A Beginner’s Guide To The Best PPC Strategies [Part 2] – LinkedIn Advertising

In continuation of my beginner's guide to the best PPC strategies, I’m going to discuss the various LinkedIn ad strategies that allow for really specific and niche targeting options. These LinkedIn advertisements are really great complimentary paid campaigns to those mentioned in part one.

What I really love about LinkedIn advertising is that the targeting options ensure you can show your ads to the right people – influencers, decisions makers, key stake holders within a particular vertical or industry, and even specific businesses or organizations.

Standard LinkedIn PPC Ads

LinkedIn PPC is a great strategy for any business that is B2B because it allows for very specific targeting options, such as the industry or business type you want to specifically show your ads to, as well as a particular individual or position within a company that you know is the influencer or decision maker to accommodate your end goal, whether it be a lead or ultimately, a sale.

Standard LinkedIn PPC ads do not allow for very much text in the ad copy itself. In fact, the thumbnail images that are available are quite small too. Therefore, marketers must be very conscious about the ability to communicate their product, service, or value proposition effectively and clearly.

Here are some examples:

Bad

The ad below is promoting a business that sells iPad POS terminals, but really doesn’t describe any value proposition or how their product can help your business or serve any needs for your business.

Furthermore, the ad appeared on my profile and as a Director for an Online Marketing agency, I would have no use for a product of this nature. This tells me that the targeting for this campaign is extremely broad and likely not very effective in terms of CTR.

Lastly, the image itself is very small and I can’t at all tell what it depicts.

Better

I like that this ad speaks directly to its target audience, as I’m a director, they're speaking directly to me and the advertisement definitely catches my attention. The call to action isn’t extremely strong, but it’s relevant.

The visual is fine, the limitations don’t allow for much flexibility here. They've chosen a stock photo of a man that looks like a director, which is exactly who they're trying to target. 

Best

This ad is great – it tells me what I can get out of the product or service this business is offering. Call to action is strong, offering a free account and instant gratification from their product. The thumbnail doesn’t relate much to the product itself, but again the limitations are difficult to work around.

My suggestion is to improve the thumbnail image. They can choose to use their brand logo instead, but again, this is understandable with a lesser known brand that they would opt for the stock image.

 LinkedIn Sponsored Posts

LinkedIn Sponsored posts are great for businesses with a strong content marketing strategy, who are trying to expand their brand content reach and influence to their niche demographic or target market.

Much like Facebook Sponsored posts, a user or business must first post a link to a piece of content and then they have the ability to promote this post to the LinkedIn newsfeed of their selected demographic target (same targeting options as standard LinkedIn ads).

These are very effective for whitepapers, breaking industry news, new product launches, and etc.

LinkedIn Display Banner Ads

LinkedIn Display ads are bright and certainly eye catching because they capture so much space on the LinkedIn news feed. In terms of a display campaign, these are about as focused as they can get, because again, they feature the same demographic selection as all other LinkedIn Advertising strategies.

In addition, marketers now have the ability to advertise on display inventory offsite LinkedIn, through the LI Network Display (in partnership with AppNexus). This network is made up of 2,500 publisher sites across the web, which allows for powerful demographic targeting to the professional world both on and off the LinkedIn platform.

The LI Network Display strategy in LI’s own form of remarketing, whereas if you fit an advertiser’s key demographic and you’ve been on LI, that advertiser will remarket their ads to you as you browse the web on one of the LI Network Display’s websites.

Should I use LinkedIn Advertising?

Well, LinkedIn advertising has some great features that are perfect for businesses targeting professional. It also allows users to capture a large real estate on both the LinkedIn platform, and off site LinkedIn. In fact, it is definitely one of the most qualified forms of display due to its highly sophisticated targeting options. However, if you want to advertise through LI display, you will need to buck up a minimum $15,000/quarter budget in order to do so.

So there you have it, if you want to target professionals within a specific organization or vertical, LinkedIn advertising can be a very effective.

Let me know your thoughts, as well as any cool out of the box strategies that you’ve used for LinkedIn marketing, and happy advertising everyone!