With over 750 million users, it is the largest social network for professionals. LinkedIn ads can be an effective tool for generating leads, driving traffic to your profile or website, and engaging with your content on Linkedin. The most important thing is to choose the right campaign goals and choose the right format.
If you haven’t used advertising on Linkedin before, learn about the seven basic types of advertising on LinkedIn.
1. Sponsored Content: These are promoted posts on the user’s main dashboard, similar to Facebook sponsored posts. They appear on the board like any other post but are marked as “Promoted” in order not to hide anything from users. A post can be text or a combination of text and images or video. Basically, anything you would put in a regular LinkedIn post can be done in a Sponsored Content Ad. They are best suited for increasing the reach of your brand and acquiring potential customers.
2. Sponsored InMail: These are personalized messages that allow you to send a message directly to the user’s inbox for an additional fee.
3. Text Ads: These ads appear in the right sidebar of LinkedIn and consist of a headline, description, and a small image.
4. Dynamic ads: These ads are personalized for each user, using their own profile information in their messages.
5. Video ads: These are videos that can be used to tell a brand story, share customer feedback, showcase a product or announce an event.
6. Carousel Ads: These image ads are similar to Facebook carousel ads and will display on the user’s main wall.
7. Display ads: These are the 300 × 250 ads that you see on Linkedin.
Choosing the right ad format comes down to determining your goals, resources, and budget. For example, creating sponsored content involves simply selecting an existing post, while running a video ad will require you to produce your own video content.
But no matter what format you choose, you need to properly set your ad targeting on Linkedin. Advertising on LinkedIn isn’t cheap, so if you don’t target your ads to the right people, you’re just wasting your money.
Fortunately, you have many different options for targeting your ad on Linkedin. First, let’s focus on job options, specialization, and seniority.
Advertising on Linkedin Targeting by position
User positions are the easiest option to target an ad on Linkedin. It is also the most expensive of all options because it has the greatest potential.
Let’s work on an example. Suppose you sell SEO software. I could just target marketing managers on LinkedIn because they will be using it. There is a good chance that I will reach the right people, but there are also downsides to targeting your Linkedin ad to user positions.
For example, there has been a growing trend recently to use non-standard job titles. The Employee may perform the job of a Marketing Manager, but his actual title is Growth Hacker, Marketing Strategist, or Performance Marketer. If you only target “marketing managers,” you won’t reach those people.
Advertising on Linkedin Targeting by function
The feature option allows you to search by features of Linkedin users. Using the same example as above, instead of targeting marketing managers, you can target your ads to people who work in marketing. This will attract everyone you are interested in: Marketing Managers, Growth Hackers, Marketing Strategists, and Performance Marketers.
Unfortunately, you will also direct your ad on Linkedin to everyone else related to marketing. Coordinators, directors – people who will probably never be your target customers. These ads will not be as expensive as job title ads, but they also won’t be as focused on a narrow target audience.
Available functions for advertising on Linkedin:
• Administration
• Tests
• Finance
• HR
• Engineering
• Consulting
• Quality control
• Accounting
• Buying
• Marketing
• Media and communication
• Real Estate
• Business operations
• Social protection and social services
• Healthcare
• Help
• Law
• Entrepreneurship
• Development of the company
• Sale
• Education
• Art and design
• Information technologies
• Military and security services
• Product management
• Project and program management
Advertising on Linkedin Targeting by seniority (hierarchy level)
Work experience helps narrow down your target audience through the level of decision-making and user experience. Here are the categories of the level in the hierarchy:
• Unpaid item: Includes volunteer or other jobs that are not traditionally considered paid (e.g. unemployed, retired, volunteer)
• Apprentice: student, trainee and apprentice positions, but also includes members who may have many years of experience in a different role and start a new career path.
• Beginner employee: position of an individual employee without direct reports or a leadership role
• Experienced employee: position of an individual employee with direct reports and management responsibilities.
• Manager: positions that have direct reports or concern the management of processes and projects.
• Director: multi-level management, usually involving members who are managers of managers
• Vice President: executive management
• Partner: Partial operational control with high impact
• Owner: Full operational control with high level of influence
For the aforementioned SEO software, for example, you might choose to target only senior people or managers, which would increase the likelihood of me reaching the purchasing decision-makers of the software.
Advertising on Linkedin. Other targeting options
While job titles, functions, and company hierarchy levels are the most used options, there are others that can help narrow down your potential targeting.
• Years of Experience: This feature can help you reach people with a certain level of professional experience who may work as consultants but do not hold a specific position because they do not work in the organization.
• Member Skills: If you are looking for someone with expertise in a specific field – eg you want to find a marketing person who is responsible for SEO to sell your software – this is an option to consider.
• Company Name: Use this option to target employees of up to 100 companies.
• Company Size: This is an excellent option if your product or service is specifically for companies of a certain size, as you can exclude other company sizes that do not fit. If you’re selling an enterprise-level solution, you’ll likely benefit from eliminating those small and medium-sized businesses that are unlikely to have a budget for your product or service.
There are a few other options, of course, but these are likely the ones that will be most appropriate for your LinkedIn advertising strategy.