Linkedin Advertising: A Practical Guide

Companies that target a professional audience should focus their efforts on generating advertising on Linkedin. And, compared to other means of online advertising, such as Facebook Ads or Google AdWords, advertising on Linkedin is still not very well known. Therefore, companies have even more possibilities to generate unique and creative content.

Advertising on Linkedin is still a relatively unknown solution; hence, a practical Guide is needed to develop advertising on Linkedin.

What is Linkedin?

According to a study conducted in April 2018 by Statista, Linkedin is a platform that keeps growing. Linkedin is the largest professional network in the world, with 546 million registered users and 260 million active users per month.

Linkedin encompasses the bulk of directors, managers, and decision makers in the business world. That is, in the social network, there are 40 million ‘bosses,’ 10 million opinion leaders and 6 million managers. Without forgetting, of course, the more than 61 million influencers who also have a LinkedIn profile.

Types of advertising on Linkedin

1.-Text Ads

Text ads, similar to other platforms, are just one of the options in Linkedin advertising. Besides, it is also the most straightforward and most economical option.

The main elements of this type of advertising are text, images, and a title. Linkedin offers various kinds of formats, with the three features already mentioned.

This type of Linkedin advertising seeks to draw attention in the most obvious way. Therefore, text ads can be placed in different places within the platform. Either in the upper part or to the right of the web.

To attract the audience, it is essential that entrepreneurs use simple, clear, and direct language. Also, the image must be attractive to attract clicks.

2.- InMail messages

Linkedin offers the opportunity to send private messages through Linkedin Messenger. This type of Linkedin advertising resembles conventional email marketing.

That is, brands have the opportunity to send sponsored messages to those contacts that are active on Linkedin. This increases the chances of success since it allows sending messages to a segmented audience.

For this type of Linkedin advertising to work correctly, it is essential that brands personalize the message received by users as much as possible. It is about drawing attention by making clear the purpose of the word.

3.- Sponsored content

Brands can post sponsored content on their respective pages and promote it to a segmented audience. The promoted content appears in the feed of the company page. Both on the home page, on all devices, and on the right side of it. This option is only available for open sessions on computers.

The main reason to integrate this type of advertising on Linkedin is that it is a perfect way to expand the reach of the ads. The promotions or sponsored content of the companies become relevant content that does not go unnoticed.

Besides, this type of advertising is not limited exclusively to text articles but may include other dynamic elements or videos. Precisely the videos become more relevant content.

Video ads have a prominent presence in the news feed. Not forgetting that, videos have a call button that remains active while playing. That is, users always have the option to click on the advertising link. So users become permanent leads.

4.- Dynamic Ads

Dynamic ads are a type of Linkedin advertising whose content is generated dynamically. That is to say, that depending on the activity and profile of the audience, an ad or another will appear.

If the platform finds a similarity between a user, for its location, for example, and a brand, the advertising that will appear in the user’s feed will be that of the brand in question.

Dynamic ads include copies and calls to action designed by advertisers. Also, they can incorporate dynamically generated images from the profile of the members.

In short, it is a type of advertising on Linkedin that can attract attention. Everything, to establish new relationships and invite users to the company’s website.

5.- Display Ads

Linkedin’s display ads are part of programmatic advertising. That is to say, that the businessmen that so wish can acquire those announcements through advertising platforms and public and private auctions.

This type of advertising gives rise to be more creative because it allows the inclusion of elements in video and audio, in addition to the classic images and text.

However, this type of advertising on Linkedin is only placed on the most trafficked pages of the platform. It is a positive aspect since brands make sure that their message reaches the public, regardless of the clicks they finally receive.

On the other hand, it can be a negative aspect, since it does not allow public segmentation. Therefore, this type of advertising on Linkedin is suitable for the first stages of the conversion funnel. In which you try to attract more audience that will eventually become a target audience or lead.

How to create advertising ads on Linkedin

Linkedin allows you to create ads very quickly. First, advertisers must have a personal account. Then, to create sponsored content campaigns, it is necessary to have a company page.

It is recommended that brands have their own Linkedin profile to have a presence in the networks. In fact, it is very possible for users to search for a brand that interests them, even before viewing the ads.

1.- Campaign Administrator account

Linkedin offers a specialized tool to manage to advertise. Creating a Campaign Manager profile is very simple and intuitive. In that sense, Linkedin has made it easy, and those interested will not take more than a couple of minutes to create the account.

Also, we must bear in mind that Linkedin allows you to create campaigns for different countries and currencies. That is, the platform also enables the creation of varying administrator accounts. So, that, if the company needs it, it can manage ads in different currencies.

2.- Types of ads

Now that the types of ads that can be published on Linkedin are known, brands have to determine which format suits them best and is more suited to their objectives. Some campaigns may thus achieve more impact than others.

Also, if companies opt for sponsored content, they should take calls for action into account. The brand must decide if it prefers a lead generation form, standard of Linkedin, or if on the contrary, it prefers to direct the users to its web page.

3.- Create the ad

The campaign manager has an ad creation tool. Linkedin also offers a guide through all the steps of the process and information about image sizes, a number of characters, and other requirements.

Administrators must follow the established steps to create the first announcement. It is important to remember that the primary campaigns are not always practical or the best. But precisely they serve to collect data and can develop better future campaigns

4.- User segmentation

A key aspect of Linkedin advertising, as in most digital advertising, is audience segmentation.

In that sense, Linkedin has a large amount of professional information about its users. This allows the brand to segment the public to whom the advertising is directed in different ways. So that the right information reaches the precise audience.

Among the useful information is

• Place of residence or work.
• Current work
• Place of studies
• Job position they play
• Skills
• Contacts

Thus, companies can create mailing lists or templates with options previously selected to use them in campaigns.

5.- Budget and programming

It is vital that companies that are going to develop an advertising campaign on Linkedin determine the budget of the campaign before starting to create it.

Those interested can choose the budget of the campaign with Linkedin Ads, always starting at a minimum of 10 dollars a day. In addition, you can select a cost-per-click, cost-per-thousand, or cost-per-opening model. This latest model refers to messages sponsored by InMail.

Finally, to finalize the campaign, brands also have to determine the start and end date of it. In the same step, companies will find the option to enable conversion tracking.

That is, the brand that develops an advertising campaign on Linkedin has the option to receive information. Information such as records, installations, downloads, or even purchases. In this way, it is not necessary to resort to external programs to measure the results. Brands can measure the results of their ads later.

Why invest in Linkedin advertising

Brands must focus part of their efforts on attracting users and generating sales through social networks. To do this, they must develop segmented ads that allow increasing the conversion rate better.

Linkedin is a perfect option to develop campaigns that are aimed at a working audience, even within the business environment. Brands have the option of knowing better the users they are targeting. So that they develop more specific campaigns and with better results.

And you, do you want your brand to also have a presence in social networks like Linkedin through segmented ads and with a high conversion rate? At Antevenio, we have more than 20 years of experience in social media results marketing. Come in and find out!