Placing LinkedIn Ads: Here's the Right Way!

1. Who is LinkedIn advertising useful for? 
2. Prerequisites for successful LinkedIn ads
3. Good planning as a success factor in LinkedIn campaigns
4. Overview of the LinkedIn ad formats
5. This cost can come your way for LinkedIn campaigns
6. Running LinkedIn ads – the ultimate roadmap
7. Best Practices for LinkedIn Ads
8. These tools support running LinkedIn ads
9. Conclusion

“Advertising is expensive, not advertising is even more expensive”. This is the motto of Paolo Bulgari. By now, most people know that a company can't get very far without advertising. After all, advertising contributes to brand awareness and promotes the image, which is reflected in turnover and growth.

An important factor to fully exploit the potential of your advertising is the right place for marketing. The largest, best and most beautiful advertisement won't do you any good if you place it on a platform where your target group is not active.

LinkedIn is a social business network.

Business owners, employees, recruiters, students or job seekers from all possible areas come together. Since the number of members, according to Statista alone in the DACH region at the end of October 2022 has risen to almost 19 million and a total of 850 million members in over 200 countries worldwide, LinkedIn is the world's largest business network. In this article, you will learn from our guest author Maurice Braun how to best advertise on LinkedIn.

Source: iStock

Who is LinkedIn advertising useful for? 

Upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that there are certain industries on LinkedIn that benefit most from LinkedIn ads. Due to the high number of business owners and managers, it is particularly worthwhile for providers of B2B products and services to advertise on LinkedIn. LinkedIn ads can be precisely tailored to the target group. No matter the age, language, industry or skills -  LinkedIn offers the possibilities to target the right target group very precisely. This targeted ad placement is only possible on LinkedIn as a social media platform. Especially companies in the B2B sector, which might offer a niche product or a service that is only interesting for a specific group, can get the most out of LinkedIn ads.

Prerequisites for successful LinkedIn ads

To run successful LinkedIn ads, you should clearly define who your advertisement should reach. This not only ensures that LinkedIn advertising is played out accurately, but also significantly reduces advertising spend on ineffective ads.

Therefore, you should closely examine your target group in order to make efficient use of the sophisticated tools for targeting. So you should always ask yourself: Who exactly do you want to address with your advertising measures? To answer this question as precisely as possible, we recommend testing multiple target groups against each other.

It can also be the same target group, but it should be defined using different filter criteria. This significantly increases the performance of the ads.

Source: InnoOne

Another widely spread technique to better understand the target group is the careful creation of buyer personas. These are fictional representatives of your target audience and the “perfect” customer for your company. The more information you have about your customer's demography, the more accurately the buyer personas represent your actual customers. Imagine what a typical customer for your product or service might look like. Through research with interviews or surveys, you can target your target group more accurately. This includes prospects, potential customers or customers.

Good planning as a success factor in LinkedIn campaigns

Now that you know who you want to address, it's time to create a LinkedIn ad. LinkedIn offers several ad formats, your task is first to choose the right format for your LinkedIn campaign.

Overview of the LinkedIn ad formats

Source: Freepik

Image ads - Single Image Ads

The classic image ad is considered the most effective LinkedIn ad format according to international surveys. No wonder, after all, the image ad is played out directly in the news feed and can thus become a real scroll stopper. Logically, the image and the headline have the most influence on the click and interaction rate. Creativity and originality are therefore required here. Nothing is worse than an image ad that simply gets lost in the news feed. Ideally, you should test different motifs against each other.

Carousel Ad - Carousel Image Ad

Carousel ads are excellent if you want to present a process or several products. Visual storytelling is the focus here. Potential customers are targeted with graphics or dynamic texts on the content. The goal is to set triggers in bite-sized chunks to draw users' attention to the story. At the beginning, it is best to use 3-5 images that are connected by a coherent context and encourage clicking.

Video Ads - Video Ad

Videos are very popular. In Germany alone, motion picture consumption now accounts for one-third of internet usage (Source: Adzine). No wonder, videos can be processed in our brain 60,000 times faster than comparable texts. The more videos are consumed, the more advisable it is to resort to video ads. The LinkedIn video ads differ from image ads only in the absence of a description. However, as many people surf social networks without sound, it makes sense to use subtitles to ensure the message arrives in all cases.

Text Ads - Text Ad

Text ads, as the name suggests, consist mainly of text. Unfortunately, the very small image also doesn't contribute to achieving better results. Pure text ads are placed on the right side or at the top. Due to the very low click rate, impressions often only occur, which don't say much.

Spotlight Ad

With the help of Spotlight Ads, companies can place their LinkedIn ad very personalized on products, services or events in the spotlight. Spotlight Ads are displayed on the right side and remain static when scrolling. With the low text content, however, the user's image and the company page can also be integrated, which works optimally for job ads or advertising for training.

Message Ad

This ad format slides indirectly into your target group's inbox and comes with a clear call-to-action. However, recipients cannot reply to the message, while the ad is clearly highlighted. This ad format works best when there is a clear need for action, such as downloading a white paper or subscribing to a newsletter. You should best use this with a clearly defined target group, as LinkedIn uses strict spam rules. Since you pay per message sent, the click-through rate must be correspondingly high in order for you to get any benefit from it.

Conversation Ad

Unlike with the Message Ad, here you have the opportunity to start a conversation directly with your target group. Sounds like a lot of work? The chatbot handles this for you and takes over parts of the conversation. This LinkedIn ad format can lead to a lot of engagement, but fewer leads in terms of return on investment (ROI). However, the leads that are generated through this format are really ready to get in touch with your brand.

Event Ad

As the name already suggests, these are LinkedIn ads for events. On LinkedIn, events can be streamed directly on the news feed. This way you have the option to switch live webinars as LinkedIn ads, which prospective customers* can join directly. You can also link to an external platform and stream your live event there.

This cost can come your way for LinkedIn campaigns

The prices of a campaign are determined by three factors: the campaign objective, the competition and the target group. To understand how much such a campaign costs and how this price is determined, you must first look behind the mechanism.

To start an ad campaign, you start with a bid.

Now an auction starts in which you compete against other marketers who are targeting exactly the same target group as you. Here it applies: The best bid wins the largest part of the target group!

But even more important is the relevance factor. How many people click on your ad on average? How much engagement does your ad have? How many people watch the video? If you can score with these factors, you win the auction even with a smaller budget.

Your target group includes all LinkedIn members to whom the ad campaign is aimed. Based on this, the price of the campaign is also determined. Imagine, the more precise the target group you choose, the less likely it is that someone else is targeting exactly this target group as well. Imagine that you can thus eliminate a lot of competition right from the start that would drive up the price for your bid.

A little tip: The more attractive the target group, the higher the prices will be. This means specifically that a target group that is not so obvious tends to attract fewer marketers for a bid and therefore lower prices can already lead to winning the auction. This way even niche providers* can target their target group precisely and cost-minimally via LinkedIn.

Running LinkedIn ads – the ultimate roadmap

Now you have all the important information at hand to create an ad on LinkedIn and play it out. Here you will learn how your approach can look like to design successful ad campaigns.

Even before you work on LinkedIn itself and before you think about content, you have to think about your target group and the buyer persona. The ideas you collect here will make the following process considerably easier and significantly contribute to the success of your ad.

As a rule of thumb: The more precise you can be, the greater the potential success.

So think about the potential pain points and problems that your product or service can solve. Who can you help and who could be willing to invest in your offer?

When your target group is set, you can get started with the content. You can already use the ideas that you have come up with before. Address the challenges that you can solve, show what sets you apart and separates you from the competition. In a campaign, you can always test at least two creatives, two headlines and two ad texts and compare what works best. With practical experience, you will quickly learn what works for you and what doesn't. Always remember: "Practice makes perfect!"

Once the target group is defined and the content prepared, it's time to get down to business. You define your target group on LinkedIn and place a bid. What you need to note here: You can place bids manually or have them automated. Especially at the beginning, it makes sense to start with a manual bid. You determine how much you are willing to pay for a click. Suppose the price of the target group is between €10 and €40, you best start with a bid (CPC = Cost per Click) of €9.50. If the daily budget is not spent, you need to increase the given bid, ideally in 50-cent steps.

Whether automatic offers are suitable for you, the practice and the experience will show. It can be very helpful, but also risky. Ideally, you first gather some of your own experiences. Once you feel confident in dealing with LinkedIn, you can decide at any time whether you also want to try it with the automation or prefer not to. Over time, you will see which procedure is more practical for you.

Now you can sit back a little. Your ad is being played and your target group is interacting with it. Various data about your campaigns are now being collected, which you can have displayed in detail. In LinkedIn Campaign Manager you can find all your ads, both the active ones as well as the paused and planned ones. Depending on your need, you can have the entire term displayed, only a certain month or a special period. This way you can compare exactly and test a bit what works well for you and what might not work so well. The Campaign Manager thus allows you to evaluate how well an ad, an ad group and a campaign perform at what time.

Placing an ad is not the end of the journey. Unlike a newspaper ad, LinkedIn allows for constant tweaks and changes. If an ad is simply not running, you can quickly adjust it, increase the offer or even remove it completely. Depending on the users' reaction, quick action is required.

Best Practices for LinkedIn Ads

In practice, there are many little tricks that can vary depending on the company, industry and target group. Some of them are formulated here in such a way that they apply uniformly and independently to (almost) everyone when placing ads.

Regularly check and compare your success. Not only with the key figures from the campaign manager, but also with the visitor* and follower analysis within the company page. Here you can see the success of the entire page, which is of course also significantly related to the paid ads.

LinkedIn is not a closed system where every area works for itself, but everything works together. Good organic content, multifaceted interactions with the community and well-balanced ads are the foundation for success on LinkedIn. The nice thing is that you have particularly many opportunities to address your potential clientele cheaply and accurately, but the reasons for something not working as planned can be equally diffuse.

To narrow down a bit where problems lie or what you can still improve, look at the KPIs (Key Performance Indicator) that LinkedIn provides you in various ways. Both in the campaign manager and on the company page itself, you have various possibilities to receive detailed information about almost all areas. You can even see who clicked on the link, who viewed your company page, how often, which sub-page and even via which device. The campaign manager can even display website visits and the number of leads won. You can see that the possibilities for evaluation are really large - and not without reason. Experience has shown that regular checking of the KPIs can positively influence your success on LinkedIn.

A common mistake that happens over and over again is that specifications on text lengths are not observed. Pack your message into the number of characters. It would be too bad if you wrote a great text, but it would be cut off before the call-to-action.

Be aware that LinkedIn is not Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or WhatsApp. Of course LinkedIn members also use these platforms, but they expect other content there. After all, if you go to a bike shop, you don't expect a car, even if you're possibly interested in both. The cute cat videos, yesterday's dinner or your personal opinion about the new shampoo are not really appropriate here. Feel free to share personal experiences in the working world, show that you are knowledgeable in your area, after all, you are professionals, and make a name for yourself. Of course, content outside the working world is also interesting, but it should only make up a small part of your content.

You're now asking yourself (rightly) why in a text about LinkedIn ads you should also think about organic posts? As mentioned before, organic and sponsored contents influence each other. They also increase your relevance and credibility. Imagine a company running great, informative and relevant ads for you. You click on the company page to find out more and see - nothing! A weak company page and little content make your ads seem unbelievable. To avoid this, you can simply post organic content occasionally, update your page and interact with other users.

If you would like more information on how to create a LinkedIn company page, please read our relevant article on this.

Source: InnoOne

These tools support running LinkedIn ads

You may have already noticed, but the campaign manager offers many possibilities to watch and measure your success. You can not only select the time period specifically, but see the entire success in numbers. How much have you spent, what output have you gotten for it? Which ads performed particularly well and which did not.

Particularly sales and marketing benefit from the support of LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Leads and potential customers* can be addressed particularly well. Target group targeting, lead search up to InMail - you have a wide range of information and possibilities at your disposal to address qualified leads accurately based on their interests.

Conclusion

You have learned what exactly makes a good ad, how good ads go hand in hand with a good LinkedIn appearance in general. You now also know that the success of an ad is hardly predictable and depends on many factors. What worked yesterday can be outdated today. On the other hand, even ads with very few small changes can perform significantly better. The only clear rule is: There are no rules! Those who want to place successful ads must try things out.

The different ad formats has its own advantages and disadvantages. It is important that the content of the respective contents is tailored to the format. This applies both formally and in content.

If you want to place ads on LinkedIn, you should also be informed about the costs. You now know exactly how they are composed and what they depend on. Consider in advance what exactly you are willing to invest and bid cleverly in the auctions or let the automation take over. Both can be very successful and lead you to the goal: successful advertising on LinkedIn!

You now also know how exactly to proceed and what you should pay attention to. The target group is especially important, because the more precise you can target it, the less competition you have and the better and cheaper your ads can perform.

Source: InnoOne

In addition, you now know that you can find many different KPIs in both the campaign manager and on your company page, which can give you more detailed information about the success of your ads and the page in general. You know that the company page is important for the performance of your ad and that interactions with your community have a positive influence.

You have also been given some practical tips to avoid classic beginner mistakes. This includes adherence to formal rules as well as the differences that exist with other platforms. Contents influence the key figures, the target group the price and you can check all this in the KPIs and adapt if necessary.

Lastly, you can still see exactly why the Sales Navigator is so helpful that many marketers no longer want to miss it.

If you are now on hot bricks to place your own ads, then you can already work through the roadmap, so that you can gather first practical experience. If you are still unsure at times, don't worry, because you can still adapt a lot and change or even pause and end it afterwards. If you ever feel that you are simply not getting anywhere, you can always consult experts who will stand by your side with advice and action to move your ads to the desired performance.