Why You Should Be Advertising on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the primary social media platform for businesses, with over 810 million users across 200 countries. Every day, professionals flock to the platform to advance their careers, joining LinkedIn at a rate of 3 new members per second; depending on who your target audience is, this platform can be a highly successful means of getting your brand directly in front key decision-makers, prominent business owners and personnel, and even most of the Fortune 500 companies. Boasting higher conversion rates than any other platform, flexible budgeting, and specialized targeting methods, it’s no wonder that marketers are jumping on the LinkedIn advertising wave to see exponential growth for their B2B brand.

Photo via @photosbyphab, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

LinkedIn can be accessed via mobile app or desktop. Each user has their own profile where they can showcase their current or previous work experience, skills, and education for their network to see. LinkedIn makes connecting with jobs and internships a breeze, and helps you build professional relationships with others in your industry. The platform also offers users educational resources, such as certification courses, which can help you further your understanding of the necessary skills within your field. Due to the professional and business-minded nature of this platform, it is the perfect environment if you’re looking to advance your career, grow your business, and advertise to a like-minded, professional audience.

Read on to learn more about why you need to incorporate LinkedIn advertising into your marketing strategy. If you have further questions or are interested in getting started with Linkedin Advertising, reach out to the experts at Alpha Tango Media today.

 

Influential Audience:

If you’re aiming for an influential business audience, you need to consider a LinkedIn advertising strategy for your brand. The average user on LinkedIn is between 30 and 49 years old, and 25 percent of all LinkedIn users are senior-level influencers within their company. Additionally, according to LinkedIn, 97 percent of the Fortune 500 companies are LinkedIn customers; not only are you marketing to the fastest growing demographic on the platform, but you are also advertising to those who have the power to make significant decisions within their industry. Being the only social media site that is strictly business oriented, you can be sure that the audience is made up of professionals who engage on the platform at the business level. Through advertising on this platform, there is unlimited potential for getting your company in front of key decision makers and business owners.

The platform is not only meant for job seeking, but for networking and building relationships with others in your industry. With over 55 million companies listed on the platform, the opportunity to advertise in front of some of the most influential individuals in business has become a reality.

 

Variety of Advertisements to Choose From:

LinkedIn, like most other social media platforms, have different kinds of ads you can choose from. The ad format that you choose should directly align with campaign aspirations and outline specific goals. If used properly, LinkedIn has shown to aid in increasing engagement, website visits, lead generation, skyrocket conversions, and raise brand awareness.

The platform offers a variety of different ads to choose from. First, depending on what your marketing objectives are, you will choose from 4 different kinds of ads:

  • Text or Display ads:

    These kinds of ads are the most similar to the traditional ads you might’ve seen on other platforms such as Bing or Google. Working on a pay-per-click or impression basis, they are typically displayed within your inbox, in the sidebar or in a banner-like format.

  • InMail or Message ads:

    These ads go directly to the inbox of your target audience. InMail ads come across as a highly personalized, direct message from your company, and look quite similar to a real email or direct message. This method of advertising is very successful if you are trying to invite prospects to complete a call to action, such as attend a livestream or apply for a job. The catch is users can only receive one InMail ad every 60 days.

  • Premium/Programmatic display ads:

    These kinds of ads are similar to regular display or text ads; just a little pricier, and require a more targeted audience to be successful. However, the heightened ROI is worth it as these ads are highly successful. They are larger in size, are offered in full color, and are displayed wither on LinkedIn’s side panels, in a banner-like format, or on LinkedIn’s homepage.

  • Sponsored Content ads:

    These are boosted posts from your brand that get placed into the feeds of your ideal consumer. You get to decide the target audience you’d like to see this boosted post, and LinkedIn works their magic to get it in front of their eyes, within their own feed. Sponsored content ads are highly successful because they feel organic and authentic to the viewer. Nobody likes to be advertised to anymore, especially if it comes across as a cash-grab or gimmicky; you can prevent this by using Sponsored Content ads.

 

Flexible Budgeting:

Once your ads are ready to go, you’ll need to determine a LinkedIn advertising budget – this budget outlines how much you’re willing to spend on that campaign over a set period of time. For most traditional advertising channels, it is required for you to pay up-front with zero guaranteed for how the ad will perform. In contrast, LinkedIn allows you to take a customized approach to budgeting that meets your campaign needs. You can constantly and continually alter your budget in response to how your campaign is performing and can play an active role in this process. This individualized approach is very helpful, especially for smaller or newer brands, because the flexibility of LinkedIn ads gives you time to figure out the best budgets for your desired marketing plans and campaigns. There are three budgeting options you should take note of:

  • Cost per send – you pay each time a message is successfully sent.

  • Cost per impression – refers to the rate that an advertiser has agreed to pay per one thousand impressions.

  • Cost per click – You pay a cost for every click an ad gets.

There are also some pricing minimums that you should be aware of:

  • $10 daily budget per campaign

  • $10 total budget per campaign

  • $2 bid for Text Ad campaigns (CPC or CPM)

While it may be a little more expensive to run ads on LinkedIn, in addition to the specialized benefits this platform can offer your brand, it also allows advertisers a flexible, hands-on approach when it comes to budgeting. This can be especially helpful to newer or smaller brands, as it offers wiggle-room within your campaign to make adjustments as needed. As long as you meet the minimum requirements, the rest is entirely up to you.

 

Unique Targeting:

LinkedIn’s ability to target your company’s ideal audience is unmatched; that’s because the platform has access to such in-depth consumer data that users post on their profiles. LinkedIn allows you to target audiences based on information such as:

  • Targeting by company: Targeting via company is a great way to reach others within your same industry or field. Because LinkedIn is practically the only professional social media network, you can also rest assured that most of the information you see on a company’s profile is up-to-date and accurate. Additionally, you can target via company connections, company page followers, and company size.

  • Targeting by education: LinkedIn allows you to reach members based on their studies, level of education, and college attended.

  • Targeting by Demographic: Target audience members that are a specific gender, age, and in a certain location based on information gathered from their profile.

  • Targeting by title or skills: LinkedIn has access to users’ work experience, skills, and job titles, so you can build an audience composed of certain titles, levels of experience or seniority, trades, and certifications. 

  • Targeting by Interests: LinkedIn has millions upon millions of interest groups within the platform that users can join. You can target these users who are members of certain groups or organizations within LinkedIn.

 

Increased Conversion Rates:

Conversion rates are the percentage of customers that have completed a desired action. For many businesses, the end goal is to make a sale, so conversion rates will analyze how many ad viewers actually followed through and purchased the product, divided by the total amount of people that clicked on your ad. LinkedIn prides itself on offering advertisers higher conversation rates than any other platform; in fact, a study done by HubSpot found that advertising on Linked in converted users to leads at a 6.1 percent conversion rate. For reference, Google has a 2.58 percent conversion rate – this is an impressive difference, meaning that LinkedIn advertising can offer your brand the potential for huge success in driving sales when advertising within. Conversion rates don’t always have to end in sales, however; depending on the goals of your campaign, a conversion rate can simply evaluate increased site traffic, following, reach, forum submissions, downloads and many more. Whatever your conversion goals are, LinkedIn has proven itself to be a highly successful platform to advertise within.

Discuss Advertising on Linkedin with the Experts at Alpha Tango Media Today

If you need guidance when it comes to advertising on Linkedin, look no further. Regardless of what your marketing needs are, the experts at Alpha Tango Media have the experience necessary to help you achieve your marketing goals. Contact us today for a free consultation.

Thomas Bethel