LinkedIn ads allow businesses to reach their target audience and generate leads through the world’s largest professional network. One of the key metrics to measure the performance of LinkedIn ads is engagements. But what exactly is an engagement on a LinkedIn ad?
Definition of LinkedIn Ad Engagement
An engagement on a LinkedIn ad refers to any action beyond viewing the ad that demonstrates interest or interaction. This includes likes, comments, shares, and clicks. Specifically, the main types of LinkedIn ad engagements are:
- Likes – The number of times users liked the ad
- Comments – The number of comments left on the ad
- Shares – The number of times users shared the ad with their connections
- Clicks – The number of clicks on the ad to visit the destination URL
So in summary, an engagement on a LinkedIn ad is any action taken to interact with the ad beyond simply seeing it.
Why LinkedIn Ad Engagements Matter
Tracking LinkedIn ad engagements is important for several reasons:
- It shows your content is resonating – A high number of engagements signals your ad content is interesting and relevant to your target audience.
- It reflects brand awareness – Engagements help spread brand awareness organically on LinkedIn.
- It indicates lead generation potential – Engagements demonstrate audience interest which can convert to leads.
- It improves targeting – Analyzing engagement data helps refine targeting for future ads.
- It boosts organic reach – An ad with high engagement continues to get impressions beyond the campaign through the LinkedIn feed.
In short, LinkedIn ad engagements are a valuable metric that reflects audience interest, helps build branding, and shows your ad’s ability to generate leads or traffic.
How Engagements Impact LinkedIn Ads
Engagements directly impact 3 key areas of LinkedIn ad performance:
Ad Reach
Ads with higher engagement rates reach more people. LinkedIn’s algorithm detects when an ad resonates and automatically optimizes its placement to reach a larger percentage of the target audience.
Ad Relevance
Engagements provide feedback to LinkedIn on who is interested in your ad. LinkedIn then refines which members of your target audience to show your ads to in order to improve relevance.
Ad Costs
The more engaging an ad is, the lower its cost per engagement. LinkedIn charges advertisers based on engagement, so ads that garner more likes, shares, comments and clicks cost less per individual engagement.
So in summary, engagement boosts an ad’s reach, relevance, and ultimately lowers its cost per result, making it more effective overall.
How to Increase LinkedIn Ad Engagement
Here are 5 proven tips to drive higher engagement with your LinkedIn ads:
- Create Compelling Ad Copy – Well-written, interesting copy grabs attention.
- Use Eye-Catching Visuals – Images, graphics and video boost engagement.
- Leverage LinkedIn Native Ads – Sponsored content, InMail ads, etc perform well and look organic.
- Target Audience Interests – Align ad to audience passions, needs and pain points.
- Prompt Interaction – Ask questions, offer resources, or give a call to action.
Optimizing your ad creative and targeting for relevance is key to sparking interest from your ideal audience.
Measuring LinkedIn Ad Engagement
Within LinkedIn Campaign Manager, you can view ad engagement metrics in your account reporting. The main metrics to analyze are:
- Engagement Rate – Engagements divided by impressions, shown as a percentage. Aim for over 2%.
- Total Engagements – The total number of likes, comments, shares and clicks. Evaluate against campaign goals.
- Engagement Types – Breakdown of how many likes, comments, shares and clicks. Monitor engagement mix.
- Cost Per Engagement – What you pay for each engagement. Lower is better.
Regularly monitoring these engagement KPIs allow you to diagnose opportunities, optimize targeting and creative, and improve LinkedIn ad results over time.
Benchmarks for LinkedIn Ad Engagement Rates
As a benchmark, LinkedIn reports the average engagement rate across all advertisers is around 2%. However, engagement rates vary significantly based on factors like industry, ad format and placement. Here are more specific LinkedIn ad engagement benchmarks:
Ad Format | Average Engagement Rate |
---|---|
Sponsored Content | 2.4% |
Sponsored InMail | 49% |
Text Ads | 0.9% |
Dynamic Ads | 2.8% |
Video ads also tend to perform very well in terms of engagement rate. As you evaluate your campaign’s engagement metrics, refer to these benchmarks to get an idea of how they stack up.
Pros and Cons of LinkedIn Ad Engagements
Let’s examine some pros and cons of using LinkedIn ad engagement metrics:
Pros
- Real-time feedback on ad resonance and relevance
- Lead generation indicator when combined with clicks
- Measure brand awareness and changing perceptions
- Optimize future creative and targeting
- Drive organic reach beyond paid impressions
Cons
- Vanity metrics that don’t directly measure sales impact
- Engagement doesn’t guarantee quality leads
- Data skewed by fake engagements like bot likes or shares
- Lagging indicator that is retrospective
The main downside is that engagements are not direct response metrics like leads or sales. However, they remain very useful for measuring brand awareness and qualitative aspects of performance.
Conclusion
An engagement on a LinkedIn ad is any action beyond an impression that demonstrates interest – including likes, comments, shares and clicks. Although not direct response metrics, LinkedIn ad engagements provide valuable feedback on audience resonance and branding that can optimize campaign performance.
To summarize key points:
- Engagements indicate an ad’s ability to grab attention and spark interest.
- High engagement improves an ad’s reach, relevance and cost per result.
- Aim for over 2% engagement rate as a benchmark.
- Monitor engagement metrics to guide creative and targeting optimizations.
In today’s world of short attention spans, earning engagement on LinkedIn ads is a key hurdle in making an impact with your target audience.Analyzing this vital metric provides insight to create stickier, more engaging ads over time.