LinkedIn ads: Marketing geared toward the target group

Placing ads on LinkedIn has decided benefits for companies: In no other social network do you have the opportunity to operate B2B marketing with such small scattering losses. The marketing offer on the business network ranges from classic advertisements, through sponsored content marketing, to a kind of e-mail marketing. Learn what the different types of marketing on LinkedIn are, how to create the formats, and what costs you’ll have to reckon with.

As a company, you can create your own company profile on LinkedIn: There, you’ll present your business to the community. A meaningful description and high-quality photos ensure that your company is well remembered by users. This profile is also the basis for your advertising operations on LinkedIn. That’s why you should be sure to present yourself well, and consistently maintain your content.

LinkedIn offers you a total of five different ways to run paid marketing on the platform. In addition, your company profile and the update section already form marketing channels that can be used free of charge. Before you dedicate yourself to the use of LinkedIn ads, you should have a content strategy already set up for both of these. In the course of your content marketing, consider:

• What is your target group?
• Which topics are relevant?
• How frequently do you want to post new content?
• Who is responsible for its creation?

Then use LinkedIn advertising to strengthen the marketing effect of your actions.

Before you can apply your contributions, you first need to create them in the course of your content planning. The updates on LinkedIn are usually similar to short blog posts - the following themes are particularly well suited for texts on LinkedIn:

• Write about your company’s news. This keeps your B2B contacts up-to-date and can draw interest to new offers. Such updates are ideal for pointing out your company culture or giving your employees a platform. By using an emotional aspect, you can attach contacts to your brand and make yourself look interesting for specialists seeking new challenges.

• Inform your target group about topics beyond your own company that will also interest them. For this, you should familiarize yourself with your followers’ interests and be responsive to feedback. This ensures an open communication that users appreciate – and will help your company’s reputation.

• Share relevant information from other content creators. By integrating content curation into your marketing strategy, you reduce effort required for content creation and show the LinkedIn community that you follow current developments. As long as the source is correctly named and there’s no plagiarism, curating third-party content can impart important information to your users without any disadvantages for you.

Regardless of which type of content you decide on, LinkedIn updates are always created in the same way:

Switch to the editing view of your company profile, and draft new entries in the “Updates” tab. When you create content, think about the added value to the user, otherwise the campaign will come to nothing. With good and interesting content, on the other hand, you can expect viral synergy. In any case, your text should be supplemented with photos, graphics, or added links: Hyperlinks to other pages are automatically converted by the system into a graphically appealing preview. Photos helps to grab attention and get your content noticed despite the number of competing entries.

Have you drafted a post that you think will be particularly successful? Then you can promote this post as LinkedIn sponsored content. In case you haven’t created any content yet, LinkedIn enables you to create a text for a marketing campaign directly in the campaign manager. Regardless of which variation you’ve decided on, you have to take the same path through the campaign manager and set up a campaign. Here, you’ll have to enter a name for your campaign. Finally, enter which language your content should be published in: If you choose English as the language, your ads will only be shown to English-speaking users, so make sure you consider your target group.

If you don’t want to apply for an existing entry but instead want to create a new one, you have the opportunity to do this on the next page.

Now you have the choice: Would you like to lead users to your website or content on LinkedIn, or do you want to generate leads?

If you decide that you want to redirect users to other content, you have the option to add a button to the entry. This prompts readers to follow your company profile. You can use the entry’s sponsoring at the same time to gain more followers. If you decide to opt for lead generation, your entry will instead depend on a call-to-action button. You can select from multiple variations.

You also have the option to add a form to your entry. This needs to be created in the campaign manager tool first. Give the form a name (only visible to you) and add a title and a description. You can use the description text, for example, to explain to users which counter-payments they’ll receive for the data that they enter into the corresponding form (for example, eBooks or temporary premium service). Now go back to the campaign menu: Select the form and enter – if you wish – a thank you message. This will be displayed to users as soon as the form is successfully filled out.

The next page in the menu for creating your LinkedIn ad is about the budget: First you need to decide whether you want to pay per click or for the number of impressions:

• Cost per click (CPC): You pay for each click on your website
• Cost per 1000 impressions (CPM): You pay for your content to be displayed to users

Both options require you to define a daily maximum budget. When this amount is reached, the advertising for your LinkedIn sponsored content is set for that day. You can also set your overall budget as well as the end date of the campaign. Both settings determine when the promotion should be ended: The campaign runs either until a set date or until the total budget is spent.

In addition to the total budget, you define your highest bid for a click on the LinkedIn ad and bid per thousand impressions. How much would you like to offer for a click or for one thousand impressions? With LinkedIn ads, advertising space is not in fact sold, but you have to bid for it. The higher the offer, the more competitive the campaign. This means that with a small bid, it takes longer for the desired target to be reached. Finally, you’ll be prompted to enter your account information. You can pay with credit or debit card. Check your order, and then let your LinkedIn sponsored content go online.

In the next step, create your message. First, think of a good subject line. You have up to 60 characters to use: Form your subject line so that users who are interested will then open the entire message. When writing the text, you shouldn’t be too sprawling. LinkedIn itself limits you to a maximum length of 1000 words. To create your text, you have the typical functions of an overall text layout: bold, italic, underline, and list. The “User-defined fields” are also important for the success of your LinkedIn sponsored InMail: This allows you to insert placeholders for first and last names, which can be individualized with the system for mass messages.

LinkedIn also enables you to embed a call-to-action button in your message with the webpage the button should redirect to. You can also integrate a banner into your message. Now continue as usual and define your target group and budget. For a sponsored InMail campaign, you pay per sent message (CPS). You also have to propose a bid here. Now all that’s missing is entering your account information, and then your InMail will be sent to your target group.

Display and dynamic ads function differently than the previously created LinkedIn ads. Though they resemble text ads in principle, they are ordered differently. Instead of using the campaign manager, these ads have to be developed by a demand side platform or agency trading desk. These deal with open auctions. The business network serves marketers, but also LinkedIn private auctions. To check whether you and your company are eligible for ads in this format, you (or the marketing agency you work with) have to contact LinkedIn.

Dynamic ads also aren’t just simply created with the campaign manager: If you want to use this special type of advertisement, then you need to contact the sales team through LinkedIn Marketing Solutions to get individual consulting and offers. Dynamic ads are targeted directly at users: You specify a particular target group to be addressed by your advertising here, as well. This advertising format is highly customizable. Both the names of the users and their profile images appear in the ads. This ensures both relevance and a personal approach. A call-to-action encourages the user to react (for example, by clicking on a link).

Because of the auction model, it’s not easy to say exactly how much an ad will really cost: Basically, it’s up to you to decide how much you want to spend on LinkedIn ads. There is a minimum bid, though, as well as a recommended bid and a minimum budget. Minimum bids are also based on the size of the target group. So, to get a good comparison range, we used all LinkedIn users in Berlin and the surrounding area as the target group for our example.