- Hi everyone, I'm Crystal King,
Social Media Professor for HubSpot Academy.
Today, I'm gonna give you some tips
on how to create an effective LinkedIn ad,
and how to optimize and test your ads.
Before we get started, make sure you like and subscribe
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the latest HubSpot Academy courses here on YouTube.
There are a few things to consider
before you get started with your LinkedIn ads,
like having an optimized page and content,
understanding your buyer persona,
choosing a campaign objective,
and building a targeting strategy for your audience.
Check the link in the description for a video
that can walk you through those steps.
So let's talk about creating an effective LinkedIn ad.
After you've chosen your campaign objective and audience,
it's time to choose which type of LinkedIn ad
will be the most effective.
LinkedIn offers several different types of ad formats.
Sponsored content, which includes single-image ads,
video ads, and carousel ads,
message ads, which was formerly Sponsored InMail,
and Dynamic Ads.
I have one big tip for you.
Remember, no matter what format you choose,
always be testing.
First is sponsored content.
Sponsored content appears natively
in the LinkedIn feed of your target audience.
This includes single-image ads,
carousel ads, and video ads.
There are a few best practices for sponsored content.
Provide a new angle or analysis on industry news,
rather than just sharing popular headlines.
Share helpful, relevant content.
Use rich media in your posts,
and incorporate a variety of formats,
like YouTube videos, slide shares, or Vimeo videos
which engage your followers.
Include two to four ads in each campaign.
Campaigns with more ads reach more folks
in your target audience.
Try lead gen forms to help generate
more qualified leads for your sales team.
These forms automatically populate a member's data
from their profile, making it easy for them
to fill out, while giving you helpful data.
Next is the sponsored content carousel ads.
Carousel ads hold up to 10 images to show a story,
showcase a product, or drive registration for events.
Here are some best practices for carousel ads.
Share stories of customer success.
Post about thought leadership,
or share your executives' opinions.
Show several products or services.
Do a deep dive into a particular product or service.
Share a series of job opportunities,
upcoming events, or speakers for a single event.
Create captivating images and visual stories.
Highlight people, illustrations, graphics, and typography.
Use an overarching theme or style,
or share a large piece of content
broken down into individual cards.
Optimize the order of the cards based on performance.
Try A/B testing the order.
Use clear messaging and calls to action, or CTA.
Save your main CTA for the end to optimize
for engagement through the end.
Then, there are sponsored content video ads.
Video ads can drive leads, build brand awareness,
or promote a new product.
They also offer video metrics and data
on the types of professionals interacting with your ad.
Let's look at the best practices for video ads.
Showcase executives as thought leaders.
Preview events or webinars.
Give a better, more detailed view of products or software.
Show the most important message within the first 10 seconds.
Use visual storytelling, graphics and text
to increase engagement.
For lead generation, try longer videos.
I have two more video ad tips for you.
85% of social media videos are played without sound,
so consider adding subtitles.
For brand awareness goals, keep videos under 30 seconds.
A LinkedIn study found that shorter videos
have 200% better view completion rates.
Message ads are another one, which you may remember
as Sponsored InMail.
They're a direct line to your network,
and with more than a 50% open rate,
they're more effective than email.
Try message ads for recruiting, event registration,
and lead generation.
There are some best practices
for message ads to keep in mind.
First, include a clear CTA using one to three words.
The best performing CTAs are try,
free, today, click, and apply,
and feature low pressure terminology.
Run message ads for an entire week.
The highest open rates are on Tuesdays,
but you might be surprised to learn
that the most clicks happen on weekends.
Use the LinkedIn Insight Tag to track conversions
from these campaigns.
Try combining sponsored content
with message ads, and running both campaigns at once.
That's because marketers see 37% better
click through rates when targeting
via both sponsored content and message ads.
Then, there are text ads.
These are a self-service, pay per click,
or per impression option from LinkedIn.
They're similar to Google AdWords.
You can advertise for lead gen offers,
job opportunities, or groups to the audience
of your choosing.
When it comes to text ads, you'll want to
include an image to drive more engagement.
Choose a compelling CTA.
Use attention-grabbing headlines
directed at the LinkedIn member.
Link to a mobile-optimized landing page
that aligns with the messaging from your ad.
Create three to four variations of each ad
to reach more people in your target audience.
Make sure that you have the LinkedIn Insight Tag
on your website, so you can track
conversions and learn more about website visitors.
You can target on a personalized level with dynamic ads.
These ads are effective for brand awareness
like the example ad shown, job seekers and retargeting.
There are some best practices for dynamic ads.
Use the LinkedIn member's profile photo in the ad,
it improves engagement.
Write clear CTAs, and one primary action
for the member to take.
Exclude existing followers from follower ads
so you get net new prospects.
Test out custom background images in spotlight ads.
I'm guessing that you might be interested
in what the specs are for each of these ad formats.
Check the description below for a quick guide
to LinkedIn ad specs.
Next, let's go over LinkedIn ad visuals and messaging.
There are limitless ways to create amazing
visual ads that stand out to your audience.
It just takes a little creativity,
a lot of testing, and the right tools to make it successful.
Whether you're using a graphic or a video,
make sure you're designing and finding images
that set context for your content,
that capture peoples' attention, and align with your brand.
Here's a great example.
This ad from Adobe is both visually pleasing,
and has a strong message for women's history month.
Let's start with some visual design tips to keep in mind.
First, make sure you're using rich media.
Next, use a tool like Canva to create unique,
branded social media images.
Then, vary your image types.
Try using icons, GIFs, stock photos, graphics, et cetera.
You'll also want to use colors
that stand out from the page.
Stay away from lighter backgrounds like white or gray.
Use videos and infographics that are designed
to help convert your audience into buyers.
Additionally, include CTAs to encourage clicks.
What about messaging?
Here are some tips.
Write catchy, actionable headlines
focused on setting context, and making the user
interested in the content.
Include compelling statistics or quotes
lifted out of a larger piece of content.
Keep it short and sweet.
Include shortened URLs to clean up the copy.
Include a call to action.
And finally, let's think about video.
Make sure the video thumbnail is compelling enough
to make the user click play.
Use your video platform of choice
to test different types of video,
like animated, human-centered, work-focused, et cetera,
to see what your audience best responds to.
Add text to your videos so people can
watch the video silently
and still tell what the audience is saying.
Don't just select one asset or messaging technique
for each campaign.
Run A/B tests so you can tailor your strategy
to what works over time.
I asked Ty Heath from LinkedIn's B2B Institute
about her advice on how to choose
the best starting point for an ad agency.
- So, as a B2B marketer investing in lead generation,
there are a couple things you want to be thoughtful about.
So, LinkedIn is a great network for you
to invest in lead generation, because of the capacity
for you to both micro-target, and reach customers
that are in the market for your services right now,
as well as macro target, and reach customers
that may not know who you are, but are in the category,
and they could be future buyers of your product.
If you think about it, it makes sense.
In the short term, maybe 20 accounts
in the market for your service,
but over the course of a year, there could be 80 accounts.
So with LinkedIn's targeting features,
you can both micro-target, using website retargeting
with LinkedIn's insight tag.
You can use email, uploading,
so with the integration with HubSpot for example,
you can upload your contacts, and use that first-party data
on LinkedIn to do targeting.
You can do account-based marketing.
And, you can also upload lookalike audiences.
You know what leads are most important to you.
You can find folks that look like your top leads
on the LinkedIn platform.
And then at the same time with demographic targeting,
you can then macro-target all of the folks
in a particular category to make sure
that you're branding with them,
and starting to nurture the leads
that will make sense in the future.
You want to have a balanced approach
to lead generation on LinkedIn,
both by reaching current customers,
and by reaching future customers.
To get started I recommend starting with sponsored content.
It's our bread and butter ad format.
And then also, consider using lead generation forms.
Lead generation forms removes the friction
from someone filling out a form
by pulling in information from their LinkedIn profile.
So if you're just getting started with lead generation
on LinkedIn, sponsored content plus lead generation forms,
and then think about your strategy to reach
both current and future buyers.
- Okay, you're ready to start a LinkedIn ad campaign.
If this is your first LinkedIn campaign,
I recommend thinking of it as a first draft.
Over time, you'll edit and revise
as you learn from each test and report.
And by the end, you'll have an optimized
lead generation, recruitment, or brand awareness machine.
Number one, sign in to Campaign Manager.
Number two, select an objective for your campaign.
Remember, these are under the general umbrellas
of awareness, consideration, and conversion,
and range from brand awareness to job applicants.
Think of your goal for this campaign
and choose the objective that aligns most closely.
Number three, choose your target audience
and use whichever of LinkedIn's
audience targeting tools is right for you.
You can use matched audiences, lookalike audiences,
or audience expansion.
Or, create a completely custom audience
using LinkedIn's data.
Number four, pick an ad format.
Like we outlined earlier, LinkedIn offers
sponsored content ads in the LinkedIn feed.
Message ads, text ads in the sidebar,
and dynamic ads featuring the members themselves.
Here's a pro tip for you.
Experiment with a few different ad formats
like message ads and sponsored content
for the same audience.
Number five, decide on a bid and a budget.
This is where you'll decide
on the campaign schedule and budget.
LinkedIn recommends starting out by investing
in a campaign with at least $150 a day
to set a foundation for your longterm marketing goals.
Number six, create and preview ad creative.
Review our best practices on visual design
video tips mentioned earlier.
Make at least two to four ads in each campaign
to maximize your audience.
Number seven, setup payment information and launch.
For those of you who are HubSpot customers,
we have a free HubSpot LinkedIn ads integration,
which can show you your LinkedIn ads
and how they impact your bottom line,
and which leads are your most valuable prospects.
Check the description for a link to learn more.
Let's talk about how you can implement conversion tracking.
Using LinkedIn ads is a great way to generate leads
and drive brand awareness.
But in order to see the full value
of your sponsored content, text ads, or message ads,
it's important to actually see the data
about who's converting on what content.
LinkedIn's insight tag allows you
to track conversions, and see which audiences
are converting fast for any content in your ads.
This helps you see how many leads you're getting
from each of your campaigns, ads, and even target audiences.
You can also understand the return on investment
from campaigns, and optimize future campaigns
for better results.
If you're a HubSpot customer, you can also use tracking URLs
to see where your leads are coming from
in the reporting tool.
Want to learn how to download and install
the LinkedIn's insight tag to start tracking conversions?
Check out the link in the description for instructions.
Let's walk through how you can
implement conversion tracking.
Number one, login to Campaign Manager
using your email address associated with your LinkedIn page.
Make sure you use the business email
associated with your LinkedIn profile and LinkedIn page.
It's easy to add a business email address
to your LinkedIn page.
Number two, choose where you want to track conversions.
Number three, add the LinkedIn insight tag to your website.
If you use the HubSpot CMS,
this process can be done automatically
through the setup process.
Number four, create a conversion action.
Number five, add your conversion action to a campaign.
Number six, measure your performance with analytics.
And lastly, you'll want to consider developing
some conversion and optimization strategies.
When it comes to advertising on LinkedIn,
the whole point of setting up your campaigns for success,
and the whole reason you're even watching this video,
is to get as much return on your investment,
or ROI, as possible.
Think about it.
What's the point of optimizing your LinkedIn ads
if you're not sure what results you're getting?
That's why monitoring your campaign,
understanding what's working and what's not,
and optimizing your future campaigns
based on the data you've uncovered is essential.
When it comes to monitoring the success of your campaigns,
remember that not all companies use the same metrics
in the same way.
So, use what makes the most sense for your brand.
Make sure that you're tracking the same information
for all of your campaigns, so you have data to compare.
But to get a sense, here are some types of metrics
that you can track for LinkedIn ads.
Website traffic, conversions, cost per conversion,
conversion rate, form submissions,
net new leads and contacts, engagements, cost per click,
new followers for brand awareness,
impressions, A/B test results.
Whether you're reporting your campaign performance
to the owner of your company or team manager,
it's important to be able to analyze and report
the success of your campaigns based on those metrics.
You can use these types of metrics to determine
the lead quality.
How good of a fit are the leads generated
for your product or service?
The ROI for your campaigns.
How is the money spent on these campaigns
benefiting the company?
The CPC over time.
How much do the leads, or any metrics
that you're tracking, cost over time?
A/B test results and experiments.
What are you learning from the A/B tests
that you're running?
Monitoring reporting on the success of your campaigns
is useful for proving the value of the work
you're doing for your company.
But it's also valuable for continuing
to improve your campaigns.
Was the campaign a success or a failure?
There is no silver bullet to running perfect ads.
Keep testing multiple topics and formats
for your audience, and optimizing your biding strategy.
Use this information to tailor your posting strategy
both organically, and through LinkedIn ads in the future.
LinkedIn ads are constantly updating and changing
to better suit marketers' needs.
By changing to an objective-based ad strategy,
it forces marketers to think about their goals
at the start of every campaign.
Using the tips in this video,
you can reach new audiences at over 30 million
companies on LinkedIn.
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