13. Advertising on LinkedIn

What ad types does LinkedIn offer?

LinkedIn offers two types of ads – Sponsored Content and Text Ads. These ad types can be booked via LinkedIn’s self-service platform, called Campaign Manager. In addition, larger advertisers can book display ads and promotional messages, called Sponsored InMail, via the LinkedIn Ad Sales team. If you want to learn more about these options, take a look here.

Sponsored Content

LinkedIn’s Sponsored Content Ad allows you to publish a promotional update on users’ newsfeeds, alongside all the updates from their regular connections. The update is marked as ‘Sponsored,’ but other than that it looks and behaves exactly like a normal update. Your update can include an image, video, infographic, PDF, SlideShare or link to a blog post or landing page.

To set up a Sponsored Content Ad, you need to have access to a Company Page or a Showcase Page, or create a new one. Your content will be shared in the name of this company or brand. With a click on the user name or icon, people can visit the respective page and follow your updates. Your Sponsored Content Ad can either promote an existing update from your page or an update you create specifically for your campaign. LinkedIn gives you various targeting options to reach your desired audience, which we will cover later.

Text Ads

LinkedIn Text Ads are traditional ads that appear in the right column of the desktop and in other locations on their website. A Text Ad consists of a small image (50x50 pixels), a short headline (25 characters), a description (75 characters) and a link to your landing page or LinkedIn Company Page.

What targeting options does LinkedIn offer?

LinkedIn lets you target users based on their demographics, education, professional experience, and group memberships:

What is the minimum budget to advertise on LinkedIn?

You can set up your Sponsored Content and Text Ad campaigns both as a click (CPC) or impression (CPM) based campaigns. The minimum daily budget for both ad types is $10.

With both campaign types, the LinkedIn Campaign Manager will show you a suggested bid range based on what other advertisers are bidding for the same audience. The minimum CPC or CPM bid for Text Ads is $2. For Sponsored Content, the minimum bid depends on your target audience.

How to get started

To get started, access LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager by clicking here and then click on “Create Ad’. This will present you with a screen where you can select your ad type. LinkedIn will then walk you through the ad creation, targeting and budgeting process. If you come across any problems or questions, take a look at LinkedIn’s Advertising FAQ’s. They have also created a detailed Text Ad playbook, which is worth checking out if you plan to run Text Ads.

Case Studies

HSBC

Financial service provider HSBC used LinkedIn’s Sponsored Content to attract new business customers and generate more followers with engaging content about doing business globally.

HP Software

With the help of LinkedIn Sponsored Content and InMail, HP Software (Hewlett Packard) was able to drive a conversation among targeted IT decision makers, practitioners and developers. The company promoted relevant content, provocative statistics and infographics to engage their audience.

Next, you have a chance to apply what we have covered so far in an exercise.