How do I run a campaign on LinkedIn Sales Navigator?

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a powerful tool for running targeted campaigns to connect with your ideal customers. With over 800 million members on LinkedIn, Sales Navigator gives you access to a massive audience of engaged professionals.

Running campaigns on Sales Navigator allows you to get your message in front of your target personas at scale. Campaigns on LinkedIn allow you to:

• Reach your ideal customers
• Increase brand awareness
• Generate more leads
• Close more deals

In this guide, we’ll walk you through the steps to run a successful campaign on LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

Step 1: Define Your Goals & Target Audience

The first step is identifying your goals and ideal target audience for the campaign. Having clear goals will allow you to measure the success of your campaign.

Some examples of campaign goals include:

• Drive traffic to your website
• Generate leads
• Increase brand awareness
• Promote an event or webinar

In addition to goals, you need to have a clear understanding of your target audience. Who are you trying to reach with this campaign?

You can define your audience by:

• Job title
• Industry
• Company
• Location
• Skills and interests

The more specific you can be, the better. LinkedIn’s detailed targeting options allow you to zero in on your ideal customers.

Take some time to clearly define your campaign goals and target audience before moving to the next steps. This will set you up for success.

Step 2: Choose Your Campaign Objective & Format

Now that your goals and audience are defined, you need to decide on the objective and format for your LinkedIn campaign.

There are 4 key campaign objectives to choose from:

• Awareness – Focus on reach and impressions
• Consideration – Get more site visits and clicks
• Traffic – Drive visits to your website or landing pages
• Lead Generation – Generate and collect leads

Select the objective that aligns closest with your goals.

Next, choose the format for your campaign creative. The main options are:

• Sponsored Content – Share articles, images, videos, etc.
• Sponsored InMail – Send targeted emails to your audience
• Text Ads – Create simple text-based ads
• Dynamic Ads – Automated ads that showcase your products/services

Sponsored Content tends to have the highest engagement, while InMail and text ads are great for driving conversions. Select the format(s) that make the most sense for your goals and audience.

Step 3: Create Compelling Creative Assets

Now it’s time to create attention-grabbing creative assets for your campaign. This includes ad copy, images, videos and more.

Here are some best practices for LinkedIn campaign creative:

• Keep the copy succinct – 100-200 characters for sponsored content
• Use high-quality, eye-catching images and video
• Make sure images and videos are natively formatted for LinkedIn
• Tailor the copy and assets to your target audience
• Use captions to further explain images and videos
• Create multiple variations of creative to test
• Follow LinkedIn’s guidelines for fonts, sizes, text length

The creative should clearly communicate your key messages, value proposition, and call-to-action. Avoid overly promotional or “salesy” copy. Focus on educating and connecting with your audience.

You can create compelling assets using tools like Canva, Adobe Creative Suite or LinkedIn’s built-in creative services.

Step 4: Set Your Targeting Options

One of LinkedIn’s greatest strengths is its powerful targeting capabilities. You can zero in on your ideal customers using attributes like:

• Job title
• Job function
• Industry
• Company
• Company size
• Location
• Age
• Gender
• Interests and skills
• Groups and universities

Use the audience template you defined in step 1 to inform your targeting. You can target down to the seniority level, specific skills, and years of experience.

Layering on multiple attributes will help you hone in on the customers most likely to convert. Don’t cast too wide of a net. LinkedIn recommends starting tightly targeted, monitoring performance, and expanding out from there.

Step 5: Set Your Bid Amount

For LinkedIn’s auction-based advertising, you’ll need to set a bid amount for your campaign. This determines how often your ads are shown versus competitors’ ads.

There are two main ways to set your bid:

• Cost-per-click (CPC) – Bid a max amount you’re willing to pay each time someone clicks your ad
• Cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) – Bid a max amount you’ll pay for every 1,000 impressions

Use the suggested bid amounts from LinkedIn as a starting point. You can raise or lower your bid to hit your ideal budget and performance goals.

Monitor metrics like clicks, impressions, visibility, and conversions to optimize your bids over time.

Step 6: Set Your Budget & Schedule

Next, you need to define your overall budget and schedule for the campaign.

Think about how much you can reasonably afford to spend. LinkedIn recommends starting with a minimum budget of $10 per day.

You also need to set the schedule including:

• Start and end dates for the campaign
• Days and times of day to run the ads
• Daily maximum budget

Schedule campaigns to align with periods where your audience is most active on LinkedIn. You may get better results running from Tuesday to Thursday vs. weekends.

Test schedules to see what optimizes performance. You can choose to run campaigns continuously or in shorter bursts.

Step 7: Measure & Optimize Campaign Performance

Once your campaign is live, it’s time to monitor performance and continuously optimize.

Key metrics to track include:

• Impressions
• Clicks and clickthrough rate (CTR)
• Engagement rate
• Leads generated
• Website traffic
• Conversions and conversion rate

Adjust your targeting, bids, creative, landing pages, and other elements to steadily improve results.

You can A/B test different ad variations against each other to see what resonates best with your audience.

Continually optimize your LinkedIn campaigns to drive more value and achieve your marketing goals.

Conclusion

Running a successful LinkedIn campaign involves:

1. Defining your goals and target audience
2. Choosing the right campaign objective and format
3. Creating compelling ad creative
4. Utilizing LinkedIn’s powerful targeting tools
5. Setting effective bids and budgets
6. Monitoring and optimizing based on performance

With over 800 million professionals, LinkedIn is a key platform for B2B marketers. By following this guide and leveraging LinkedIn’s robust targeting capabilities, you can connect with your ideal customers and drive real business results.

Test different objectives, creative, audiences and strategies to see what moves the needle for your business. With the right approach, LinkedIn Sales Navigator can become an invaluable part of your marketing stack.