LinkedIn Video Ads: Why Now is the Best Time to Start with Video Ads on LinkedIn!

1. What can be achieved with LinkedIn video ads?
2. Which campaign goals are available in the LinkedIn Campaign Manager?
3. What are the prerequisites for LinkedIn Video Ads?
4. How can you use LinkedIn Video Ads?
5. What guidelines must be observed for Video Ads?
6. What format specifications are needed for LinkedIn Video Ads?
7. What Call-to-Actions are possible?
8. Best Practices: 3 Success Stories with Video Ads
9. How important is storytelling in a Video Ad?
10. LinkedIn Video Ads: Step-by-Step Guide
11. LinkedIn Video Ads: helpful apps and services
12. Conclusion about LinkedIn Video Ads

LinkedIn has become one of the most important social networks for many companies, when it comes to maintaining long-term partnerships and acquiring new customers or employees. It is considered the top network for lead generation in the B2B sector. Many start-ups also use the platform because they can efficiently link synergies to high-ranking decision-makers here, even without large budgets. More than 850 million specialists and executives are registered on LinkedIn and can be reached via video ads, among other things.

The strong potential of Video ads on LinkedIn, the No. 1 social media platform for professionals, is currently still far too little known. By creating short, appealing videos for LinkedIn ad formats, you can introduce potential customers to your company or product with appealing advertisements and encourage them to interact with content and ultimately your product. Brands that run ads on LinkedIn can increase their target group's purchase intention by 33% and their perception of their brand attributes by 2 to 3 times..

LinkedIn Video Advertising can be a real game-changer for your brand, start-up or company. The reasons: many interesting targeting options, for example for brand awareness, or also Lead Gen Forms, to draw attention to your product or business. Call to Action? All set, not only with text ads. Especially the attractive design of the different LinkedIn ad formats and the high quality of the leads make your advertising messages on the platform particularly cost-effective. In addition, four out of five members are decision-makers. With the necessary creativity in content creation, you can address and convince them sustainably. The Creative Testing as a lever in paid social marketing.

What you can achieve with LinkedIn video ads, what requirements there are for this, which ad formats work and many more questions, are answered by our guest author Yannick Haldenwanger in this article.

Subsequently, you will be guided through the process of creating a LinkedIn campaign with a simple step-by-step guide so that you can't do anything wrong. To ensure that you are well positioned in the long term, you will also receive a list of helpful apps and services that will take your social media game to the next level, so that you can achieve the best results across all channels. So read through to the end to be perfectly prepared for your own sponsored content for lead generation!

What can be achieved with LinkedIn video ads?

Video ads on LinkedIn offer great opportunities to reach new potential customers and maintain long-term partnerships within the most popular career network. By using short, appealing videos, for example as video ads on LinkedIn, you can introduce both the connected contacts and followers, but also as yet unknown users, to your own company or product.

In doing so, you can use different campaign goals and ad formats to suit your target group, to stimulate interactions with content and products. For this purpose, LinkedIn offers the appropriate formats for different marketing strategies and goals - especially for video content.

In the Campaign Manager you can use different orientations for your LinkedIn video ad campaign, for example to Brand Awareness or conversions, such as clicks on your company page.

Campaign Manager

Which campaign goals are available in the LinkedIn Campaign Manager?

LinkedIn offers many interesting targeting options for your Video Ad Campaign, e.g. for brand awareness, to draw attention to your product or company or even Lead Gen Forms, to permanently collect leads from your users. The following campaign goals are available:

• Brand Awareness: Spread your brand message through video ads to a wider LinkedIn audience
• Engagement: Increase engagement with your content through likes, comments, shares, clicks on a landing page or on the company page
• Video Views: Get LinkedIn users to watch your video content
• Lead Generation: Use LinkedIn forms to collect leads from interested LinkedIn users

What are the prerequisites for LinkedIn Video Ads?

LinkedIn Video Ads have a few simple prerequisites: The video must be at least 3 seconds long. The maximum length for LinkedIn Video Ads is 30 minutes. The video file must be in .mp4 format and the maximum file size is 200 MB.

LinkedIn recommends an image size of 1920 × 1080px. For this, a bitrate of up to 30Mbit/s is available and H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 2 should be used as the codec. You can find all specifications at the LinkedIn Marketing Solutions.

LinkedIn Video Ads

LinkedIn Video Ad Nectanet

LinkedIn Video Ad Microsoft

Which ad formats work with videos on LinkedIn?

Before you now start your LinkedIn Video Ad campaign, a brief overview of the different ad formats that can be used with videos.

InMail

With this ad format from the Getting Started Guide from LinkedIn you can send a personalized message to LinkedIn members you select. Here, a video can be used to introduce yourself or increase brand awareness and get the recipients to contact you. Such Message Ads are sent directly to the recipients' LinkedIn inbox with the note "InMail", which makes this ad format particularly attractive.

Sponsored Content

This ad format displays a post on LinkedIn that is sponsored by your company. Here, you should pay attention to a good balance between entertainment and information in the video production, otherwise many users might stop playback.

Display Ads

With this ad format, a video is displayed as one of the advertisements on an external website that your users visit from LinkedIn. It's an interesting video ad format if you want to build a strong brand and be present in as many places as possible. If you do it successfully, you achieve high engagement of the user, with a relatively short video length.

Text Ads

With this ad format, a text ad is displayed on LinkedIn with a link to a landing page. Here, you use the video not in the ad, but place it on the landing page. This has the advantage that the users who click through to the landing page are better prepared for a measurable action with the video than with text alone.

LinkedIn Video Ad Formats

LinkedIn also offers these specialized Video Ad Formats.

• AutoPlay Video Ads: These LinkedIn Video Ads automatically play when users scroll over them in their LinkedIn feed. With the video, you can guide your users to a landing page, or have them fill out a Lead Form right in the feed.
• Video Cover Ads: This ad format appears as a full-screen takeover at the top of the LinkedIn homepage. This format is particularly suitable for disruptive campaigns and product launches.

How can you use LinkedIn Video Ads?

As a company, you should carefully consider which of these ad formats is most effective for your LinkedIn advertising campaign to market your products or services. In addition to video production, there are a few features you should plan for.

The first step is to produce a video that is appealing and briefly and concisely presents your company or your product. The video should be tailored to the specific LinkedIn ad format you want to use.

Pay attention to an appealing hook at the beginning of the video, i.e. a catchy intro that addresses the problem of the target group.

When designing LinkedIn video ads, you should also keep the following in mind:

• The videos should be short, no longer than two minutes
• The videos should be prepared for the LinkedIn ad specs you have chosen
• The videos should be of high quality and appealing
• A good balance between information and entertainment is important
• All videos must meet the advertising requirements of LinkedIn

What guidelines must be observed for Video Ads?

There are some ethical guidelines that should be observed when creating LinkedIn Video Ads:

• Always be truthful in your videos. Don't make any claims that you can't back up with evidence, and never mislead your audience.
• Make sure your videos are suitable for LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a professional networking site, so avoid using language or images that could be inappropriate or offensive.
• Always adhere to LinkedIn's advertising guidelines. LinkedIn has a set of guidelines that regulate the content of video ads. So make sure you are familiar with them before you publish LinkedIn Video Ads.

If you follow these guidelines, you can create successful LinkedIn Video Ads that reach your target audience and give you high quality leads. Check the engagement and performance of your ads on a weekly basis.

What format specifications are needed for LinkedIn Video Ads?

A LinkedIn ad video must meet the following design requirements and technical specifications:

• Video format: MP4
• Audio format: AAC or MPEG4
• Recommended frame rate: 30 frames/sec.
• Length: up to two minutes
• Own thumbnail: is optional, but recommended
• Possible aspect ratio: 4:5 (Portrait 0.8), 16:9 (Landscape; 1.78), 1:1 (Square; 1.0), 9:16 (Portrait; 0.57)

Also, you should sensibly text the ad text above the video ad. While the name of the ad can optionally be labeled with 255 characters, the headline includes 70 characters and the introductory text 150 characters. Both text fields must be populated so that the ads can be rolled out.

In general, however, you should also bear these LinkedIn video specs and limits for video files in mind if you want to experiment with different LinkedIn Video Ad formats. The maximum file size for video files is 200 MB, and the maximum length is 30 minutes.

You cannot upload videos that are shorter than 3 seconds or below the minimum width of 360 pixels. Take advantage of the maximum width of 1920 pixels for the best possible quality. By the way, 1920px is also the value for the maximum height. The minimum aspect ratio is 9:16 (0.563) and the maximum one is 16:9 (1.778).

What Call-to-Actions are possible?

Under each LinkedIn Ads video of your campaign, a button called Call-to-Action is displayed. The goal is for your users to perform the desired action by clicking on the button, which leads them either to your company page or directly to a landing page.

Crucial for the performance, i.e. the performance of your campaign, are not the video views, like on YouTube, but the leads gained. This is one of the most important steps in the customer journey of your target audience.

Did you know that you have a choice of what this button is titled?

You can choose from the following options:

• Apply
• Download
• View offer
• Learn more
• Sign up
• Subscribe
• Register
• Become a member
• Participate
• Request demo

Best Practices: 3 Success Stories with Video Ads

There are many parameters and variables that influence the success or failure of your video ad campaign. When looking for the right option for your own sponsored content or video ad format, you should also see how others have already done it. Here are three successful brands with LinkedIn video ads that follow these best practices:

1. Hubspot Sales Hub uses a short, compelling video to introduce its company and its product in the InMail ad format. The Video in 6 steps to successful video acquisition on LinkedIn is specifically tailored to the target group of LinkedIn members and encourages recipients to interact with the content.
2. LinkedIn itself uses video cover ads to promote premium features and product offers for professional users. The video is high quality, captivates the users and presents the special features of the LinkedIn platform in an interesting and convincing way.
3. SoFi uses a short, catchy video in the Display Ad format to introduce its company and its Product. The content of the video is targeted to specific LinkedIn users, who are addressed in the targeting, and encourages them to follow a landing page where they can get to know the company's banking products in more detail.

How important is storytelling in a Video Ad?

Storytelling serves the purpose in marketing of establishing a connection with the target group and should therefore also be considered for each LinkedIn Video Ad. To be understood and noticed by the target audience, you must speak their language.

This can include professional jargon in addition to the age group and region. This is not only relevant for the choice of topics, but also for the protagonists who act in your ads. Choose the roles in front of the camera with a view to the target group.

You should also keep a sharp eye on current trends in the conception. In order to apply storytelling sensibly, the video content should be entertaining, but also informative and solve a problem for the target group.

To build a video ad, there are different formulas for the structure that help ensure that your viewers watch the video as much as possible.

AIDA formula

AIDA is a well-known acronym in the marketing world and stands for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. You can use this well-known principle to build and structure your video ads.

At the beginning of the video, you try to get as much attention as possible, for example with a very good eye-catcher. Once you have that, you arouse interest in the actual topic, often by addressing a problem. This awakens a need, which you then specifically address in the video.

And in the closing Action part, you invite the viewers to perform an action, such as booking a date. The Call to Action is very important, and that in every LinkedIn Video Ad!

SCQA method

The four letters also form an acronym and stand for Situation, Complication, Question and Answer, and especially became known as a pitch technique. But you can also use the rhetorical formula for structuring video ads.

First, you describe a situation that is as simple and relatable as possible. In the second sentence, a complication arises, which should be as simple and understandable as possible. Then you ask a question, which already points to the solution and perfectly pinpoints the actual problem.

And finally, you provide the solution. With this approach, the audience usually agrees with the speaker, clapping, because you gain both trust and credibility. A good situation to call for an action with a Call to Action.

Campaign Manager SCQA Method

LinkedIn Video Ads: Step-by-Step Guide

Now you've learned everything to create your own video ads on LinkedIn. In the process, you'll probably have more questions coming up, so we'll guide you through the creation step by step here.

1. Access to the Company Page
   Make sure that you already have a LinkedIn account and that you have the appropriate rights for your company page. To start LinkedIn campaigns, credit card data must also be stored in the account.
2. Open LinkedIn Campaign Manager
   Once you have logged in, go to the LinkedIn Campaign Manager by clicking on "Marketing" at the top right. In the account overview, you now select your company profile. If your company account is not listed here yet, you need to either create a new account first or the appropriate role needs to be assigned to you by the account managers.
3. Create new campaign
   As soon as you are in your account, click on the blue "Create" button and select "Campaign". You can add this to the standard campaign group or create a new group.
4. Choose Campaign Goal
   Now select your campaign goal from the seven options. Then define your target group for the targeting.
5. Choose Ad Type of the Ad Campaign
   Then you can choose the ad type by clicking on "Video Ad". Add your company page if necessary and enter the required information.
6. Determine Placements, Budget and Bidding Strategy of the Campaign
   In the placements, you now have the choice whether you want to use the LinkedIn Audience Network with this campaign, or not.
   In the budget and scheduling area, you should leave the end date open and set a daily budget to get the first results. In the bidding strategy, go for maximum reach until you have gained more experience with CPA values.
7. Upload Video Ad
   Upload your video and fill out the required text fields above the video, which are part of the ad.
8. Define Call-to-Action
   Choose your desired CTA as the label for the button and add the link to the landing page where you want to direct the users.
9. Review Entries
   Look at your ads in the preview, check them for spelling mistakes and publish them!

LinkedIn Video Ads: Step-by-Step Guide

LinkedIn Video Ads: helpful apps and services

The pros rely on the flagship tools for video editing, such as Adobe Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro or DaVinci Resolve. Anyone who wants to take a more rudimentary approach can develop creative ads without great cutting skills with Canva Pro or Renderforest.
For managing your ads and synchronizing content within your team, we recommend these programs to report everything cleanly:

Sinch Engage

Sinch Engage offers a software solution that enables customer communication via messenger apps and complies with GDPR. With this software, companies can use WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Apple Business Chat / iMessage, Telegram and Viber for marketing, sales, customer service and internal communication via a single interface. The software, which can be accessed via a web browser, includes all the features you'd expect from a ticketing system.

It also particularly serves the needs in messenger communication by providing features such as a chat interface, integrations for multimedia content and emojis, chat modules with NLP technology, sending messenger newsletters, managing customer profiles and API interfaces to CRM and shop systems. It also has its own chatbot builder. More than 2,000 companies from various industries have used the tool worldwide, which is available from 499 €.

Sinch Engage

HootSuite

Hootsuite is considered the Godmother of Social Media Suites. The tool aims to make the work of social media managers easier by summarizing the planning, creation and analysis of campaigns for all platforms on one page. Software HootSuite has been developed to make social team's work easier by providing a central inbox with all messages from different networks and upcoming tasks to distribute to team members - which makes life much easier. Perfect for all those who publish content on LinkedIn and want to keep an eye on the other social media platforms at the same time.

Ryan Holmes, the founder of Hootsuite, created the social media suite in 2008. To date, the company has over 18 million customers - more than 80 percent of the world's 1,000 largest companies use Hootsuite tools.

HootSuite

Facebook Creator Studio

For managing other social media channels, too, there are professional applications. Facebook's in-house software is called Facebook Creator Studio. It helps users manage their content, generate targeted interactions and gain insights into the performance of their posts.

In addition to Facebook posts, Instagram posts can also be managed via Facebook Creator Studio. Facebook Creator Studio is a free tool that is available to companies, influencers and all people who want to make money with marketing on Facebook or Instagram. The only condition for using it is that users must comply with Facebook or Instagram's guidelines.

Facebook Creator Studio

Later

Later has developed significantly since its launch in 2014, when it first came onto the market as Latergramme. Today, users can not only schedule content for Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, but also analyze results afterwards. With calendar overviews, users can create upload schedules, for example, and automatic publications for a later time.

Later

SocialHub

The SocialHub was developed to make social media management easy and efficient. The central inbox collects all requests from different social media platforms, making it easier to process comments, retweets, and direct messages. Monitoring also allows you to search online conversations and display them clearly in the inbox.

With the Content Planner, users can preplan content and campaigns on their own or with a team that can then be automatically processed and published. The analysis software provides information on reach, interaction rates or comment volume. SocialHub also automates numerous actions with the help of a set of rules.

SocialHub is used by over 3,500 social media managers from companies, agencies and public authorities to answer requests, centrally plan their content and communicate via social media. Data from the company is stored and processed on German servers. SocialHub is ISO 27001 certified and an official Meta and Trustpilot partner.

SocialHub

Fanpage Karma

Fanpage Karma is a social media analysis tool that can be used as a complete solution for social media management. An unlimited number of profiles can be analyzed, posts can be planned, written, and published, and trends can be identified.

It also allows you to communicate and analyze in real time. According to its own information, Fanpage Karma currently has around 600,000 users in 180 countries. There is a free version as well as the paid packages Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum (from 49 Euros/month).

Fanpage Karma

facelift

Facelift is an application that offers tools for planning, sharing, and publishing content for social media marketing across all major networks. A unified inbox provides all the necessary formats for community management and customer service. In addition, the success analysis is enabled by dashboards, reports, and competitor analyses.

Facelift is the perfect tool for companies who value team collaboration, data security and reliability. With partnerships with Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest, ISO 27001 certification and status as a WhatsApp Business for Business Solution Provider, Facelift is interesting for medium to large companies.

facelift

Conclusion about LinkedIn Video Ads

Start now! There is no better time than the present to start with LinkedIn Video Ads. LinkedIn is increasingly becoming the social network for professionals and LinkedIn users are increasingly turning to video content. There is no better platform to reach so many decision makers and convince them of your product, your idea or startup. Therefore, video advertisements are a good way to reach your target audience on the platform. If you follow the Best Practices for LinkedIn Video Ads, you can create videos that attract the attention of LinkedIn users and arouse their interest. So don't wait any longer - start with LinkedIn Video Ads today!