If your business has an online presence, chances are you’re already on LinkedIn. It’s a great platform for building a professional community, hiring top talent, and showcasing your industry leadership. However, if you haven’t explored the ads feature, you’re missing valuable advantages the platform has to offer.
In this article, we’ll cover the pros and cons to LinkedIn ads. Learn about the key considerations you should make when adopting LinkedIn ads as part of your B2B marketing strategy.
What Are the Pros to LinkedIn Ads?
When thinking about where to spend ad money, there’s a few key considerations that make LinkedIn stand out. Here are some of the most important benefits:
- Target a highly specific audience. Did you know LinkedIn has over 830 million users? Get specific and target by job title, company name, industry, and more to make the most of your budget. Because your audience likely updates their profiles very regularly, you can expect this data to be quite accurate.
- Insert tracking links. When you set up a LinkedIn ad campaign, you have the option to include a tracking link. This helps you collect detailed information about your campaign performance.
- Create a wide variety of ads. From display ads to video ads to Sponsored InMail, LinkedIn offers a host of options when it comes to ad format. This further helps you create the best possible ad for different niche audiences.
- Monitor your budget easily. Bid on a cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-mille (CPM) basis and pay as little as $10/day to run a campaign.
- Increase conversions. Many people think that LinkedIn ads are only good for awareness, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. On average, LinkedIn ads in the U.S. see a 6.1% conversion rate. That’s more than double the Google search rate of 2.58%!
Convinced? Before you launch your ads, it’s a good idea to audit your LinkedIn page and make improvements. To get started, check out the SmarkLabs blog on upgrading your LinkedIn company page.
What Are the Cons to LinkedIn Ads?
While LinkedIn ads are clearly a great tool in your B2B marketing toolbox, they also have their limitations. As you construct your marketing campaigns, don’t forget to consider the following:
- Cost per click. LinkedIn is generally comparable to other social media ad costs, but they do have the highest average cost per click ($5.26).
- No custom reporting. Unfortunately, you’ll receive a standardized dashboard for your campaign and a summary when it ends. However, you can extract more data from your campaign by setting it up with a tracking link, as mentioned above.
- Geographic limitations. While you can target countries or US states, LinkedIn does not allow you to target highly specific geographic areas (for example, certain zip codes).
It’s good to be aware of LinkedIn’s drawbacks, but overall, the pros highly outweigh the cons.
Conclusion
While they have a few limitations, LinkedIn ads are a powerful B2B tool. As always, don’t forget to pair your ad campaign with inbound to optimize your campaign performance – ads are just one piece of the puzzle.
Once you’ve mastered the art of LinkedIn ads, you can try other helpful B2B features. For instance, learn how to use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to reach more ideal prospects.
Need help getting started? Contact SmarkLabs.