LinkedIn ads are displayed in various places across the LinkedIn platform to targeted audiences. Understanding where and how LinkedIn ads appear can help optimize campaigns to increase visibility and engagement.
LinkedIn Feed
The LinkedIn feed is one of the main places where sponsored content and ads appear. There are two types of feeds on LinkedIn:
- Home feed – Shows updates from connections, companies, and publishers the member follows.
- My Network feed – Displays recent activity from connections.
Sponsored content and ads may appear in either feed. They are integrated in between organic posts. Their placement depends on the member’s interests, profile data, and other targeting parameters set by the advertiser.
InMail
InMail ads show up directly in the member’s LinkedIn Inbox as individual messages. Advertisers can use InMail to reach LinkedIn members who may be difficult to target through other ad formats. These messages have open and click-through rates that are higher than most email campaigns.
Sponsored Content
Sponsored content appears in the LinkedIn feed looking similar to regular posts. Advertisers can publish long-form articles and blog style updates as sponsored content. These ads aim to provide valuable information to readers while subtly promoting the advertiser’s brand, products or services.
Text Ads
Text ads on LinkedIn are descriptive text-based ads that show up in the feed and throughout the platform. They are typically used to drive traffic to the advertiser’s website or landing pages. Text ads are often optimized for specific keywords relevant to the target audience.
LinkedIn Page Views
In addition to the LinkedIn feed, ads also appear when members view different pages across the platform. Some of the main placements include:
- Profile pages
- Company pages
- Group pages
- Search results pages
Ads on these pages are generally text ads or display banners. Their placement may beabove, below or to the side of the main content.
Profile Pages
Ads on LinkedIn profile pages appear as sidebar or banner placements. They aim to reach a professional audience with relevant job titles, skills, interests and demographics. Profile page ads allow advertisers to target users more precisely based on their industry, seniority level and other profile attributes.
Company Pages
Sponsored content and text ads are frequently seen on LinkedIn Company pages. These ads let brands target competitors’ followers or promote their products and services to followers of relevant companies. Demographic and interest data from Company page followers helps advertisers refine targeting even further.
Group Pages
LinkedIn Groups centered around specific professional subjects, interests or industries contain highly engaged audiences. Ads on Group pages allow focused targeting by relevant skillsets, job roles and professional interests. Advertisers can reach niche audiences that may be difficult to target elsewhere.
Ad Targeting Options
LinkedIn offers robust targeting, bidding and analytics capabilities for advertisers. Ads can be targeted by location, company, job title, industry, interests, skills, age, gender and more. Key targeting parameters include:
Location
Ads can be targeted by country, state, city or radius around a location. Location helps advertisers geo-target their messages and offers.
Company
Targeting by company name allows B2B advertisers to reach employees at key client organizations, industry partners or competitors. More generalized company targeting is also available, such as targeting by industry, company size and more.
Job Title & Seniority
Targeting specific job titles like “Software Engineers” or seniority levels like “Manager” caters messaging directly to the ideal buyer personas. Job role and seniority targeting improves ad relevance.
Interests & Skills
Targeting by LinkedIn member interests and listed skills allows granular targeting of niche professional audiences passionate about specific topics and tools.
Demographics
Basic demographic targeting options include age, gender and educational attainment levels. Demographic targeting helps refine broader audience segments.
Audience Expansion
Lookalike targeting uses machine learning to expand campaigns beyond defined target groups to reach additional “lookalike” users likely to be interested in the ads. This helps expand reach and lower CPAs.
Matched Audiences
Advertisers can target existing customer lists by uploading company email addresses or employee links to LinkedIn. This allows ads to precisely reach existing contacts and accounts.
Engagement Targeting
Strategies like click, impression and conversion tracking allow targeting users who have previously engaged with the brand’s ads or content. Retargeting past site visitors is also available.
Ad Delivery Optimization
In addition to targeting, LinkedIn provides robust advertising options to optimize ad delivery and performance.
Bid Strategies
LinkedIn supports manual bidding as well as automated bid strategies like target CPAs, bid caps and bid floors. Dynamic bid optimization maximizes results across defined KPIs.
Ad Rotation
Running multiple ad variations with different text, images, offers etc. and automatically rotating based on performance helps optimize messaging.
Dayparting
Time-based ad schedules allow bidding and budgeting adjustments to target peak engagement periods. This approach maximizes results during ideal hours.
Conversion Tracking
Tracking site visits, leads and sales driven by LinkedIn ads informs delivery optimization and reporting. On-site analytics integration improves attribution.
A/B Testing
A/B message tests identify high-performing ad variations. LinkedIn simplifies split testing ad elements like headlines, text, images and calls-to-action.
Ad Formats
LinkedIn supports a range of standard and LinkedIn-specific ad formats.
| Ad Format | Description |
|---|---|
| Sponsored Content | Native ads in the LinkedIn feed in multiple formats like articles, images, videos, etc. |
| Text Ads | Short descriptive text ads. |
| Dynamic Ads | Highly personalized ads with dynamically generated content. |
| Conversation Ads | Messaging-focused ads driving conversations and leads. |
| Message Ads | Customizable standalone messages targeting inbox, search, etc. |
Understanding where each format can appear, and which is most effective for specific goals, allows advertisers to maximize results.
Measuring Results
LinkedIn’s analytics capabilities give deep insight into advertising performance. Key metrics include:
Clicks
Click rate measures how many times an ad link is clicked vs. impressions. Higher click-through rates signal an engaging, relevant ad.
Impressions
Impressions show how many times an ad is displayed. Valuable for measuring brand exposure and reach.
CTR
Click-through rate is clicks divided by impressions, showing engagement levels. Benchmarking CTR vs. industry averages helps gauge performance.
CPM
Cost-per-thousand impressions shows the cost efficiency of ad inventory. Lower CPMs mean cheaper reach.
CPC
Cost-per-click shows the average amount an advertiser pays each time an ad is clicked. Lower CPCs mean cheaper conversions.
CPA
Cost-per-acquisition calculates campaign cost vs. conversions like leads and sales. Lower CPAs equal better ROI.
Conversions
Conversion count shows leads, sign-ups, purchases and other goals achieved from the ads.
Advertising Best Practices
Follow these recommended best practices to increase LinkedIn ad effectiveness:
- Target profiles similar to current high-value customers using Matched Audiences.
- Test multiple ad variations and images to identify what resonates best.
- Ensure ads and landing pages are mobile-optimized for strong performance across devices.
- Write compelling ad copy focused on customer benefits vs. product features.
- Use Clear Call-to-Action buttons motivating clicks and conversions.
- Retarget past visitors and product viewers via website pixels and CRM.
- Set specific campaign objectives and implement conversion tracking.
- Leverage LinkedIn’s audience expansion features to lower CPA.
- Run A/B tests on ad elements like headlines and ad copy.
- Check campaign analytics frequently and optimize bids and budgets accordingly.
Conclusion
LinkedIn advertising provides highly targeted access to professional audiences, powerful optimization capabilities, and actionable performance analytics. By understanding the wide range of targeting options, placements, formats and analytics available, brands can develop data-driven LinkedIn ad strategies driving measurable business results.