Types of LinkedIn ads – Choose The Best Ones For Your Business

LinkedIn is a professional networking platform with over 1 billion users as of March 2024, making it an excellent place for businesses to advertise & target a specific audience. However, it will work in your favor only when you choose the right type of LinkedIn ads. Investing in ads that are not suitable for your business can ruin your efforts. But here’s help! If you are a beginner in the world of LinkedIn ads, this blog post is for you.  

We’ll discuss what LinkedIn ads are, who should advertise on LinkedIn, how LinkedIn ads work, the types of LinkedIn ads and what best practices you should follow to achieve your goals.

So, without any further ado, let’s begin.

What Are LinkedIn Ads?

LinkedIn Ads are a form of advertising that allows businesses to target their ad campaigns to a specific audience on the LinkedIn platform. 

LinkedIn Ads are different from other forms of online advertising, such as Google Ads, because they allow businesses to target a specific audience based on their LinkedIn profile information. This means you can target your ads as a business to LinkedIn users with specific job titles, work in a particular industry, or reside in specific countries. 

LinkedIn Ads also allow businesses to target their ads to specific groups, such as alumni of a particular university or professional association members.

Who Should Advertise On LinkedIn?

LinkedIn Ads can be highly effective, but they are not suitable for every business. Here are a few factors to consider to help you decide if LinkedIn Ads are right for your business:

– What is your target audience? LinkedIn Ads could be a good fit if you are targeting professionals. However, LinkedIn Ads may not be the best platform for you if you want to target consumers.

– What is your budget? LinkedIn Ads can be quite expensive, so you need to make sure you have the budget to afford them.

– What are your advertising goals? LinkedIn Ads can be effective for various goals, from increasing brand awareness to lead generation.

If you think LinkedIn Ads are a good fit for your business, you should try them.

How Do LinkedIn Ads work?

Once you set up your campaign manager account, you have complete control over your campaign. It is possible to set a budget & select goals. Here’s how you can begin:

1. Choose your objective

You have to customize your campaign by choosing the objective. It can be to build awareness, increase website visits, drive engagement, generate leads, and convert visitors. So, you get to choose from the goals that you can classify as awareness, consideration, and conversion. 

2. Select the targeting criteria

LinkedIn has targeting tools to help you reach the right audience. Needless to say, targeting is essential to run a successful ad campaign on LinkedIn.

3. Choose your ad format

You can pick any ad format, such as sponsored content, message ads, text ads, dynamic ads, and more.

4. Set your budget and schedule 

After selecting the audience, you can set the budget and campaign schedule. You have three options: cost-per-click, cost-per-impression, and cost-per-send. 

Cost per click is best for lead generation and event registration.

Cost per impression is suitable when your goal is to build brand awareness. 

Cost per send is best for message ads, and it requires you to pay for each message delivered.

5. Set up the ad creative 

When creating your ad creative for LinkedIn, you have to keep the following in mind:

 1. Imagery – It plays a significant role in engaging the target audience.

2. Copy – Be cautious about the choice of words and the word count.

3. Format – Use different formats to get the audience interested in you.

4. Testing – Test and try to use the creatives that are high performing.

6. Measure the campaign performance and optimize 

You can track the campaign metrics to see the performance of the ads. Campaign manager lets you access the analytics and select the campaigns you want to check.

Types of LinkedIn ads

Now that you have a basic understanding of LinkedIn ads let’s dive into the various types of ads. The platform offers a variety of ad types that you can choose from, depending on your needs. 

1. Text and Display Ads 

LinkedIn text ads are relatively straightforward, while display ads are more complex and customizable to a greater degree. Both types of ads can be effective, but choosing the right type for your goals is important. 

For example, if you’re looking to generate leads, text ads may be more effective than display ads. They are also quite cost-effective and perfect for newbies in the LinkedIn advertising world. 

However, display ads may be a better option if you’re looking to raise brand awareness. 

Ultimately, the best way to determine which type of ad is right for you is to experiment and see what works best for your specific goals.

2. Sponsored Content

Sponsored content is a form of advertising in which you have to pay to have your content featured on LinkedIn. LinkedIn users are generally receptive to sponsored content as long as it is relevant and engaging. However, businesses should be aware that LinkedIn users are also very savvy and will quickly see through any content that is not genuine or helpful. If you’re considering using LinkedIn for sponsored content, create high-quality, original content that will add value for LinkedIn users.

3. Premium Display Advertising

LinkedIn premium display ads are also good if you want to make your presence felt. However, it is the price factor that can deter a lot of businesses from choosing premium display ads. You would often want hyper-specific targeting for this ad format because it is expensive. The ads appear on the side banners of the LinkedIn website and the horizontal banner at the top and bottom. 

4. InMail Ads

There are two reasons why Linkedin InMail could be effective for your business.

First, InMail is highly targeted. It’s not like the average LinkedIn ad, shown to users regardless of their interests.

The second reason is it is more subtle. InMail allows businesses to extend their reach into communities they might not have tapped into yet. For example, a toy company could target families with young children in the U.S. with an InMail ad.

The idea is to focus on the smaller groups within the larger audience that may be more engaged with your brand or business. So, instead of reaching many people with a standard LinkedIn ad, you could target more specific, interested groups with an InMail ad.

5. Follow Company Ads

Follow company ads are the best option if you are relatively new to LinkedIn and want to build your organic following. This ad appears in users’ news feeds. It is worth noting that this ad format requires you to provide quality content. After all, it is good content that will make people follow you. Before you start your ad campaign, it is better to write quality posts and articles that provide value if you want to increase your following. 

So, those were the types of LinkedIn ads.

LinkedIn Advertising Best Practices 

Here are the best practices to follow to get the maximum yield from your LinkedIn ad campaign.

1. Perform audience research

When creating LinkedIn ads, one of the most important things to do is to perform audience research. This will help you to identify the people who are most likely to be interested in your product or service, and it will also help you to create targeted ads that cater to their needs and interests. 

There are several ways to perform audience research, but one of the most effective is using LinkedIn’s built-in targeting tools. These tools allow you to narrow down your audience by location, job title, and interests. You can also use LinkedIn’s advanced search features to find groups and forums where your target audience is active. Once you’ve identified your target audience, you can create ads tailored to their needs.

2. Create LinkedIn video ads

LinkedIn Video Ads are a great way to connect with potential customers professionally. 

There are a few things to remember when creating LinkedIn Video Ads. 

First, ensure that your videos are high quality and professional looking. This will make potential customers take them seriously. 

Second, you want your videos to be informative and to the point. LinkedIn users are busy people who don’t have time to watch long, drawn-out videos. Keep your videos short and to the point, and you’ll be more likely to capture the attention of potential customers.

3. Warm up the audience prior to the ad

There are a few ways to warm up the audience before the LinkedIn ad. One way is to post free content on your profile, running ads for free download resources (whitepapers). Another way out is sharing your blog posts. However, don’t forget to add the LinkedIn advertising pixel and tag those who visit your blogs. This will enable you to retarget them with ads after a while. 

4. Avoid revealing too much

When creating a LinkedIn ad, it’s important to avoid revealing too much about your company or product. If you give away too much information, viewers may not be interested in learning more. This way, they won’t visit your website to gather more information about your product or service.

Instead, try to pique their curiosity by highlighting the benefits of your offering without giving away too much. You can also include a call to action that encourages viewers to click through to your website or contact you for more information. By being strategic about the information you include in your ad, you can create an effective marketing tool to help you reach your target audience.

5. Perform tests

When you create a LinkedIn ad, you must ensure that it effectively reaches your target audience and achieves your desired objectives. The best way to do this is to A/B test your ad before you launch it. 

You can test different aspects of your ad, including the headline, the image, the copy, and the call to action. Try different versions of your ad and see which one performs the best. For example, you could test two different headlines to see which one gets more clicks. Testing your ad before you launch it will help you create a more effective and successful campaign.

How Much Do LinkedIn Ads Cost?

Now that we know the different types of LinkedIn ads available, let’s dive into how much it costs to run a successful ad campaign on the site. But before that, let’s look into what factors affect LinkedIn advertising costs,

Target audience 

Advertising on LinkedIn gets you to compete with others. The cost of advertising will be higher if your target audience is in high demand. This is primarily due to the tough competition to get the intended audience to see your ad.

Bid

Another factor that affects the ad cost is your bid. LinkedIn ad auction makes the auction winner pay 1% higher than the subsequent highest bid. 

Ad relevance score

It has a major role to play in ad costs. When your score is high, the expenses of your ads are lower because LinkedIn aims to display relevant and engaging ads to its users.

For cost-per-click and cost-per-impression campaigns, you have to pay at least $2. On average, most businesses pay $5.26 per click and $6.59 per 1000 impressions. For sponsored InMail campaigns, the cost is $0.80 per send. 

It Is Time To Create Your LinkedIn Advertising Campaign

In this blog post, we saw what LinkedIn Ads are and how they work with the different types of LinkedIn ads to choose from. As you saw, the choice of ads on the advertising platform thoroughly depends on your business and budget. 

There are different goals, and you must consider them while creating your campaign. Follow our inputs and target a specific audience to get the best results. After all, your hard work has to bear fruit, or there is no point in investing resources in the campaign. Testing the campaign will also help you understand whether you are moving in the right direction or not. You can opt for a Linkedin digital marketing agency for help. 

Here’s wishing you all the luck with your LinkedIn advertising campaign! Don’t forget to thank us when you enjoy success. 

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