LinkedIn is a social networking site that allows users to connect with other business professionals and friends. It’s been around for over 10 years, so it’s no surprise that there are tons of articles about how to use LinkedIn in your marketing strategy. However, this article will take a different approach-it will focus on the LinkedIn advertising strategies you need to know right now.
The first thing we need to talk about is targeting people by their jobs and industries. You want as many people as possible scrolling through your ads, but you can narrow down who views them by selecting either “Jobs” or “Industries” when setting up a new campaign. This means if you own an ice cream shop and are looking to market your new coffee shop, you can target people who work in the food industry as well as those who work in retail.
Use LinkedIn to Understand Your Customer
Mapping your buyer personas onto LinkedIn is a great way to identify who your potential customers are. For example, if you’re a HR consultant, you might look for the job positions “HR Manager”, “Recruiter”, or “Assistant Manager” on LinkedIn and then create a custom audience of these individuals on LinkedIn.
Layer Your LinkedIn Advertising Targeting Options
Lately LinkedIn digital advertising platform has introduced a number of targeting options under Advanced Options. You might find that you can exclude certain job titles or positions to layer on top of your custom audience. If you’re compiling an audience of HR executives, for example, you’ll probably want to avoid targeting recruiters in the same business vertical as well.
Tier Your LinkedIn Audiences
If you’ve got a couple of different media buys planned, it’s probably smart to create separate audiences. You can then run A/B tests and monitor performance on each one before committing more budget or effort.
Website Retargeting on LinkedIn
If your potential customers are visiting your site and LinkedIn is a natural avenue for them to visit, you might want to layer website retargeting on top of LinkedIn ads. You can create a custom audience based on website visitors and then use these in your LinkedIn campaigns.
Leverage LinkedIn Lookalike Audiences
If you’re advertising in a new vertical, there’s no better way of targeting than leveraging Lookalike Audiences from your existing customers. It’s an easy way to find people who are likely to respond positively to your messaging.
Use LinkedIn Ads to Predict Customer Behavior
If you’re building an audience off a specific persona or buyer personas, you’ll probably want to create a lookalike audience of people who are similar but not identical. With this technique you can determine whether your targeting options are getting it right or wrong. If they’re getting it wrong, you can adjust accordingly.
Advanced Search Options on LinkedIn
LinkedIn has introduced a number of advanced search options that you can use to target your specific buyer personas. For example, you might want to exclude people from a certain location or set of job titles and then include them in your audience. The opportunity is endless for refining so keep playing with it until you find the right mix.
Utilize LinkedIn Lead-gen Ads in
For B2B professionals, LinkedIn is a gold mine of potential clients and business partners. But how do you capitalize on that opportunity? The answer lies in lead-gen ads (LGA). Lead-gen ads allow you to target specific people with your message and increase qualification rates, which leads to more closed deals.
There are many people who don’t have time to fill out any type of form, but still want a product or service. That is why we use lead generation forms in LinkedIn sponsored content ads-to collect relevant information from prospects that can be used later for marketing purposes like email campaigns and social media targeting
With Lead Generation Forms in LinkedIn Sponsored Content Ads you get:
– The best way to generate leads by collecting contact info instead of spamming inboxes
– Accessible data about what interests your prospect so you know where to target future communication.
Types of LinkedIn ads:
Sponsored Content- The perfect way to show people your new products or services, sponsored content is a great option if you don’t want to pay for an ad. How it works: You choose the audience and type of post you want to create (it can be text, video or both). LinkedIn then delivers the content directly to that audience. All you have to do is pay for the placement (which includes a thumbnail and headline), then post it as normal.
Sponsored InMail– This ad feature has been around since 2012, and it’s one of the most effective ways to help users know about your new products or services. How it works: You choose the audience you want to reach, then select the template that best suits your offer. Users can respond via email directly from their LinkedIn inbox, which means they never have to leave the app or website to respond and learn more about your product. Sponsored InMail also offers competitive pricing and guaranteed delivery-which is why it’s a great option for companies with smaller budgets.
Sponsored Messaging on LinkedIn
This option will help you deliver a sales pitch to an audience of your choosing. How it works: Just like sponsored InMail, this ad type allows customers to respond via email directly from their LinkedIn inbox. You can even include attachments for more detailed information!
Sponsored Video– This LinkedIn ad type is a great way to break through the noise and get those customers viewing your ads. How it works: You can choose a video hosted on YouTube or upload your own HQ video to host on the platform. Another bonus? Your videos will automatically play in full screen when people scroll by them!
Text Ads-
This LinkedIn ad type will help you grab attention and entice people to view your ads. However, it’s important to remember that with text only ads, less is more-you only have 1 headline and 2 lines of copy, so make sure they count. How it works: You have three options for your campaigns: geo-targeted, interest-based and company page ads.
Dynamic Ads
Dynamic ads are a great way to show different ads to people as they move through the site. You create one ad, then re-target users based off of their browsing history and keyword searches. How it works: It’s simple! Choose your audience, write your ad, then let LinkedIn handle the rest-you’ll see your ad appear in different places as people move through the site, ensuring you’re only paying for ads that are getting results.
Dynamic InMail– This option is a combination of sponsored content and Sponsored InMail, so it’s easy to see why this is one of the most used LinkedIn advertising strategies out there! How it works: You can create content similar to sponsored InMail, including the same options of video and attachments. The big difference is that with dynamic InMail, you’ll direct your message to an audience outside of your company network. How does it do this? By scanning the LinkedIn network for recipients who share connections with other users who already opened your message.
LinkedIn ad objectives
LinkedIn Ads for Consideration
LinkedIn ads are a versatile tool for generating awareness among your target audience. These ads are built around key business-related objectives, and you can control the budget of your campaign. LinkedIn is an ideal advertising solution because it’s completely objective-based, meaning every ad you create follows a specific goal.
Say you want to get your brand name on the tip of people’s tongues. You could start with an awareness ad, which helps audiences talk about your products and services as well as increases views or leads for brands.
LinkedIn Ads for Consideration
Opt for a consideration ad if you want to qualify leads already somewhat familiar with your brand. These types of ads are optimized to help advertisers meet the following goals: Website visits, engagement, and video views
LinkedIn Ads for Conversions
A conversion ad is an advertisement that has a specific goal. They are ideal for generating leads, driving sales or inspiring website visitors to download ebooks, sign up for newsletters and buy products. Lead generation ads can be set-up with information pulled from LinkedIn profiles before the viewer clicks through on them; job applicants have access to company openings by viewing our latest postings online as well!
Conclusion:
If you’ve been struggling to generate leads and need help, these LinkedIn B2B Advertising Strategies should be able to put you on the right path. With a little creativity and testing, your marketing campaign can start generating sales instead of just collecting data. Let us know if we can provide any assistance in getting started with this process!
