LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 722 million members as of April 2021. With so many professionals on LinkedIn, it’s no wonder that many businesses advertise on the platform to reach their target B2B audiences. But is it really worth investing your marketing dollars in LinkedIn ads? Here we’ll examine the pros and cons of LinkedIn advertising and look at key factors to consider when determining if it’s a good fit for your business.
The Potential Benefits of LinkedIn Ads
Some of the potential benefits of advertising on LinkedIn include:
– Access to a massive audience of 722+ million professionals
– Targeting options to reach your ideal customers based on job title, industry, skills, company, and more
– Different ad formats like Sponsored Content and Message Ads
– Ability to generate leads by sending traffic to landing pages
– Increased brand awareness and visibility for B2B companies
– Advanced analytics to track performance and optimize campaigns
– Improved authority and credibility as a thought leader
The Potential Drawbacks of LinkedIn Ads
Some of the potential drawbacks to consider include:
– Limited reach compared to platforms like Facebook and Instagram
– Higher cost per click (CPC) and cost per impression (CPM) than other social platforms
– Lower click-through rates compared to more consumer-focused networks
– Difficulty standing out from the crowded feed of content
– Restrictions on ad content and landing page experiences
– Less sophisticated ad platform than Google or Facebook
– Reporting focused on vanity metrics like impressions vs. meaningful engagement
Key Factors to Consider
When evaluating if LinkedIn ads are worth it for your business, some key factors to consider include:
– Your target audience – Are they on LinkedIn? What % reach potential?
– Your goals – Brand vs. demand generation vs. conversions
– Your budget – LinkedIn ads can be expensive to run profitably
– Your overall marketing mix – Role of LinkedIn vs. other channels
– Your content assets – Great content improves performance
– Your ability to measure ROI – Compare spend to revenue or leads
– Your competitive landscape – How much competition is advertising?
– Your ad strategy – Campaigns, creative, targeting, bidding, etc. all impact success
Thoroughly analyzing these factors will give you a clearer picture of whether LinkedIn advertising could be an impactful channel for your brand.
The Potential Benefits of LinkedIn Ads
Let’s take a deeper look at some of the main benefits brands can receive from advertising on LinkedIn:
Access to 722+ Million Professionals
With over 722 million members, LinkedIn provides access to the world’s largest professional network. Here’s a breakdown of LinkedIn’s member statistics as of April 2021:
| LinkedIn Members | 722+ million |
| Monthly Active Users | 260+ million |
| Companies with LinkedIn Pages | 58+ million |
| Members in North America | 182+ million |
This huge audience makes LinkedIn attractive for B2B brands looking to increase awareness, generate leads, and drive website traffic among professional audiences relevant to their business.
Targeting Options to Reach Your Audience
LinkedIn offers robust targeting options to help you get your ads in front of your ideal customers. You can target by:
– Job Title – Ex. Marketing Managers
– Industry – Ex. Information Technology
– Company – Ex. IBM, Oracle, etc.
– Skills and Expertise – Ex. Analytics, Cloud Computing
– Groups and Interests – Ex. Digital Marketing group
– Location – Country, State, City
– Company Size – Ex. 500+ employees
– and more…
This level of targeting makes it possible to hone in on the exact decision makers you want to reach with your ads.
Multiple Ad Formats
LinkedIn provides a variety of ad formats to match different campaign objectives:
– Sponsored Content – Appears in the feed and recommended for high awareness goals
– Sponsored InMail – Directly engages members via personalized messaging
– Text Ads – Grab attention with short text & link, ideal for clicks
– Dynamic Ads – Showcase specific products/services to interested audiences
– Message Ads – Full screen experiences for engagement
– Conversation Ads – Send sponsored messages to spark 1:1 chats
Having options allows you to choose the right format for your goals and budget.
Lead Generation
Many brands leverage LinkedIn ads as a key source of lead generation. You can send traffic to landing pages with lead capture forms to collect contact information from your target audience. Integrations with CRMs and marketing automation tools allow for seamless lead handoff and follow up.
Increased Brand Awareness & Visibility
Running LinkedIn campaigns can grow awareness and visibility for your brand among relevant professionals. Well-optimized ads in the feed, combined with company page content and employee advocacy, makes LinkedIn a powerful channel for amplification.
Powerful Analytics
The LinkedIn ad platform provides robust analytics to track and optimize your campaigns. You can view metrics like impressions, clicks, CTR, cost per lead, and return on ad spend. Analytics empower you to continuously improve performance.
Thought Leadership & Credibility
Sponsored content in the LinkedIn feed allows you to publish relevant articles and infographics that position your company as a trusted authority. This helps build brand equity and credibility with your target audience.
The Potential Drawbacks of LinkedIn Ads
While LinkedIn advertising offers some great benefits, there are also some downsides to consider:
Smaller Audience Than Facebook or Instagram
Despite having over 722 million members, LinkedIn’s audience is still significantly smaller than other platforms like Facebook (2.8 billion) and Instagram (1.4 billion). The sheer reach potential is lower.
Higher Cost Per Click (CPC) & Cost Per Impression (CPM)
Because LinkedIn caters to a high-value professional audience, advertising costs are higher than other channels. Average CPCs can range from $5-$15 depending on targeting. Quality scores impact costs.
Lower Click-Through Rates
With so much content competing for attention in the LinkedIn feed, ads can struggle to stand out. This leads to lower click-through rates compared to search or social platforms. Strong creative is essential.
Cluttered Feed Environment
Members are bombarded with content in the LinkedIn feed from connections, companies, ads, and groups. Cutting through the noise to get visibility is a challenge.
Restrictions on Ad Content & Landing Pages
LinkedIn has strict requirements for ad content and landing pages, especially for lead gen ads. This limits promotional messaging and creative flexibility.
Less Sophisticated Ad Platform
While improving, LinkedIn’s ad platform capabilities lag behind Google, Facebook, and others. There is less support and fewer advanced features.
Vanity Metrics in Reporting
LinkedIn reporting highlights vanity metrics like impressions and clicks rather than meaningful engagement. This can skew perspectives on performance.
Key Factors to Consider for Your Brand
Not all brands find success with LinkedIn ads. To decide if it’s worth it for you, dig into these key factors:
Your Target Audience
Study your customer personas. What percentage of your target audience is active on LinkedIn? What types of roles do they have? Are they engaging with content on LinkedIn? High audience overlap indicates greater potential.
Your Goals and KPIs
LinkedIn can support brand awareness, traffic, and lead gen goals. But you need the right Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure impact. If your goals revolve around ecommerce sales or app installs, other platforms may be preferable.
Your Budget
With higher CPCs and CPMs, running profitable LinkedIn campaigns often requires substantial budget. Startups or SMBs with smaller budgets may find better ROI elsewhere. Significant budgets amplify impact.
| Ad Objective | Suggested Budget |
| Brand Awareness | $10,000+/month |
| Website Traffic | $5,000+/month |
| Lead Generation | $10,000+/month |
Your Overall Marketing Mix
View LinkedIn advertising in the context of your broader marketing channels and strategies. It likely works best as part of an integrated approach including SEO, content marketing, email, and other platforms like Facebook or Google ads.
Your Creative Assets
Having interesting, relevant content to promote greatly enhances LinkedIn ad results. Assess what existing infographics, articles, ebooks, etc. you can feature to attract high-quality clicks. Poor creative wastes budget.
Your Ability to Measure ROI
Can you directly attribute revenue or leads back to LinkedIn? If not, it’s harder to calculate true ROI beyond vanity metrics. Improving conversion tracking helps quantify real business impact.
Your Competitive Landscape
Research whether your competitors are actively advertising on LinkedIn to reach your shared audience. If they are dominating, it may be wise to establish a presence to remain competitive.
Your Ad Strategy
Results ultimately come down to execution. Driving success requires the right objectives, campaign structure, targeting, ad creative, bid strategies, and optimization practices. Partnering with an agency can help.
These are the key areas to research to determine if LinkedIn advertising is a viable channel for your brand and budget. Approach with clear expectations and keep iterating to improve performance over time.
Weighing the Pros and Cons
Based on our analysis so far, here is an overview of key pros and cons to weigh when deciding on LinkedIn ads:
Potential Pros
– Reach 700+ million professionals
– Precise targeting by job role, company, etc.
– Multiple ad formats for different goals
– Generate quality leads
– Increase brand visibility and thought leadership
– Powerful analytics for optimization
Potential Cons
– Smaller reach than Facebook and Instagram
– High costs and bid prices
– Lower click-through rates
– Cluttered feed environment
– Strict ad policies
– Less robust platform capabilities
For some brands, the targeting precision and audience quality available on LinkedIn make it worth the higher costs and smaller reach. But for others, lower cost per click or impression at scale on platforms like Facebook may be more compelling.
There is no universal answer – it depends on your specific brand, audience, objectives and budget. The key is testing LinkedIn ads for yourself and tracking ROI to determine if the results justify the investment for your business.
Tips to Improve LinkedIn Ad Performance
If you do decide to dive into LinkedIn advertising, here are some best practices to help drive better campaign performance:
Profile Targeting
Leverage LinkedIn’s profile data for accurate targeting beyond job title. Target by skills, groups, company size, seniority level, and years of experience to hone in on your ideal accounts.
Content Targeting
Use content targeting to reach audiences interested in topics relevant to your products or services. Target content topics your audience cares about.
Retargeting Pixels
Install retargeting pixels on your site to create custom audiences of site visitors to target across devices. This allows precise remarketing.
Audience Expansion
Use LinkedIn’s automated Audience Expansion tool to discover additional audiences with similar attributes to your ideal customer profile.
Negative Keywords
Implement negative keywords in your campaigns to avoid wasting budget on irrelevant traffic that won’t convert.
Ad Sequence Ads
Create a series of sequenced ads that tell a story and lead the user through the purchase process from awareness to conversion.
Quality Scores
Actively monitor and improve your ad and landing page quality scores through A/B testing. Higher scores lead to lower CPCs.
Conversion Tracking
Implement robust conversion tracking and analytics to accurately measure conversions and ROI from your LinkedIn campaigns.
A/B Testing
Continuously A/B test elements like ad creative, audience targeting, landing pages, and calls-to-action to optimize performance.
By leveraging these best practices, you can get significantly better results from your LinkedIn ad investment. Be sure to monitor ROI closely as you scale spend.
The Verdict: Potentially Worth It For B2B Brands
In closing, advertising on LinkedIn can be worth the investment for many B2B companies targeting professionals, but it depends on several factors:
– **Your audience** – Do they actively use LinkedIn? What % reach potential?
– **Your budget** – LinkedIn ads require significant budget to perform. Minimums apply.
– **Your goals** – Best for awareness, leads or traffic vs. ecommerce sales.
– **Your overall marketing mix** – Role of LinkedIn vs. other channels.
– **Your ability to quantify ROI** – Prove the impact on revenue or leads.
– **Your ad strategy** – Targeting, creative, and optimization practices all impact results.
Evaluate your specific business situation against these considerations. Conduct small scale tests to validate performance before increasing budget. With the right expectations and approach, LinkedIn ads can deliver tremendous value in reaching and engaging professionals. But it must be part of an integrated B2B marketing strategy.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here are answers to some common FAQs about getting started with LinkedIn ads:
How much do LinkedIn ads cost?
LinkedIn advertising costs are driven by an auction bidding model, with average costs per click ranging from $5-$15 depending on targeting. Average CPMs fall between $10-$40. To maximize reach, plan on minimum budgets of at least $5,000 per month.
What types of ads does LinkedIn offer?
Popular LinkedIn ad formats include Sponsored Content, Message Ads, Dynamic Ads, Text Ads, and Conversation Ads. Choose the option that aligns best with your KPIs.
What targeting options are available?
You can target LinkedIn ads by job title, company, industry, skills, interests, groups, location, company size, and more. Retargeting pixels enable remarketing website visitors across devices.
How can I measure the ROI of LinkedIn ads?
Track conversions and attribute revenue or leads back to LinkedIn through UTMs or directly via the LinkedIn Insight Tag. Factor this against cost of ads to quantify true return on spend.
How frequently should I change LinkedIn ad creative?
Refresh your ad creative every 2-3 months at minimum. Constantly test new images, copy, layouts, colors, and calls-to-action to improve performance. Creative fatigue sets in quickly.
