5 Advantages of Using LinkedIn for Advertising
LinkedIn is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when somebody says “online/digital advertising” or even “social media advertising”. You probably think of it as a “business version of Facebook” or something along those lines.
Well, recently it’s been proving itself to be a valuable marketing tool for most advertisers. Depending on what you want to do — thought leadership, lead generation, brand awareness or driving sales, you can really get into it with LinkedIn.
Like any ad platform, LinkedIn Advertising has its pros and cons. If you’re wondering if your business should start using LinkedIn Ads as a part of your media mix, here are some benefits of LinkedIn Ads that may interest you to dive deeper into advertising on LinkedIn.
1. Ad formats (a lot of ad formats)
LinkedIn had to create many different ad units to keep up with their competition. As a result, LinkedIn Advertisers have the option of using video, images, or promoted content ads.
Most brands stick to using traditional image ads, which work perfectly well if the ads tell a good story. Image ads and lead ads are good lower-funnel tools to capture more prospects and expand your email marketing and retargeting lists.
Video ads, on the other side, are a great way for brands to tell their story to a wide pool of users that can be used to build remarketing audiences.
Text ads are a more simple and shy format that appears at the top of the feed or the right side of it. They offer a smaller “real estate space” than other formats.
Spotlight ads are a part of the so-called LinkedIn Dynamic ads, which include Spotlight, Follower, and Content ads. They are unique to LinkedIn.
Sponsored content ads are probably the best way to get engagement with your ads, but they are more expensive than other ad models because they have a higher reach. You can bid to optimize your sponsored content on a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) or CPC (cost per click) model.
2. Generating quality leads
One of the biggest benefits that LinkedIn offers for B2B companies is the possibility to generate high-quality leads. In the B2B industry, reaching the right decision-makers is even more important than in B2C.
For this reason, companies must find where their decision-makers “live” on the Internet. But not only that; what is their intention when visiting a certain website or social media channel.
On LinkedIn, you are probably surrounded by strictly professional content and news. That means you are more likely to search for possible tools and services for your company. But also, listen to proposals, sales pitches, and react to relevant ads that offer the solutions that you are looking for.
3. Budgeting, budgeting, budgeting…
LinkedIn has a minimum daily budget that you have to spend on your ads, but that budget is $2, which really isn’t a lot. This applies in particular to short-term campaigns that last for a month or two.
Also, any pro marketer will tell you that $2 per day is a very small amount of money to be redistributed to the entire campaign, especially if you’ve set high goals. If you don’t have the monthly advertising budget of Jeff Bezos, it doesn’t mean that you can’t accomplish your goals through strategic budget spending.
LinkedIn solved this with their pay-per-click, which means pay per performance. Therefore, only those people who clicked and saw your ad will cost you. But of course, if you only care that people see your ad, there is an option for this as well in the form of payment per impression (seen ad).
4. Specific targeting options for businesses
Advertising success on social media largely depends on how you can make sure your message reaches your most desirable audience. Setting your target audience right is a “make or break” element of your online campaign. In addition to standard demographic information, LinkedIn allows you to target your ads based on variables such as:
· Job title
· Job function
· Seniority
· Company name
· Company size
· Industry
· Skill
· Degree type and name
Thanks to these targeting opportunities, LinkedIn is an especially good fit for brands targeting business customers.
5. Retargeting options
LinkedIn offers a wide variety of ways to reach people who have already shown interest in your business. And consequently, get in touch with them with a second, more personalized message.
Website retargeting — allows you to collect cookies from visitors who are coming to your website from your LinkedIn campaigns. This way, you can re-engage these visitors again later.
Contact targeting — with contact targeting, you will be able to upload your existing database of email addresses of leads and customers. This database will later match against LinkedIn’s database so you can reach these contacts on LinkedIn.
Account targeting — works the same way as Contact targeting, except that this time, you upload a list of accounts (company names) to match against LinkedIn’s database.
Lookalike audiences — with this option, LinkedIn will use your existing data to create new audiences similar to your current ones.
These five reasons aren’t anywhere near proving that LinkedIn Ads are the best or that you should use them. This is just a starting point for anyone interested in broadening their advertising horizons and stepping up their advertising game. LinkedIn Ads are here to stay and we’re just helping you keep up with the digital world.
