LinkedIn is a gold mine tool for smart marketers who want to prospect a B2B target audience. As every coin has 2 sides, LinkedIn has built professional profiles of almost all professionals on its platform. At the same time, it also allows you to run advertisements (Display, InMail, Forms, etc.) to the same B2B audience.
How to set up your Ad account?
First thing first, create your Linkedin Ad account, by selecting "Advertise" in your top right dropdown menu bar. Just click 'next' multiple items and your account setup is done. Then, create a campaign and select your relevant objective.
I consider this as a very important step as a building is as powerful as its foundation. Choose it carefully.
1) Awareness
1.a. Brand Awareness -> I want more people to learn about my business.
Choose this objective to tell more people about your product, services, company, or Linkedin event.
2) Consideration
1.a. Website Visits -> I want more people to visit a website destination site on or off LinkedIn.
Choose this objective to:
- Drive traffic to your website
- Drive traffic to marketing landing pages
- Drive traffic to your LinkedIn Event
Your campaign will be shown to people most likely to click on your ads.
1.b. Engagement -> I want more people to engage with my content posts.
Choose this objective to:
- Increase social engagement with your content or LinkedIn Event
- Increase followers to your Company Page
Your campaign will be shown to people most likely to engage with your ad or follow your company.
1.c. Video views-> I want more people to watch my videos.
Choose this objective to:
- Share your videos with more people
Your campaign will be shown to people most likely to view your videos.
3) Conversions
3.a. Lead Generation-> I want more quality leads on LinkedIn.
Choose this objective to:
- Capture leads on LinkedIn
- Use a lead generation form pre-filled with LinkedIn profile data
Your campaign will be shown to people most likely to fill out a LinkedIn lead generation form.
3.b. Website Conversions-> I want more purchases, registrations, or downloads.
Choose this objective to:
- Capture leads on your website
- Drive actions that are valuable to your business
Your campaign will be shown to people most likely to take the actions you define as valuable for your business.
3.c. Job Applicants-> I want to promote job opportunities at my company.
Choose this objective to:
- Tell people about relevant job opportunities at your company
- Drive more applications to your job opportunities
Your campaign will be shown to people most likely to view or click on your job ads.
I have selected "Website Visits". My Ads will be shown to people most likely to click on my ads.
Now, select your target audience. I consider this step as the most important of all. We need a bull's eye on the target audience, for the success of our campaign.
1) Location/Country/State/City
- Recent or permanent location - People who recently visited or permanently live or work in the selected location(s)
- Permanent location - People who permanently live or work in the selected location(s)
I have selected the United States as a country, Berlin as City, and Ontario as a state. See how powerful is the targeting.
LinkedIn Matched Audiences are custom audience segments you can use as targeting selections in your advertising campaigns. With Matched Audiences, you can further narrow down your target audience in various ways as follows:
- List Upload - List of companies or contacts
- Lookalike - Lookalike audience helps you find people who may be interested in your product by identifying people with similar characteristics to your best audience.
- Other
- Retargeting - Retarget people who visited a page on your website, landing page, viewed your video ad, open/submitted your lead generation form, engaged with your company page OR RSVP's your LinkedIn event.
Then, select the type of advertisement. Linkedin has the following advertising type available:
- Single image ad - Create ads using a single image, article link or your events on LinkedIn that will show up in the news feed.
- Carousel image ad - Create ads with 2 or more images that will show up in the news feed.
- Video ad - Create ads using a video that will show up in the news feed.
- Text ad - Create text-based ads that will show up in the right column or top of the page on LinkedIn.
- Spotlight ad - Create ads that are personalized using profile data and will promote an offering throughout the desktop.
- Message ad - Create ads that are delivered to your target audience’s LinkedIn Messaging inbox.
- Conversation ad - Create ads that are delivered to your target audience’s LinkedIn Messaging inbox.
Update your ad copy, Landing page URL, and ad creative in the placeholders.
You may consider, selecting LinkedIn Audience expansion network.
Choose your total and daily ad budget. Also, select the end date of the campaign.
Select your bidding method. Automatic bidding is recommended.
click save and your campaign is live.
