Quantcast
Channel: LocalVox » linkedin insights
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 2

LinkedIn Advertising: How Your Business Should Use it

0
0

This is the final part of a three part series on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn paid advertising and whether advertising on social media is really worth it for your business. Check out part 1 on Facebook advertising and part 2 on Twitter advertising in case you missed them!

7923280978_e06c9d5532 (1)

As the world’s largest online network for professionals, LinkedIn is competing with Twitter and Facebook for your advertising dollars by providing a simple, yet effective self-service approach.

With over $220 million in ad revenue last year, LinkedIn is looking to up that number to $300 million this year, and an estimated $400 million in 2014 (according to eMarketer). The professional network’s 225+ million users have created over three million company pages (and counting), so they’re doing something right, but is it worth it for your company to invest in LinkedIn advertising?

If you want to:

1. Create awareness for a product/service that you offer
2. Generate leads
3. Target a specific audience

Then you should definitely look at LinkedIn advertising.

Need more convincing?

LinkedIn provides a number of case studies to show how their advertising has helped companies reach their goals. Our friends at Hubspot, a marketing software company in Cambridge, Mass (like us!), wanted to target a precise audience and build quality leads.

Their challenge was finding advertising options that offered a wide-range of targeting and that allowed them to improve their campaign results in real time. Using LinkedIn’s precise targeting, here are the results they got:

• A 60% higher click-through rate than their ads on other social networks.
• Valuable leads that converted at a faster rate.
• CPC (cost per click) of only $3, lower than other channels that target the same such categories.

Based on the fact that you can determine your budget and the targeting is exceptional, what have you got to lose by trying LinkedIn advertising?

LinkedIn Advertising Options:

Here’s how their self-service advertising works.

Step 1: Create an ad campaign

After logging in to your company page on LinkedIn, simply hover over the Edit button where a drop down menu appears, and clicking “Promote this page with LinkedIn Ads.” You’ll then be sent to their main ad page with a “Get Started” button to click.

2013-07-12_1057

Step 2: Choose your options and add

After choosing a name for your campaign, you have the options of what type of media your ad will contain. There are two options:

1. Basic
This is a simple ad that contains text as well as the option of adding an image. As you create your ad, LinkedIn provides tooltips on the right hand side which I found to be really helpful. For example: Your ad will have 20% more clicks if it has an image. Good to be reminded of the value of images in this context.

2. Video
With LinkedIn Video Ads, your advertisement will have a heading, a description of what the video contains and the actual video in a small square format (this is the only format LinkedIn currently offers).

The majority of your ad variations should do two things:

1. Promote your business
2. Link back to your website or, even better, a landing page created for the ad

2013-07-12_1325

After adding images/video along with your ad copys, it’s time to move along to the next step, which is the most impressive feature of LinkedIn Ads: targeting.

Step 3: Breaking down your target audience

Targeting is definitely LinkedIn’s most impressive tool, take a look at all their options:

2013-07-12_1103

LinkedIn gives you the estimated target audience based on your criteria, so it’s never a guessing game.

When I experimented with targeting, I chose the location of North America and Europe, The industry of Internet, Computer Networking/Software and Online Media with the function of Marketing and Entrepreneurship, which left me with a target audience of a little over 600,000 members. One of the tips that LinkedIn provides in this section is that you should avoid going too narrow with your targeting and should have an audience of over 100,000.

Step 4: Payment Method

There are two payment methods:

1. Pay per click
This option (similar to Twitter and Facebook’s bid and budget) allows you to set a bid range that your company is willing to pay every time someone clicks on your ad. The minimum bid that you can set is $2 with the minimum ad budget being $10.

2. Pay per 1,000 Impressions
The PPI option will charge you based on the amount of impressions (so if I have a minimum bid of $2 and the ad is displayed 2,000 times, that will cost me $4).

2013-07-12_1107

LinkedIn recommends starting out with the pay-per-click option, considering that you only pay when someone actually clicks on the ad.

Step 5: Finalize your campaign and purchase!

The Wrap-Up

LinkedIn is a great social network to advertise on when you’re serious about reaching your target audience. If you want to learn more about their advertising solutions and how they can meet your business’s objectives, take a look at other case studies on their business marketing page.

Have you tried Linkedin Advertising? How did it work for you? Any tips? Let us know!

If you’re looking for another way to get new business on social media, Sign up for a FREE MarketMeSuite account today and start engaging, finding new prospects and promoting your business across social networks – in one click!

Featured Image Source: http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8041/7923280978_e06c9d5532.jpg

The post LinkedIn Advertising: How Your Business Should Use it appeared first on LocalVox.


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 2

Latest Images

Trending Articles





Latest Images