LinkedIn Targeting

The user base of LinkedIn is 500 million strong and growing, out of which - 73 million are senior-level influencers and 45 million are decision-makers. Ad targeting allows the option to attract the right kind of audience. The platform permits re-targeting and creation of look-alike audience through the use of an ‘Insight Tag’ that has to be installed on your website.

These apart, there are exhaustive targeting options to ensure the ads are reaching the specified segment. You can target based on language, location, age, gender, education, company, industry-type, experience, skills, job titles and even interests. Unlike other platforms, user information on LinkedIn is the most recent, as professionals like to keep their employment histories updated, making the targeting effective.

Budgeting LinkedIn Ads

Setting a budget is integral to your ad campaign, it should be balanced without going over-budget while still achieving your objectives. There is a choice between total budget and daily budget. We go with a daily budget which is the maximum amount spent in a day. The criteria deciding CPC, CPM, and per video view is the bidding process. You have the option between automated bidding or a maximum cost bidding.

Automated bidding is priced by impressions whereas, in maximum cost bidding, you decide the maximum cost of CPC, CPM and video per view. You would be bidding against other advertisers aiming for the same audience. Another way of optimizing cost is through A/B testing multiple versions of the same ad and choosing the best among them.

LinkedIn Video Ads

Latest estimates suggest - 59% of the users prefer watching a video instead of reading about a product or business. LinkedIn Ads gives you the option to upload pre-recorded video ads with a length not exceeding 10 minutes and a minimum time of 3 seconds. The video can become integral to your ad strategy enabling you to - narrate the story behind the brand, showcase product usage and distinct company culture, turn customers into brand advocates and can even establish your brand as a thought leader.

You can generate qualified leads by integrating opt-in forms with your video ads. Besides, video ads provide an easy way to stand out from the available business content on the platform, use it to your advantage.

Conversion Tracking

This is a practice to measure the true impact LinkedIn ads are having on your website to enable optimization. Conversion tracking can include content downloads, sign-ups, purchases and more. You would have to install a light-weight Javascript code on your website and tell LinkedIn about the specific action that counts as a conversion. Once the action is specified, LinkedIn will start recording the actions for that campaign.

Next, open your ‘Campaign Manager’ in LinkedIn and choose the automated bid option to enable conversion tracking. Interestingly, you will get exact details on the audience who are converting including their job titles, companies, and industry type. Such actionable intelligence will help improve the campaign targeting and associated content.

Analyze Results

LinkedIn analytics focuses on top and bottom-funnel actions. The former involves brand awareness while the later includes conversions.

These metrics can be tracked in the ‘Campaign Manager’ to evaluate Ad performance. Let’s look at the main ones:

• Clicks: The number of clicks the ad received
• Impressions: The number of times people viewed the Ad
• Average Engagement: Total engagement (likes, comments, shares) divided by Impressions
• Conversions: The number of times an Ad prompted action from the user involves using conversion tracking
• Conversion Rate: How often an Ad results in conversion on your website
• Leads: Number of leads you get from Ads, involves LinkedIn Lead Generation Forms