SUCCESSFUL ADVERTISING ON LINKEDIN: BEST LINKEDIN ADS EXAMPLES

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LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional social media network and an invaluable tool for B2B sales and marketing. But the key to making the most of LinkedIn is getting your content in front of relevant leads who are not already engaged with you through your network.

LinkedIn ads can be an invaluable tool in your growth arsenal, as the platform offers powerful tools for highly defined and targeted sponsored content and advertising. Click To Tweet

Read on to learn about the type of ad content you can deliver on LinkedIn, the best LinkedIn ads examples, and best practice tips for developing your own LinkedIn ads.

LinkedIn Ad Types

What does a LinkedIn ad look like? Well, you get three choices with how you can present your content to your audience using LinkedIn ads.

Sponsored Content

Sponsored content can take the form of any content you would normally post on LinkedIn, which shows up in the feeds of your connections. Learn more about the types of LinkedIn content types here.

Sponsoring content on LinkedIn allows for your content to be seen beyond your network. Click To Tweet

When promoting the post, you can specify characteristics of the audience you would like to reach so that you can get your content not only in front of more eyes but the right eyes too. 

Sponsored InMail

These messages arrive directly in the inboxes of your target audience so that you can send personalized messages to a highly targeted group of recipients.

Again, you can specify the characteristics of who you would like to target with this campaign. The LinkedIn algorithm will only send your message to active LinkedIn members, so you don’t have to worry about wasting any of your quota on people who never look at their inboxes.

The design is optimized so that your call to action button is always visible to the recipient, no matter what device they’re using. There are also built-in tools for A/B testing, so you can try multiple messaging variations and see what works best.

Display Ads

LinkedIn provides recommendations to users about content they might find interesting on the side rail or inline, and display ads put your content here.

It works on a pay-per-click model, so you only pay when someone actually clicks your link and therefore gets visibility of your content.

Again, there are many tools available to help you narrow down your visibility to your target audience, so you are communicating with genuine leads rather than spamming the population of LinkedIn.

Lead Gen Forms

You can complement your LinkedIn advertising, in any form, with Lead Gen Forms. These are pre-filled forms that allow LinkedIn members to send you accurate information about themselves in just a couple of clicks, significantly lowering the barrier to engagement.

You can download information from Lead Gen Forms directly to your Customer Relationship Management system for seamless integration.

Best LinkedIn Ads Examples

Best LinkedIn Sponsored Content Example: Aspect Software

Aspect Software is a customer service software provider looking to establish its credibility in the industry by releasing a series of white papers, infographics, and webinars for professionals in the field.

They used sponsored content to get their content in front of IT and customer experience decision-makers.

This saw a 322% increase in engagement with content the company chose to share on the platform and a 290% increase in referrals from LinkedIn to the company’s blog. They were also able to grow their network by 17%.

Aspect Digital Content Manager Christine O’Brien said:

When we use sponsored content to increase engagement and drive traffic to our blog via LinkedIn, we know we’re doing it with the right audience and that they’re following our company page for the right reasons.

Best LinkedIn Sponsored InMail Example: VistaVu Solutions

VistaVu Solutions offers business management software specifically for oilfield services, with a concrete lead generation pool. Rather than competing in a crowded field, they want to speak to exactly those who had problems that their software solution could solve.

So, alongside targeted display ads, VistaVi used sponsored InMail messages to connect directly with relevant decision-makers.

As well as seeing 4-5 times more leads generated by their display ads, they saw an impressive 23.8% conversion to paying customers on their InMails, and an overall reduction in their cost per lead of 75%. If you wish to augment your direct messages to prospects on LinkedIn, Growth-X automation could be an interesting option.

VistaBu Solutions Marketing Manager Nicole Baron noted:

We knew we needed to reach the niche audience that services and supports the oilfield services industry. LinkedIn’s ability to hyper-target this specific segment and find key people in the industry was a huge draw for us.

Best LinkedIn Display Ads Example: Utah State University MBA Program

Utah State University used a combination of display ads and InMail messages to drive interest in their one-year MBA program. They gained a 200:1 return on investment in the campaign with an impressive 71% conversion rate for requests for information.

They were very targeted in their approach, putting their ad in front of a specific audience holding bachelor’s degrees in Utah and Idaho and working in general business roles, IT, and human resources with at least five years of experience.

The Co-Director of Brand Management and Strategic Marketing for the university, Eric Schulz, said:

Attracting quality students is key to the success of our graduate business programs. Targeting our marketing efforts in LinkedIn by region, expertise, and career level made it possible to reach and engage with the precise audience we needed.

Best Lead Gen Form Example: IR Prognosis

The Australian software company IR enhanced the success of their sponsored content campaigns for their Prognosis network readiness assessment by implementing Lead Gen Forms.

The granularity of details provided by the forms allowed them to reduce their cost per lead and better track performance across their customer journey.

From simply pushing their LinkedIn leads to their landing page with the Lead Gen Form, they doubled their conversion rate and reduced their cost per lead by 44%.

IR’s Global Digital Manager Nik Love also noted that:

Traditional landing pages take people away from the Linkedin platform. Having members stay in-app with Lead Gen Forms is a seamless user experience.

Some resources for additional great examples on successful LinkedIn ad campaigns:

1.  https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/blog/sophisticated-marketer-s-sessions-/introducing-the-gallery-of-top-linkedin-sponsored-content–slide
   
   
2.  https://www.theb2bhouse.com/linkedin-ad-examples/

LinkedIn Ads Best Practices

While all of these LinkedIn ads examples are quite different, they share a few elements that reflect the best practices when using LinkedIn ads.

1. Have A Clear Objective

It is important to know exactly what you want to achieve with your advertisement, as this will tell you what kind of content to post and what kind of advertising to use.

Are you trying to build your following, drive traffic to your website, and increase trust in your brand? Sponsored content is probably your best choice for engagement.

Pushing a course or conference to a fairly broad segment of the professional community? Display ads will probably offer the best return on investment.

Hoping to drive sales in a specific industry? Sponsored InMail messages can get you speaking to genuine leads right away.

2. Target Your Audience

LinkedIn’s value with their paid advertising is that you can target the audience with whom you want to engage based on geography, industry, educational history, years of experience, and much more.

You will get the best return on your investment if you know exactly who you need to speak to and target them specifically using LinkedIn’s advanced targeting tools.

3. Optimize Your Content For The Platform

Each platform is individual, and you need to tailor your content for the platform you are using. On LinkedIn, this means:

• Keeping headlines to under 150 characters with concise and enticing copy
• Keeping descriptive content to under 70 characters as it will be truncated on display
• Embedding large images rather than thumbnails, ideally 1200×627 pixels
• Including a clear call to action (CTA) so that your engaged audience knows what you want and how to follow up

4. Test, Track, And Optimize

The LinkedIn platform allows you to run A/B testing to determine what content engages your target audience with the greatest success. Take advantage of this functionality until you find a formula that works.

It is a good idea to include 2-4 different ads in each campaign and pause the ad with the lowest engagement every 1-2 weeks, potentially replacing it based on what you have learned from the campaigns.

Track conversion and demographic reporting on users who come from LinkedIn to your website using LinkedIn Insight Tags.

FAQs

How do you write LinkedIn Ads?

The best practice for writing LinkedIn ads is to start by assigning a target audience and a goal and then determining the best LinkedIn ads option for that audience and goal. It is then about creating eye-catching and value-focused content that your audience will want to engage with.

Do LinkedIn Ads work?

Most businesses that use LinkedIn ads agree they are highly effective due to targeting the specific audience you need to engage. But their effectiveness depends on how well you execute your campaign.

How long does it take LinkedIn to review ads?

LinkedIn aims to review all ads within 24 hours so they can be published without delay.

How to see LinkedIn ads?

You need to create a Campaign Manager account to see LinkedIn adoptions. This is in the “work” menu of your profile, where you will find the option “advertise.”

The Verdict

LinkedIn is a powerful tool for B2B lead generation. But the key to making the most of the platform is getting your content in front of relevant audiences. Click To Tweet

LinkedIn ads are a highly effective tool as you can target your audience based on specific criteria such as geography, industry, job title, education, years of experience, and more.

With LinkedIn ads, you are only paying for genuine, valuable leads, optimizing your cost per lead.

Do you have any experience using LinkedIn ads? Share your experience, tips, and LinkedIn ads examples with the community in the comments section below.

Growth-X is the #1 automated LinkedIn engagement service for managing, engaging, and building your network of leads on LinkedIn. Growth-X works on various social media platforms and is the leading social media management tool for B2B sales.