more to increase traffic to your website or landing page and drive conversions
- Sponsored Content Ads: To generate leads, promote your piece of content to instantly capture leads when it is downloaded
Dynamic Ads features each professional’s LinkedIn data, and campaigns are automatically and individually populated, at scale, for your convenience.
The Budget Can Be Customized
LinkedIn uses objective-based pricing that allows you to create advertising campaigns based on your marketing goals. If you have a daily budget for your advertising campaigns, you can customize it by selecting the objectives you want to achieve. Each campaign objective has dedicated ad formats, bidding strategies, and optimization goals. It also has different billable events, and you are only charged when that event occurs. For example, if your objective or goal is a website visit, you will only be charged once someone clicks on the link to your website.
When you start an advertising campaign on LinkedIn, you bid on an objective that will ultimately allow you to reach the intended target audience. LinkedIn ads are sold through an ad auction where your bid competes with other advertisers who want to reach the same audience. The cost required to win the auction depends on the bid and desirability of the target audience.
LinkedIn Has a Wide Variety of Ad-Types
LinkedIn has a variety of advertisements you can use. The type of ads is divided into four main formats: sponsored content, sponsored messaging, dynamic ads, and text ads.
What does each main category include?
Sponsored content (allows you to reach the audience in the LinkedIn feed):
- Single-image ads that capture the audience’s attention with a strong visual
- Document ads that inspire the audience with thought leadership
- Video ads
- LinkedIn carousel ads that tell a story with a swipeable series of cards
- Event ads that maximize attendance by highlighting event details
Sponsored messaging (engages with the audience in LinkedIn messaging):
- LinkedIn message ads, also known as InMail messaging, communicates directly with the audience to spark immediate action
- Conversation ads where the audience is offered a choose-your-own-path experience
Dynamic Ads (engage prospects with advertisements automatically personalized to them).
Text Ads (a pay-per-click (PPC) or cost-per-impression (CPM) platform where you set your advertising budget).
In Conclusion
LinkedIn Ads are a powerful tool for businesses of all sizes. They allow you to reach a more professional audience, focus on a specific industry, and improve conversion rates. Your budget can be customized to fit your needs, making LinkedIn Ads an affordable option for any business. If you’re looking to get the most out of your advertising dollars, contact WSI today. We’d be happy to help you create a campaign that delivers results.