Why Use LinkedIn Ads: Benefits, Objectives, Formats, Best Practices of LinkedIn ads

Why Use LinkedIn Ads?

LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network, with over 875 million members and 808 million monthly active users.

It is also a powerful platform for digital marketing, especially for B2B businesses.

LinkedIn ads can help you reach a highly qualified and engaged audience, generate leads, increase brand awareness, and drive conversions.

But why use LinkedIn ads, and how can you get the most out of them?

This article will explain the benefits, objectives, formats, and best practices of LinkedIn ads, and how to create and optimize your campaigns.

Table of Contents

Benefits of LinkedIn ads

LinkedIn ads have many advantages over other social media ads, such as:

Professional audience: LinkedIn users are mostly professionals, decision-makers, and influencers, who have 2x the buying power of the average web audience. They are also more interested in learning, growing, and networking, which makes them more receptive to your ads.
B2B targeting: They allow you to target your audience based on their industry, company, job title, seniority, skills, interests, and more. You can also use LinkedIn’s Matched Audiences feature to retarget your website visitors, email contacts, or account-based marketing lists.
Content quality: They can connect you to informative content, useful products or services, and job opportunities from companies looking for people like you. You can also create thought leadership ads to showcase your expertise and authority in your field.
Results measurement: They provide you with detailed analytics and insights to track your campaign performance and ROI. You can also use LinkedIn’s Conversion Tracking feature to measure the actions taken by your audience after clicking or viewing your ads.

They can help you achieve different marketing goals, depending on your campaign objective.

You can choose from the following objectives when creating your campaign:

Brand awareness: This objective helps you increase your reach and visibility among your target audience. You pay for impressions (CPM).
Website visits: This objective helps you drive traffic to your website or landing page. You pay for clicks (CPC).
Engagement: This objective helps you boost your engagement metrics, such as likes, comments, shares, and follows. You pay for impressions (CPM) or clicks (CPC).
Video views: This objective helps you promote your video content and increase your video views. You pay for impressions (CPM) or views (CPV).
Lead generation: This objective helps you collect leads directly on LinkedIn using Lead Gen Forms. You pay for impressions (CPM) or leads (CPL).
Website conversions: This objective helps you drive conversions on your website, such as sign-ups, downloads, purchases, or registrations. You pay for impressions (CPM) or conversions (CPA).
Job applicants: This objective helps you attract and recruit talent for your open positions. You pay for impressions (CPM) or applicants (CPA).

LinkedIn ads offer various formats and placements to suit your creative needs and budget.

You can choose from the following formats when creating your ads:

Sponsored Content: These appear in the feed, either as a single image, video, carousel, event, document or thought leader ads. They are labelled as “promoted” and can include a headline, description, and call to action.
Sponsored Messaging: These are direct messages that are sent to your audience’s LinkedIn inbox, either as messages or conversation ads. They are personalized and interactive and can include text, images, videos, and buttons.
Text Ads: These are simple and cost-effective and appear on the right rail or top banner of the LinkedIn desktop site. They consist of a headline, description, and image, and can link to your website or landing page.
Display Ads: These are banner ads that appear on the LinkedIn desktop site, either on the right rail, top banner, or bottom banner. They are designed for high-impact branding and awareness campaigns and can link to your website or landing page.
Video Ads: These are standalone video ads that appear in the LinkedIn feed or as pre-roll or mid-roll ads on LinkedIn’s video partner inventory. They are ideal for storytelling and brand building and can include a headline, description, and call to action.