LinkedIn has a large user base of more than 467 million users, which has been steadily increasing each year. What started out primarily as a platform to bridge the gap between recruiters and job seekers in 2003 has since grown into a top lead generating social network for B2Bs. Besides creating a company page to connect with industry professionals and also publishing and promoting engaging content on LinkedIn, B2Bs should definitely look to take advantage of LinkedIn ads to target their ideal buyers.
A lot of companies across different industries have ventured into LinkedIn ads lately to reach their ideal customer and advertise their products, services and content. About half of B2B buyers use LinkedIn when making purchasing decisions. LinkedIn has continuously made improvements in its available offerings, from ad types to introducing new features for precise targeting and more concise reporting.
What Are LinkedIn Ads?
Have you seen the ads in the sidebar or below the navigation bar on LinkedIn? A LinkedIn Ad has obvious ad copy with a link, sometimes with a logo or other small image or video. LinkedIn Ads offers text-and-image ads to video ads, as well as some larger ad formats available on a pay-per-click or cost-per-impression basis. LinkedIn ad needs to have compelling copy to encourage more viewers to click, which leads them to a landing page wherein the right conditions they’ll preferably convert to leads.
LinkedIn Advertising Types and Formats
LinkedIn ad options are suitable for all sized businesses, from SMEs to large corporate. All formats can help build brand awareness, create relationships, drive traffic and qualified leads. You need to consider budget, time constraints, and platform advertising experience before choosing either- self-service advertising or advertising partner solutions.
Self-Service Advertising
1) Text Ads – LinkedIn text ads are displayed on the right sidebar or bottom of any page of the platform, where they have a wider reach to people. There is a higher conversion rate on the landing page from Text Ads because users know that they have clicked on a business ad and are more prepared for the lead acquisition page. Text Ads are almost like display ads from AdWords. Text ads are often more direct because the ad anatomy has fewer characters available. It consists of:
- Headline (25 characters)
- Ad Copy (75 characters)
- Image (50×50 pixels)
- Destination URL
2) Sponsored Content– LinkedIn Sponsored Content is comparable to Facebook newsfeed updates or Twitter sponsored tweets as it takes on native advertising form and function. Sponsored on either a CPM or CPC basis, these ads can be seen as people scroll down their feed and are viewed just like updates. So unless the image or headline really grabs the user’s attention they will not click on it. The general structure of Sponsored Content Ads is:
- Intro (128 characters)
- Headline (36 characters)
- Description (155 characters)
- Photo (200 pixels wide on desktop)
It allows an advertiser to distribute Company Updates to the feed of targeted LinkedIn members outside their Company Page visitors and followers. You also use anything between video, large image or text links and it appears on the Company Page or Showcase Page.
3) Sponsored InMail – Sponsored InMail campaigns are an amazing way for marketers to spread the word to decision makers through a personalized and timely message on LinkedIn. InMail ads can cut through all the noise to allow you to deliver personalized, relevant content, from whitepapers to free trials, through LinkedIn messenger to reach your audiences, on desktop and mobile. The general template for Sponsored InMail Ads is:
- Sender Name (25 characters)
- Subject Line (30 characters)
- Body Copy 1000 characters)
- Button Copy (25 characters)
- Banner Ad 300×250
InMail is perfect for increasing in-person event registration or even for an online webinar with personalized invites. You can encourage users to take action through Sponsored InMail Ads by pushing limited time offers or discounts and capitalize on promoting amazing content to generate leads. LinkedIn does have a limit for the number of sponsored InMails that a user can receive in a certain time period, such as one InMail per user every 60 days, so it may be a good strategy to combine Sponsored InMail with other ad formats.
Advertising Partner Solutions
4) Display Ads– PremiumDisplay ads can help businesses reach its desired audience to increase awareness on a huge scale. It is possible to improve visual elements of your ads with images, videos, and placement. Advertisers CAN have a video in the sidebar that pops out on click to show video advertisement, no longer than 20 seconds in length. You can target and find the right professionals to advertise to on the basis of relevant profile data.
5) Join-Group Ads– To engage communities with one of your products and if you want to increase the number of participants in a group, then look no further than Join-Group Ads aka Sponsored Groups. These ads will show the name of your group, a brief description of the topics to be discussed, and a clear call to action button asking users to join. Hopefully, you will see more people joining the group.
6) Recommendations Ads– These ads can showcase a specific product or service to help you get more exposure or sales for it. These ads appear on a number of different locations and can help advertisers showcase a specific product. The ad displays the company name, the product or service, the number of people who have recommended it, buttons for users to recommend or share the product or service, images of the product or service and images of those that recommended it.
7) Follow Company Ads– When you have started out on Linked and looking to grow your company following, then you can use these ads to encourage users to follow you. It increases your brand’s credibility on the social network too. The more people you can get to follow your company, the better the chance of getting your content in front of them for free. Follow-company ads appear on the user page.
Get Leads With LinkedIn Ads
LinkedIn Ads can be an effective tool in your B2B marketing strategy to generate quality leads. Since your ads won’t be reaching users with no lead potential, you maximize your PPC budget by reducing clicks from time wasters. Moreover, you are assured that your target audience is seeing your ad, instead of trying to predict their search behavior. Directive Group can help you run successful LinkedIn campaigns for B2B clients. Do keep reading our blog to get more resources on marketing with LinkedIn.
