5 Advantages of LinkedIn Advertising
For small businesses today, online advertising is crucial for success. However, with numerous online advertising platforms available, each offering their own specific advantages, determining which online advertising platform will work best for your small business can be challenging. Keep reading to discover several advantages of LinkedIn advertising for your small business!
Table of Contents
- 1. Reach a More Professional Audience on LinkedIn
- 2. Target Specific Market Segments Using LinkedIn
- 3. Optimize the Benefits of Specific LinkedIn Advertising Tools
- 4. Directly Message Your Target Audience on LinkedIn
- 5. Customize Your LinkedIn Campaign Budget
- Realistic Cautions for LinkedIn Advertising
- How to Track and Analyze LinkedIn Campaign Success or Failure
- LinkedIn Ad Creation Resources
- Contact Our Online Advertising Experts
1. Reach a More Professional Audience on LinkedIn
One of the main differences between LinkedIn and other online advertising platforms is the audience. Research indicates that users on the LinkedIn platform received higher levels of education, have higher incomes, and are more interested in professional networking than on other social media platforms. For businesses with a target audience of educated professionals or business owners and managers, using LinkedIn enables you to establish and foster new business relationships.
2. Target Specific Market Segments Using LinkedIn
One factor that makes an online marketing plan effective is ensuring your advertising reaches your most desirable audience. The targeting opportunities and customization available on LinkedIn is incredible thanks to the amount of data that LinkedIn users submit when creating their optimized LinkedIn profiles. Literally, every detail a user submits, group it joins, etc. populates details to LinkedIn's ad network. As a result, this allows advertisers to make hyper-targeted and relevant ads based on factors such as:
- Job title
- Job function
- Industry
- Skills
- Employer name and size
- Location
- Degree type
- Member groups
- Interests
- Traits
3. Optimize the Benefits of Specific LinkedIn Advertising Tools
Like other online advertising platforms, LinkedIn has developed several features and ad types that you can leverage to increase clicks, exposure, and conversions. However, LinkedIn also offers more unique advertising tools. Some of the specific tools and ad types you have access to on the platform include:
- Sponsored Content
- Sponsored Messaging
- Text and Dynamic Ads
- Lead Gen Forms
The above ad types feature different layouts including single image ads, video ads, carousel ads, event ads, and more!
4. Directly Message Your Target Audience on LinkedIn
Most online advertising platforms focus solely on raising awareness and generating leads once a user clicks your ad. LinkedIn has a unique proposition in that you can directly message members of your target audience with their Sponsored messaging. This allows you to immediately get direct access to your leads’ inbox via conversation and message ad formats.
5. Customize Your LinkedIn Campaign Budget
Another benefit of LinkedIn advertising is that LinkedIn can be very cost-effective when configured properly and is a result-based advertising solution. You can continuously customize your ad budget depending on your campaign’s performance and desired conversions. Don't forget to track your conversions to ultimately measure campaign success and make adjustments as needed.
Realistic Cautions for LinkedIn Advertising
One caution we give with LinkedIn advertising is to watch your return on investment and return on ad spend. At face value, LinkedIn is typically more expensive per click than other platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and typically Google Ads. However, none of the other platforms give the same level of job function and company-oriented targeting options. As such, make sure your conversions are well worth the ad spend. If you are selling high-end products or recurring services, LinkedIn might be a great fit.
How to Track and Analyze LinkedIn Campaign Success or Failure
Since LinkedIn is both powerful and expensive, this makes it even more imperative to have a proper conversion tracking system in place. Yes, LinkedIn does offer some conversion tracking features built-in, but they don't compare the data against your other marketing channels. To make life easier, we recommend implementing a holistic marketing conversion tracking software like WhatConverts. With WhatConverts, you can track phone calls, form submissions, website chats, etc. and automatically associate each conversion with a specific marketing channel.
This level of conversion tracking will allow you to see exactly what leads came in through your LinkedIn campaigns and how they compare against the conversions you are receiving from other channels like Google Ads, SEO, etc.
You can try WhatConverts for free by visiting their website.
LinkedIn Ad Creation Resources
If you are looking to run your first LinkedIn campaign, you need to make sure you get your ad content just right. The following tools can help you take your ad content to the next level:
- Adobe Express – Creating visual content to engage your target audience on LinkedIn is essential. We recommend using Adobe Express to design your visuals with their easy-to-use interface that does not even require you to be a graphic designer! Additionally, Adobe Express includes pre-configured format and size settings for LinkedIn Post and Ad layouts. Adobe Express is a free product with some upgrade options for premium templates.
- Adobe Stock – If you are looking for some photos or illustrations to bolster your ad content, check out the huge stock photography library on Adobe Stock. Get 10 professional photos for free with their 30-day free trial.
- Grammarly – Visuals are important, but so is your message! Make sure that your message is professional and free from errors by using a great grammar, spelling, and writing style tool like Grammarly. Get started with Grammarly today.
Contact Our Online Advertising Experts
At Igniting Business, we strive to help you reach your small business online marketing goals. For more information about LinkedIn advertising, or to learn more about our online advertising services, contact our team today!
At no additional cost to you, we may receive a commission if you click on some of the links on this website and make a purchase.
About the author
Ben Seidel is the CEO and Founder of Igniting Business. Ben has been serving hundreds of small businesses with web design and SEO services for over 15 years and covering digital marketing related topics since 2012.
Over the years, Ben has been recognized on a local and national level, including entrepreneurship awards from both the NFIB and NASE and being featured in publications such as CNBC Universal, Yahoo News, Intuit Small Business, CIO.com, Mizzou Magazine, and Fox Business.