Different Types of LinkedIn Ads – and why they matter

Today we’re here for a simple reason: to hand out to you, dear reader, a rapid-fire rundown on the different formats of LinkedIn advertising. This one will cover the types of ads available and how to use them. Let’s get to it.

LinkedIn Ads: What’s available

LinkedIn Marketing has three main variations of ad inventory you can use to reach its user base of over six hundred million. Here they are.

• Sponsored content: Native advertisements that live inside the LinkedIn news feed, showing up in between normal posts. They’re somewhat like Facebook’s promoted posts and are a staple for LinkedIn advertising campaigns.
• Sponsored InMail: These ones appear as a personal message in your targeted audience’s LinkedIn inbox. The unique draw with sponsored InMail is that it only hits active users, meaning you won’t ever hit an abandoned inbox. This form of sponsored content features in-built split testing and a guarantee your message will be visible on any device once your InMail is opened.
• Text ads: Visually similar to Google’s paid search ads, LinkedIn text ads show either inline on a LinkedIn page or on the side rail. These are easy to make and offer the handy guarantee that you’ll achieve a prominent ad placement that is generally above the fold. As with the other types of sponsored content, you can target these to specific audiences you define.

How to get the most out of your LinkedIn Ads

So, you’ve got three formats to choose from. Here are a few tips on how to get the best results and return on your investment.

Retarget your site visitors: Using what is called an ‘Insight Tag’ on LinkedIn, you can retarget visitors to your website with ads on the LinkedIn news feed. This is a great way to hit an already interested audience with relevant content. LinkedIn has a handy FAQ on the Insight Tag right here.

Consider the customer journey: You probably know about the marketing funnel by now (read our article about the B2B marketing funnel for more info). Think about what stage of awareness and interest your sponsored content should be hitting; whitepapers and educational content are great for the top of the funnel, while retargeting your website visitors with specific offers (using the LinkedIn Insight Tag we mentioned earlier) is often best suited to the bottom of funnel, for instance.

Get your targeting options just right: It’s important to use audience targeting options to maximise your results. Options like job experience, gender and job title will help narrow you down to an appropriate audience but beware: if you go too far and overload your campaign, you’ll find it hard to zero in on what works and what doesn’t.

Reference other platforms: Research and reference points matter, and other platforms can help you with your LinkedIn Ads strategy. If you’re running a Google Ads campaign, or know someone who is, look at the best performing stuff going on over there. What works, and what doesn’t? Can you take any of that insight over to your LinkedIn Ads campaign?

Want to know more about LinkedIn Ads?

We kept this one quick and we hope you’ve found it handy! Stay true to the points we’ve described above, and you’ll be well on your way to a successful run of campaigns using LinkedIn Ads. If you’ve got any other questions you’re burning to know answers to, we’re right here to talk – come drop us a line.