It’s important to connect your brand with the world’s largest audience of active, influential professionals. But, how to do that?
The five steps below demonstrate how to run a self-service ad campaign on LinkedIn using Sponsored Content, Message Ads, Dynamic Ads, and Text Ads.
#1 Choose your Objective
Choose from the following objectives to customize your campaign:
- Awareness: Brand awareness
- Consideration: Website visits, Engagement, Video views
- Conversion: Lead generation, Website conversions, Job applicants
Your chosen goal (impressions, clicks, or video views) will determine the rest of your campaign creation experience.
#2 Select Your Targeting Criteria
Reach the right audience by using LinkedIn’s targeting tools for campaign success. Choose from over 20 different audience attribute categories including:
- Company size
- Company name
- Member schools
- Member interests
- Member groups
- Skills
- Job title
- Job seniority
Targeting is a foundational element of running a successful advertising campaign - Getting your targeting right leads to higher engagement, and ultimately, higher conversion rates.
#3 Choose your LinkedIn Ad Format
Now that you are logged in to Campaign Manager, it’s time to create and manage your ad campaigns. You can use Sponsored Content, Message Ads, Dynamic Ads, Text Ads, or a mix of all four.
#3.1 Sponsored Content
It appears directly in the LinkedIn feed of professions you want to reach, and comes in three different formats: single image ads, video ads, and carousel ads.
Using Sponsored Content, you can:
- Target your most valuable audiences using accurate, profile-based first-party data
- Reach a highly engaged audience with native ads in a professional feed across desktop and mobile
- Drive leads, build brand awareness, and nurture key relationships at every stage of your sales cycle
#3.2 Message Ads
Message Ads let you reach your prospects on LinkedIn Messaging, where they increasingly spend most of their time - and where professional conversations happen.
Using Message Ads, you can:
- Send direct messages to your prospects to spark immediate action
- Drive stronger engagement and response than traditional email marketing
- Measure the value you’re getting by seeing which roles and companies are taking action on your message
#3.3 Dynamic Ads
Dynamic Ads use LinkedIn profile data - like photo, company name, and job title - to personalize ads. Increase engagement with these three formats:
- Follower ad: Promote their LinkedIn Page or Showcase Page and drive members to follow their LinkedIn page with a single click on the ad from the desktop experience.
- Spotlight ad: Drive website traffic or spark an action like event registration or showcasing a new product.
- Jobs ad: Increase relevant applicants by personalizing ads to top talent on desktop and mobile experiences.
#3.4 Text Ads
Text Ads are simple but compelling pay-per-click (PPC) or cost-per-impression (CPM) ads. Using Text Ads, you can:
- Easily create your own ads and launch a campaign in minutes
- Tailor messaging to the professionals you need to reach
- Pay for only the ads that work – per click or per impression
#4 Set Your Budget and Schedule
Now that you’ve selected your audience, it’s time to set the budget and schedule for your campaign.
There are three options:
- Cost per send (CPS) is used when you run Message Ads campaigns. You pay for each message that is successfully delivered.
- Cost per click (CPC) is often used for action-oriented campaigns like lead generation or event registration.
- Cost per impression (CPM) model is typically a better fit when brand awareness is the goal.
Along with choosing the right option for your campaign, you will enter a suggested bid, daily budget, start date, end date, and total budget. Regardless of the end date you choose, you can cancel your campaign at any time. It’s also important to note that LinkedIn uses an auction system for bidding that rewards engagement, meaning you can win an auction without being the highest bidder.
#5 Measure and Optimize Your Campaign
When your LinkedIn Ads go live,it’s time to see how your ads are performing. You can track your campaign’s overall impressions, clicks, social actions and budget. Social actions are initiated by LinkedIn members who interact with your content – it’s organic, free engagement.
Click through to each campaign to see how each ad within the campaign is performing. Using this data, you can edit your ads, refine your targeting, adjust your budget, and toggle ad variations on and off based on performance.
