Leverage the Best Results from a LinkedIn Ad Campaign

The popularity and effectiveness of social media advertisements, specifically LinkedIn, have made it the go-to strategy for many B2B companies. It doesn’t matter if you want to attract qualified leads or candidates, the platform will get you the results you seek.

The fact that LinkedIn is mostly used for professional reasons, makes it highly effective for lead generation. We look at how you can design your ad campaign to make the most of LinkedIn.

Customize ads for your audience

The first step in any ad campaign is identifying your audience. You need to know the demographics of your target audience, so you can tailor your campaign in a way so it reaches them. With LinkedIn, there are certain parameters that you can set to reach your target audience, let’s look at them:

• Size of a company or company name
• Function, job title, or seniority
• Schools attended
• Degree
• Field of study
• Gender
• Age
• Skills

The more information you provide within the parameter, the easier it is for LinkedIn to ensure the ad reaches companies and individuals that fit the profile.

Determine the objective of your campaign

Your campaign should be goal-oriented, only then will it achieve what you want. After you have your audience figured out, determine what you wish you achieve. Are you looking to drive more traffic to your website, nurture leads through engagement, or generate leads? 

Figuring your objective will help you write the content, pick visuals, and include relevant information in the advertisement. For example, if you are looking to generate leads, including a link to a form for users to fill out is a must. Users interested can easily click through and submit their details for your team to contact. So, understand what you want to achieve and develop an ad and its content accordingly. 

The ad type should match your campaign

LinkedIn allows you to run three different types of ad campaigns. These are:

• Sponsored InMail: InMail is the messaging platform on LinkedIn. Through sponsored InMail, your ad goes directly into the inbox of the audience you want to reach. Interested leads are more likely to read the advertisement this way.
• Sponsored content: If you’ve used social media, you’ve come across tons of sponsored content. These appear directly on the user’s feed. These are great for raising brand awareness and nurturing relationships.
• Text ads: The mechanism behind text ads is similar to pay-per-click ads. They appear on the sidebar of the user’s feed and the reach depends on the budget you’ve set.

When selecting the type of ad, you need to understand the type that would click with your audience and your overall marketing objective. Sponsored InMail and content tend to work better with B2B lead generation and nurturing.

Use visuals

Visuals are just as important as text in ads. Use visuals to grab the user’s attention, be it in a form of a GIF, picture, or short video. It will attract more users than just text alone.

There are tons of websites online such as Shutterstock and iStock from where you can get photos. You can also find stock videos online, but it is better to have them made. You can find artists and websites online that can create animated videos that are specific to the message you want to get across. These will help more with getting the user’s attention and keeping it.

Test your ads 

Before you launch the full-fledged campaign, test the ads. Run the ad for 6-7 days on a budget of about $100 per day. See how it appeals to your target audience and what kind of response you get. Make sure you check results daily. If you are satisfied, then proceed with running the campaign for a month or however long you intend to. If not, tweak the ad and run another test to see if you get a better response. Keep doing that until you are satisfied.

Final thought

There will be some trial and error with running ad campaigns successfully on LinkedIn. But the platform gets B2B companies the results they seek. The tips we’ve mentioned above should help you tailor your ads for success. Just make sure you track all your campaigns and rework them when needed.