Rotating ads evenly on LinkedIn is crucial to get the most out of your ad spend and reach your target audience effectively. When done right, rotation can help distribute budget and impressions evenly across multiple ads, allowing you to test different creative and text to see what resonates best with your audience.
Why Should You Rotate Ads on LinkedIn?
Here are some of the key benefits of rotating ads on LinkedIn:
- Prevents ad fatigue – Rotating ads keeps your messaging fresh and prevents viewers from getting tired of seeing the same ad over and over.
- Allows testing – Rotating multiple ads lets you A/B test different images, captions, and text to see which perform best.
- Reaches more users – With multiple ads, you can potentially reach a wider segment of your target audience vs showing one ad.
- Balances your budget – Rotation evenly splits your daily budget across ads to distribute impressions.
- Provides reporting insights – You can compare metrics on different ads to optimize towards better performing creative.
How to Set Up an Even Ad Rotation on LinkedIn
Here are the key steps to set up an even rotation for your LinkedIn ads:
- Create multiple high-quality ads – Have at least 2-3 ads ready with different creative (images/video) and text.
- Set up an A/B ad test – Create a LinkedIn campaign and add your ads. Under ad settings, choose “Rotate Evenly.”
- Allocate daily budget – Input your daily budget for the campaign. This will be evenly split between the ads.
- Monitor delivery – Check campaign analytics to ensure impressions are being evenly distributed.
- Make adjustments – If needed, tweak bids and budgets to improve delivery across ads.
- Let the test run – Let the A/B test run for at least 1 week before assessing performance.
- Analyze results – After your test concludes, study metrics for each ad to determine a winner.
Best Practices for Rotating Ads on LinkedIn
To maximize the impact of your LinkedIn ad rotation, keep these best practices in mind:
- Test 3-4 ads – Having 3-4 ads rotating is ideal to fully test different messaging.
- Refresh creative frequently – Update images/videos every 2-3 months to keep content fresh.
- Use relevant messaging – Ensure ad copy speaks directly to your target audience.
- Check rotation daily – Monitor that your ads are delivering impressions evenly.
- Be patient – Let the test run for at least 2 weeks before picking a winner.
- Focus on optimization – Continuously test new ads to improve performance over time.
How Does LinkedIn’s Rotation Setting Work?
LinkedIn provides an “Rotate Evenly” option when setting up campaign ad rotation. Here’s an overview of how it works:
- Auto splits budget – Your daily budget gets divided evenly between all active ads.
- Equal impression delivery – LinkedIn will attempt to deliver each ad evenly to your target audience.
- Monitors pace daily – Checks are run daily to ensure even delivery as campaign runs.
- Makes real-time adjustments – If needed, auto-bid and budget tweaks are made dynamically.
- Reports metrics for each ad – You can view impressions, CTR, spend for every ad.
- Offers full control – You can still adjust bids and budgets manually if needed.
So in summary, the “Rotate Evenly” setting handles the heavy lifting to distribute budget and impressions across your ads automatically. But you still have full control to optimize as needed.
What Are the Alternatives to Rotating Ads Evenly?
Beyond evenly rotating ads, LinkedIn Campaign Manager provides a couple other options for controlling ad delivery:
- Rotate ads by schedule – Show certain ads on specific days/times.
- Rotate ads by impression – Show ads based on an impression allocation you set.
- Rotate ads by optimize for clicks – Let LinkedIn automatically rotate ads to optimize for most clicks.
- Show ads randomly – No even rotation, just show ads randomly.
Out of these options, “Rotate Evenly” tends to be the best setup for consistently testing and comparing multiple ads. But in some cases – like if you had a time-sensitive promo ad – rotating by schedule could be preferable.
What Metrics Should You Track for Rotating Ads?
Be sure to monitor these key metrics when running an evenly rotated ad test:
- Impressions – Ensure each ad is getting a similar number of impressions.
- Clicks and CTR – Compare engagement rates between different ads.
- Spend – Check if spend is distributed close to evenly between ads.
- Conversions – See if certain ads are driving substantially more conversions.
- CPA – Monitor cost-per-acquisition between ads.
- Audience reach – Analyze if different ads attract different viewer demographics.
Digging into these metrics for each ad will help you determine the true high-performing creative to invest in going forward.
What Are Some Common Mistakes With Ad Rotation?
When setting up ad rotation, be sure to avoid these common mistakes:
- Rotating too few ads – You need at least 3 ads rotating to get valid test results.
- Not letting test run – Cutting test short before 1-2 weeks prevents meaningful data.
- Testing when ads are under-delivering – Ensure ads are pacing well before starting rotation.
- Assuming early lead indicates winner – Let test run full duration as performance can change.
- Not monitoring evenly – Check daily to ensure even impression distribution.
- Misinterpreting metrics – Conversions or clicks don’t necessarily mean better ad. Assess all metrics.
Tips for Effective Ad Copy When Rotating Ads
When writing ad copy for a rotation test, keep these tips in mind:
- Highlight key differentiators – What makes your product/service unique?
- Focus on the value proposition – How will you help the audience specifically?
- Use emotion and storytelling – Spark interest and connection with your message.
- Leverage power words – Use words like “new”, “free”, “guaranteed”.
- Use numerals – Stats like “100x faster”, “50% off” grab attention.
- Try different calls-to-action – Test “Sign Up”, “Start Free Trial”, “Learn More”.
- Make the next step obvious – Clearly tell the viewer what to do after seeing the ad.
Crafting compelling, unique messages for each ad will deliver more insightful test results.
Conclusion
Rotating LinkedIn ads evenly allows you to effectively test different creative and copy to reach your audience. To get the most out of ad rotation, use 3-4 quality ads, monitor delivery daily, let the test run for 1-2 weeks, and dig into the metrics to optimize your campaign for the top performing ad. With an informed strategy, you can discover the right messaging to connect with your target audience and get the most value from your LinkedIn advertising budget.