Is LinkedIn Advertising Right for my Business?
If you want to reach a network of business professionals and decision makers, then LinkedIn, with its 690 million active users, is definitely a platform you shouldn’t ignore. Unlike other social media, the LinkedIn platform allows you to connect with people who are actively engaging with other business professionals and therefore already in the mindset of doing business.
Compared to networks like Facebook, whose users tend to be more likely on there to catch up with friends and family, LinkedIn is perfect for B2B and networking with like minded business people, as well as your potential clients and customers.
LinkedIn’s robust advertising features also let you narrow your target audience based, not just on demographics, but industry-specific variables such as job title, company size, sector, skill set, and many more besides.
How can you Help me Set up my First LinkedIn Ads Campaign?
At Superb Digital we know what works and what doesn’t on LinkedIn, especially when it comes to advertising. Business people are often extremely used to being sold to so it’s important to pitch the messaging in your ads in just the right way to grab people’s attention without turning them off to what you’re selling.
After sitting down with you and your team to get a handle on your ad’s ultimate goal and how this fits into the buying cycle, we’ll need to create the assets needed for your campaign. Many of our clients prefer to do this in-house, but we can put this together for you if you prefer.
We’ll then set up your campaign and then track and analyse your ongoing metrics in order to optimise your ads and get an accurate picture of your campaign’s progress over time. All this information will be presented in our clear monthly reports but we’ll also book in regular catch up calls to go over ongoing progress and make recommendations for future activity.
LinkedIn Ads FAQ
How do LinkedIn ads work?
You need to create a Campaign Manager account to access LinkedIn’s advertising platform. Within the Campaign Manager, you can set your budget, choose your goals (e.g. clicks, impressions), select which specific audience you’re targeting, choose your ad’s format (e.g. sponsored content, message ads, text ads, or dynamic ads), and set your budget and timeline.
You’ll also find additional tools to help you measure and optimise your campaigns so you can adjust your ads where needed.
What targeting options are available?
When advertising on LinkedIn, you can target your audience based on variables that are not only limited to their location, but also industry-specific ones like:
- Audience Attributes — Includes company details (e.g. connections, size, growth rate, etc), demographics (e.g. age, gender), education (e.g. field of study, degrees, etc), job experience (e.g. function, seniority, title, skills, etc), as well as interests and traits (e.g. member groups).
- Matched Audiences — Create custom audience segments based on several factors like retargeting, opening or submitting your lead gen form, visiting a page on your website, viewing your video ad, and many more.
- Audience size — You can choose the audience size you want to reach, with a minimum of 300 members.
How much will LinkedIn ads cost me?
You can invest as little or as much as you want, depending on your needs. LinkedIn bases the amount you’ll pay on the ad auction and type of activity that you’ll be paying for.
Due to its powerful targeting and switched-on business audience, LinkedIn ads require a higher investment than other platforms and aren’t cheap. Ad bidding starts at a minimum of around £1.50 for cost-per-click and cost-per-impression campaigns. On average, expect to shell out £3.90 per click and £4.89 per 1,000 impressions. Sponsored and InMail campaigns can cost you an average of £0.59 per send.
We conduct a thorough keyword and market research exercise in order to ascertain a suitable click budget based on your goals and agreed campaign parameters, so we’ll recommend a budget for you. Ultimately though, how much you want to spend on clicks is up to you.
What should I think about when running ads on LinkedIn?
When running LinkedIn ads campaigns, we recommend the following:
- Create ads that will fit your audience profile.
- Choose the right ad format that fits your campaign (e.g. carousel or spotlight ads to showcase products, job ads for talent recruitment, etc).
- Personalise your ads to increase engagement.
- Run split tests so you’ll know the right messaging that resonates with your audience.
How can I measure the effectiveness of my LinkedIn ads?
You need to know the right metrics to measure your campaign goals.
If you want to increase brand awareness, track your clicks, impressions, click-through rates, and average engagement. For leads and conversions, you can look at cost per conversion, conversion rate, cost per lead, and valid and viewable rates. All these metrics can be viewed through your Campaign Manager account, but we’ll also include them in our monthly reports along with a summary of progress.
What can LinkedIn do for my business that other social platforms can’t?
The nature of LinkedIn as a site for business professionals is its main advantage for B2B businesses, compared to other social sites that cater to a more general audience.
Facebook, for one, is full of personal and social updates, while Twitter’s limited messaging capability makes it difficult to look for relevant information about a business and its previous posts. Instagram and Pinterest, on the other hand, are visual-based mediums that would best showcase product photos and videos, specifically in the fashion, lifestyle and tourism sectors.
While there may be more people on other platforms, LinkedIn will give you the best ROI if you’re a business doing business with other businesses.