A Blog on LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
Understand how marketers and brands use Linkedin channels to market products and services, enhance brand reputation and eventually convert people by offering solutions to their pain points. Understanding these solutions will help formulate a perfect social media strategy for brand promotion, enhancing audience reach, and creating connections that matter for businesses and professionals. Thus, LinkedIn is not just a job search and recruitment site. It is much more read-on...
Introduction
LinkedIn has over 810 million members in over 200 countries with 77% members outside the USA. It has a global presence with a platform available in 25 languages. It has a specific business focus and is the 3rd largest among the social media sites preceded by Instagram (1.2 billion members) and Facebook (3 billion members).
Creating a LinkedIn Page
Besides reaching followers, you can use the page to boost images, videos, events, and text posts to increase reach, consideration, and conversions by fixing the objectives. After creating the page, you can assign yourself the roles of paid admin and paid media admin.
Paid Admin Types
- Sponsored Content Poster (Share and Update)
- Lead Gen Forms Manager (Download Leads)
- Landing Page Managers
Remember you need to be an admin to create a sponsored content post.
Complete the page for thirty percent additional weekly views. Add logo, keywords, and the URL besides describing your company and the mission. If you post 4 times per week you will get 2 times the lift. Gain 150 followers to get greater engagement. Now you are ready to boost a post and whence you begin LinkedIn automatIcally creates a Campaign Manager.
Campaign Manager
Campaign Manager is LikedIn's Ad management platform. On this platform, you create an Ad. launch it, and evaluate the performance of the campaign.
Roles
- Account Manager: Ideal for someone who will be overseeing overall account actions from managing users to creating and editing campaigns.
- Campaign Manager: This is ideal if you’re only focused on running campaigns. You won’t be able to manage users.
- Creative Manager: You can edit and add new creatives, but won’t be able to create new campaigns.
- Viewer: You’ll be able to view campaign data and reports but not edit any ads or campaign details like targeting or daily budget.
- Billing Admin: You’ll be able to change billing details and have the same access as an Account Manager to other features.
Billing Options
- Credit Card No Minimums
- Insertion Order for those who have a LinkedIn Ad Rep.
- The minimum spend for monthly invoicing is $3,000 USD per month for 2 of the last 12 months
- Must have a LinkedIn Campaign Manager account
Advertisement Best Practices
A good mix of brand awareness and conversion is advised while creating an Ad. B2B 50% and B2C 60/40%. Highlight insights, add real relevant images, and do not use stock photos. Besides clear content and call for action cite third-party sources for credibility. Use # tags to build online communities.
Prepare 4 to 5 different creatives. More creatives will lead to more people in your audience. Keep changing headlines but not the images and do not forget to optimize the page for smartphones..
The first step is:
Creating an Ad Account. For this, you should have a LinkedIn profile, paid media admin access to a LinkedIn business page, and an accepted payment method.
You can access the campaign manager directly/campaignmanager or from the home page.
Upon opening the campaign manager open an Ad account. Create 1st Ad Group for creating related Ads and then plan, manage and optimize the campaign. After creating a group you can change the name and settings. There is a default option to create a new Ad this is terms as New Campaign Group.
Campaign Hierarchy
- Campaign Group
- Campaign
- Ad
It is possible to create multiple groups and ads and delete the one's not required.
The campaign journey starts by selecting an Ad Group and creating a campaign, followed by creating an Ad and initiating the launch.
Select Ad Group
Set the Budget and the Schedule, if you wish to limit the process to a week or a month so to say. You can thus manage the status, view performance, and send reports if required.
In order to create an advertisement first choose the objective and define the target audience. This is then followed by choosing the format that matches the objective and then follows the placement, optimization, and bid preference. You can also gauge the forecast that could be the outcome after the launch.
Defining the Objective
LinkedIn categorizes the Ad as follows:
Awareness
Brand Awareness
Impression-based campaigns are good for creating awareness.
The outcome leads to increase visibility and share of voice
Consideration
Objectives
- Website Visits
- Video View (bid and optimize based on CPV.)
- Engagements (Increase social action = comments, likes, shares, etc.
The outcome leads to deeper engagement for relationship building.
Goal Conversion
(downloading white papers, filling out forms) Must include the conversion tracking feature.
- Lead generation
- Talent leads
- Goal conversions
- Job applicants
The goal conversion leads to actions
- Event Sign Up
- Job Application
- Purchase Decisions
Define the Right Audience
On LinkedIn, you can target C-Suite, influential decision-makers, and individual contributors. Run a full-funnel marketing campaign to influence the entire buyer community.
Target members using demographic information, retarget website visitors or upload lists of contacts, or target companies for account-based marketing. For precise targeting exclude individuals and companies. Remember member profile data helps in inferring the age and gender on LinkedIn.
Reverse engineer profile data to discover more target audiences. Also evaluate profiles for trends, job functions, titles, and skill sets. Estimate audience size through the forecast feature. Get 30,000+ (niche) to 300,000+ embers for Sponsored Content solutions and between 20,000+ (niche) to 200,000 members for Sponsored Messaging solutions. Optimize creatives, rotate between 4-5 Sponsored Content and 2-4 Sponsored Messaging.
LinkedIn Ad Targeting Best Practices
- Define Location (mandatory)
- Audience Attributes
- Company
- Traits and Interests
- Job Experience
- Demographics
Use the Global search feature to expand targeting categories or the exclusion feature to minimize. Add not more than 2 or 3 targeting facets. Keep target audience over 50000 for sponsored content and text ads and over 15000 for message ads.
Matched Audience
Need 300 members to run this campaign(known accounts and contacts). Combine LinkedIn's 1st party data with your business 1st party data to fetch company addresses or Email lists for ABM or account-based marketing with company targeting. In this feature, you can exclude a list of current customers and add potential leads (PL) to nurture. MA helps in engaging using website retargeting and contact targeting. You can use the audience expansion feature or build a look-alike audience.
The advertiser can choose any option mentioned above or choose all, using the full-funnel marketing content strategy.
There are 4 types of matched audience targeting
- Account Targetting
- Lookalike Targeting
- Email Targeting
- Account Targeting
Matched Audiences to significantly improve cost per lead by up to 14%.
Define Ad Format
Ad Types
- Single Image (Feed)
- Video
- Event Ad
- Carousel (Swipeable Cards on Feed)
- Message (Active Members)
- Conversion (Active Members)
- Text Ad (Desktop Right Rail)
- Dynamic Ad (Desktop Right Rail)
Budget & Schedule
Second Price Auction saves money.
Bidding Types
- Automated (Max Delivery)
- Target Cost
- Manual Bidding
Optimize for Conversion
High rate of audience response but no conversion.
Implement conversion tracking to let LinkedIn optimize the page. Make sure the offer is clear and the page is responsive. Use campaign demographics to better understand the audience and ad relevancy. Identify underperforming segments and improve conversions with more relevant and appealing creatives change them if required. Also, run a test with LinkedIn Lead Gen Form. Expand the audience with lookalike features as well.
Optimize Campaign delivery for a brand awareness campaign. First review content for an engaging offer. The intro text should be concise and the message relevant. Set bids higher the cost will be just one percent higher than the second. Set bid 10 to 20 % higher. Check the metric one week later.
Marketing Funnel
Awareness - Focus on the right audience. Content Formats that work: Video, static images, carousels.
Consideration - Stay engaged by thought leadership, seminars, webinars, research reports, and page follow.
Conversions - Goal Conversion. By this time the customer knows the solution you offer and is ready for action. A conversion can be a product purchase, sales inquiry, or job application. Here Campaign Manager suggestions will help you optimize the ad format based on the objective. Remember ensuring a balance of brand with demand builds deeper relationships.
Defining Marketing Objectives
You can define your objective by analyzing the type of content you are trying to promote.
Awareness/Reach
Run an awareness campaign on a video highlighting products and services. Make customers know about your business or products and services. The campaign should be bolstered by ungated content usually blog posts about the company.
Consideration/Nurture
Use middle-of-the-funnel gated content for consideration like case studies, Email marketing, webinars, and detailed informative blog posts that provide a solution to pain points and gently promote the company. Promote case studies with lead generation form to collect information from the customers and create a solid potential lead. Shortlist the audience and nurture them with content to stay in consideration.
Conversions/Acquire
Invoke potential CFA or call for action with a backup plan. Keep the potential leads in a loop with a follow-up within 30 days. Launch a single image ad with an offer of a live demo for example. Retarget website visitors and nudge them down the funnel for conversion.
Benchmarking Campaigns
Keep an eye on the forecast tool on LinkedIn or study past campaigns before launching a new one. Keep an eye on audience demographic and, size, the budget spent, and results or ROAS. Understand what worked for better targeting, ad formats used, scheduling, and budget size.
Compare Metrics
- CPC: Cost per click, lead, impressions, and views.
- CTR the click-through rate
- Reach the number of people who saw your single Ad.
- Conversions How many website actions took place?
Past Creatives
Ad formats that worked. Titles and ad text used. Compelling images and call to action that worked?
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Glossary
Key Results measurable value shows how well you are achieving marketing objectives.
· Attribution:
The tracking of user actions and assignment of values to these, as well as the channels in which the actions occurred. Three common models for marketing attribution:
- First Touch Attribution: assigns credit for a conversion to the channel responsible for the first interaction
- Last Touch Attribution: assigns credit for a conversion to the channel responsible for the last interaction.
- Multi-Touch Attribution: distributes the credit for conversion across multiple touchpoints along the buyer journey.
· Customer Relationship Management (CRM):
CRM manages the company’s relationships and interactions with customers.
· Marketing Automation System:
Manage and automate marketing activities to improve engagement and efficiency.
· Lead Score (LS):
A methodology used to evaluate the quality of leads.
· Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL):
MQL is considered a strong prospect.
· Sales Qualified Lead (SQL):
Vetted and qualified as a prospective customer.
· Return on Ad Spend (ROAS):
Revenue is generated for every amount spent on the Ad Campaign
· Leads:
Prospects who share personal or company contact information, click on an ad, download a whitepaper, etc.
· Frequency:
It is impressions divided by reach.
· Cost Per Mille (CPM):
Money spent on ads divided by 1,000 impressions.
· Cost Per View (CPV):
Average cost per view. Qualified with 2 continuous seconds of playback with the video being 50% on screen or CTA.
For Message & Conversion Ads
· Open Rate:
The number of opens is divided by the number of sends.
· Click to Open Rate:
Here the percentage of clicks is divided by opens.
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Uday provides a search engine optimization service for digital marketing. He provides website content and content for authoritative links. He also works as SEO Content Writer for digital companies on a remote WFH basis.
He also teaches digital marketing in his home town Jabalpur. He can be contacted at:
pateluday90@hotmail.com
09755089323
