Have you ever wanted to reach a specific type of person at a specific business? Or wanted to try and recruit a specific job title or person in a particular field? Well, now you can with LinkedIn ads. More than 72 percent of full-time employees are on LinkedIn and four out of five people on the platform “drive business decisions”, according to an Influencer Marketing Hub survey. This makes LinkedIn an exciting place to be for B2B and recruiting needs.
LinkedIn is the largest professional network that allows you to reach the people you want to target, in their News Feed and on the LinkedIn Audience Network, across all devices. Here’s how it works.
Where do the ads run?
Ads can run in two places: the traditional News Feed and the LinkedIn Audience Network. The News Feed is consistent with most social media platforms. When you log into the LinkedIn platform on your device, you naturally scroll top to bottom to see the latest posts and news. Ads will appear within that feed to targeted individuals. The ads include a “Call-To-Action” button and “Like,” “Comment,” “Share,” and “Send” buttons.
Advertisers also have the option to add placement in the LinkedIn Audience Network. Much like the Facebook Audience Network (FAN), it enables you to extend the reach of your ads by delivering them beyond the LinkedIn News Feed, when members go onto other websites and apps that have partnered with LinkedIn. The platform recommends adding the LinkedIn Audience Network to any campaign which can increase the ad reach by 25 percent and two times higher view-through rates.
What kind of ads can you run?
There are four distinct types of LinkedIn ads.
- Single Image Ad– LinkedIn Sponsored Content ads average 28 times higher click-through-rate (CTR) than right-hand column text ads. *Our team avoids running right-hand column text ads. They only show on desktops and do not perform well.
- Video Ad– These ads run in the News Feed and auto start on mute as the person scrolls and the ad comes into view. LinkedIn users are 20 times more likely to re-share a video post.
- Carousel Ad– These multi-image (display only) ads run in the News Feed. Each image can link to a different page on your website.
- Lead Ad– When clicked the ad opens to a lead generation form with the questions you select and pre-populates with the person’s contact information.
Can I reach the audience I want to reach?
LinkedIn has several targeting options, it’s like winning the lottery for ad targeting.
The first option is Category Targeting. This tactic shows your ads to specific LinkedIn members by choosing targeting categories from the information they have provided about themselves and their companies. LinkedIn provides a comprehensive list of targeting to choose from within the ad platform.
It is also one of the only digital products where you can PAIR your targeting, making targeting specific individuals even easier. For example, you can select Company Name (s) + HR Professionals or Industry Type + Job title.
The next type of targeting available is Custom Audience Matching & Lookalike. This is showing your ads to LinkedIn members who match to a database list you provide and targeting a Lookalike audience of similar members.There are two options within this tactic:
- Member Contact List: Includes at least one of the following fields (the more fields the higher the match rate): Email address, First & Last Name, Job Title, Company.
- Company List: Includes at least one of the following fields (the more fields the higher the match rate): Company Name, Company Website, Company Email Domain, LinkedIn Company Page URL, Stock Symbol, Industry, Address.
LinkedIn requires a minimum of 1,000 entries but recommends a starting list of 10,000 entries. It’s also worth noting that to run a campaign your list will need at least 300 matches. Once your list has at least 300 matches, you can add a Lookalike Audience!
Lastly, we can also include Retargeting for LinkedIn ads. Retargeting follows people after they leave your website and shows them your ad when they go onto LinkedIn and the LinkedIn Audience Network (if desired). Retargeting assists with increasing the frequency of a campaign and helps drive web conversions. This is especially helpful since 98 percent of web traffic does not convert on their initial web visit.
With 50 percent of companies using LinkedIn for marketing exposure, it begs the question, “Does it really work?” The answer is, “Yes it does!” Research by Kinsta has found LinkedIn is 277 percent more effective at generating leads than Facebook and Twitter. Additionally, lead conversion rates are three times higher than other major ad platforms like Google Ads.
If you’re looking for help getting results with your LinkedIn ads or recruitment efforts, contact Red Shoes Inc. today at pr@redshoesinc.com.
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