LinkedIn Ads are the go-to digital marketing channel for most B2B marketers, especially those making an educational sale with a cycle stretching anywhere from nine months to two years.
However, marketers can become frustrated with the platform because they do not see the expected ROI. Having managed hundreds of LinkedIn Ads campaigns totaling more than $1M in advertising spend, I’ve compiled a short LinkedIn ads playbook that addresses three areas where marketers go wrong.
Best practices to increase ROI using LinkedIn Ads
If you only have the time to do three things to improve your B2B LinkedIn Ads campaigns, here’s where our B2B healthcare marketing agency recommends you focus your efforts:
1. Identify where you’re sending your target audience and why.
Use your marketing goals to determine the best place to send your target audience. If your goal is to generate top-of-funnel leads, then you should use LinkedIn lead gen forms (LGFs)—full stop. We tested LinkedIn LGFs against traditional landing pages and found they increased leads by 1,250%! However, if your goal is to increase brand awareness and website traffic, driving individuals to your website with an ungated asset is ideal.
2. Spend time and resources planning the creative in your ad campaigns.
Your ad image creative shouldn’t be an afterthought. Whatever your marketing goals are, the creative has to catch the attention of your target audience as they’re scrolling through their feeds. The best way to do this is to test different images. You should consider A/B testing the following elements: stock photos vs. illustrations, branded vs. unbranded, and different colored backgrounds. Additionally, more than 57% of LinkedIn visitors use the app, so having creative sized for both desktop and mobile devices is a must. Plus, one survey found that more than 82% of users prefer dark mode, meaning you should also evaluate creative with a dark background, not just the default white one.
3. Be deliberate in targeting your audience.
Marketers are most often disappointed in the performance of their LinkedIn Ads because they receive leads from individuals that don’t fit their target audience profile.To reduce that likelihood, we suggest starting with an account-based marketing (ABM) approach in which you target specific organizations and companies or demographic targeting using job title/industry/company size. And whatever approach you start with, do not enable Audience Expansion or turn on the LinkedIn Audience Network … at least not until you’ve fine-tuned your targeting.
Use Our LinkedIn Ads playbook to level up your campaigns
Whether it’s lead generation, increasing website traffic, or building brand awareness, our LinkedIn Ads playbook and experienced team can deliver on your digital marketing goals. And we never just set it and forget it—we provide you with a monthly metrics report on the KPIs you care about and recommendations to optimize performance so that you can continue to show ROI to your leadership.
Contact one of the top 200 B2B demand generation agencies today!
