Over the past few years, LinkedIn has widened its scope as the top platform for professional interactions on social media. As of 2022, it includes over 645 million members across 200 countries. People visit the site to see more than job postings, making it a valuable place to advertise your company information and generate leads.
Advertising on LinkedIn requires strategic planning so you can reach your business goals. Customization options allow you to achieve your brand voice so consumers know what you offer and why they should pick your company over others. You can select from many specifications to reach your target audience.
Keep reading to learn more about advertising on LinkedIn!
5 Easy Steps for Advertising on LinkedIn
To get started, you’ll need to set up a company page to create an advertisement on LinkedIn. It’s vital to look credible with a high-quality profile photo and a cover photo representing your brand. Make sure your page includes basic information, like a mission statement in the bio and your location.
You’ll also want to create a Campaign Manager account. If you already have one, you can log in to start running ads and managing your budget right away.
Set up your campaign conversion tracking to measure the success of your ads. You’ll find this option under the Account Assets menu. Once you add the LinkedIn Insight Tag to your website with the free JavaScript code, you’re ready to go.
1. Pick Your Ad Objective
Before starting a campaign, decide what type of reaction you want from your audience. All ads on LinkedIn revolve around three objective options — do you want your ad to provide awareness, prompt consideration, or make conversions?
- Awareness: Use this objective when you’d like to introduce an audience to your brand. Your campaign could work as an elevator pitch for people who have never interacted with your brand.
- Consideration: When your goals become more specific, select this objective if you want the audience to take action. A successful campaign in this category addresses pain points and needs of your audience.
- Conversions: If you want a clear call to action (CTA), select this objective. These campaigns directly ask an audience to apply, call, or buy, resulting in more generated leads.
2. Select Your Target Audience
Who do you want to see your ad? Select your desired location and other targeting criteria for your audience. LinkedIn’s tools involve over 20 categories to help narrow your preferences. Specifications might include:
- Names of companies
- Sizes of companies
- Groups members belong to
- Interests of members
- Member schools
- Titles of professions
- Seniority levels of jobs
- Members’ skills
Getting specific allows you to reach the right consumers and receive higher engagement. The LinkedIn Matched Audience option enables you to connect with people you already know by uploading a list of email contacts or retargeting people who’ve previously visited your website.
3. Choose Your Ad Format
After filling in information about your targeted audience goals, select your preferred ad format from the following options:
- Sponsored Content: Carousel ads, image ads, and video ads appear in your audience’s feed and are compelling enough to get users to pause while scrolling.
- Message Ads: Direct messages sent to targeted prospects spark immediate action and allow personalization for connecting with your brand.
- Dynamic Ads: Single-sentence lines personally call out to your audience based on their profile data and inspire them to click on a link for more information.
- Text Ads: Words appear as an ad on your audience’s LinkedIn sidebar and should be eye-catching and direct.
At this point, select whether you’d like cost per send (CPS), which is paying for each successfully delivered message; cost per click (CPC) for action-oriented campaigns; or cost per impression (CPM) when focusing on brand awareness.
Once you’ve chosen the right ad format, enter a start date, end date, suggested bid, daily budget, and total budget. If you accidentally pick an option that needs changing, you can cancel your ad at any time.
Remember that LinkedIn rewards engagement with an auction system, providing more visibility than initially spent. To figure out the best ads for reaching your audience, try A/B testing and experimenting before committing a large budget.
4. Preview Your Ad and Pay
Review your campaign before finalizing it. Is everything suited to your preferences without any errors? The Campaign Manager shares previews of text ads or sponsored content so you can check everything before it goes live. If you choose message ad options, send a test message to yourself.
Input your payment information to finalize your campaign. Once paid, your campaign can launch into the digital world.
5. Measure Your Ad Performance
When you sign into your Campaign Manager account, view how well your LinkedIn ads perform. A dashboard reports performance metrics, demographics, and access charts with an option for exporting reports. For sponsored content, you’ll see engagement rates with comments, clicks, and shares.
Continue A/B testing to see which variations work best. Once you know what catches your audience’s attention, move forward strategically by cutting spending on low-performance ads and focusing on top-performing campaigns to increase engagement rates over time.