Why Use LinkedIn for B2B Ads?

LinkedIn’s B2B advertising platform is one of the top three in the industry. And is growing rapidly at three times faster than others in the category. 

More than 58 million companies have created communities on LinkedIn. With the ability to engage with decision-makers and increase your company’s leads, why wouldn’t you use LinkedIn for B2B advertising? 

Do you want to learn more about how to use LinkedIn for businesses? Keep reading to understand why you should be using LinkedIn for B2B. 

Why LinkedIn for B2B?

LinkedIn is a hot spot for marketing to other businesses. With more than 700 million users and almost 3 million groups, you have a vast amount of opportunities to reach your targeted audience. 

LinkedIn advertising has a variety of ad options so you can get your content in front of your intended audiences. Additionally, LinkedIn is the most trusted professional site. Why wouldn’t you want to advertise your product or service on it? 

You can create ads to increase engagement, website visits, or leads. There are several types of LinkedIn ads outlined below. 

Types of B2B LinkedIn Ads 

LinkedIn’s advertising platform has two options. You can do it yourself with the self-service platform. Or you can use LinkedIn’s partner directory to choose a marketing expert to handle your ad needs. 

To get started with the self-service option, you need to create a campaign account. Once you have the account, you can set up a new ad and determine the following: 

• The objective
• Your target audience
• The ad format
• Set your budget and bids
• Launch and monitor to optimize

Each of the above options has specific parameters you must set to maximize your results. Maybe you do not want to manage your ads yourself, or use a LinkedIn advertising partner? 

If you’d rather use a third-party service provider that specializes in B2B LinkedIn ads, that’s ok, too! Check out our services for LinkedIn campaigns. 

If you are going with a self-service option, or you want more information about the types of ads you can place, keep reading. 

Sponsored Content

Sponsored content appears in users’ feeds. You set the demographics for your audience and then LinkedIn places the ad in front of them. You have three options for a sponsored ad: 

• Single image ad
• Carousel image ad
• Video ads

This type of ad is great for building brand awareness. It can also help you to manage or initiate new relationships with your intended audience. 

Single Image Ads

Single image ads are ads with one image shown to everyone. The content stays the same across all feeds. You’ll need to have an engaging graphic or infographic for this type of ad. 

Carousel Image Ads

Carousel image ads allow you to tell your story with a series of images. You can customize each image to include its own ad copy and URL. This type of ad invites audiences to engage with your content. 

Video Ads

Video ads allow you to show your brand’s story through a video. It can be a narrative describing your company. Or you could share testimonials or customer success stories. 

Sponsored Messaging

Sponsored messaging, or InMail, is a form of communicating with your intended audience through messages. By sending a direct message, you can spark new conversations or start new relationships.

This type of ad also enables you to engage with decision-makers. Sponsored messages tend to have better results since you are in their inbox. This type of ad can increase engagement and calls to action. 

Lead Generation Forms

Lead generation form ads are pre-filled ads to increase your quality leads. These forms make it easy for your audience to sign-up. There are many ways to increase leads on LinkedIn and this is a top one. 

Text and Dynamic Ads 

Text ads are simple ads with text. You can pay-per-click or impression. These are easily customized and set up. 

Dynamic ads use LinkedIn profile data to create customized ads. These types of ads increase engagement. You can choose to create a follower, spotlight, or job ad. 

Follower Ads

Follower ads encourage the audience to follow your LinkedIn page. By creating a company page, you are giving your brand a platform and voice. Many companies use their LinkedIn pages to increase follower counts and engage with audiences. 

With a follower ad, you can increase your numbers. This means there are more people to get your content in front of. Why wouldn’t your company want to do this? 

Spotlight Ads

A spotlight ad is to create action with your intended audience. This could be getting them to download something. Or maybe you want them to register for a LinkedIn event. 

You can also drive traffic to your website with a spotlight ad. 

Job Ads

A job ad lets targeted audiences know a job opening is available. This will increase the number of relevant applicants you get for the opening. 

Display Ads 

Display ads can be placed in various locations across LinkedIn’s platform. Display ads show up for your targeted audience. This type of ad uses text, images, and a URL to create action for your audience. 

These ads show up in the following locations: 

• LinkedIn Today page
• Homepage
• Profile page
• At the bottom of some feeds
• At the right-hand side of pages
• Company page
• Group page
• Message page 

These ads are best for building awareness, generating leads, or increasing traffic. 

Why Use LinkedIn for Advertising?

There are many reasons a business should use B2B advertising on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the most trusted site for professionals. And it has millions of user and company profiles. 

Not advertising on LinkedIn can leave your company at a serious disadvantage. So many companies, including Fortune 500 companies, use LinkedIn as a way to connect and grow their businesses. 

People are already on LinkedIn to increase their knowledge or grow their business. Advertising on LinkedIn puts it in front of the people you need to be in front of. 

If you already have a solid amount of data for who you want to target, you can use it on LinkedIn. You can import your information and then create ads targeting it. 

Benefits of LinkedIn for Business

Many businesses reap the benefits of LinkedIn ads. But they can also benefit from knowing how to use their business profile. You can gain the following benefits from LinkedIn: 

• An audience for your company page
• Targeted ads
• Customized ads
• A variety of ad options
• Customized bids and budgets
• Setting yourself up as a thought leader
• Expanded network and increased opportunities
• Create a group and community 

A company’s success on LinkedIn varies based on how much effort is put in, and how well they advertise. To make the most of your advertising, you need to understand how to create compelling ads. 

Having a solid content strategy will increase engagement in ads and on your profile. Keep reading to understand more about each benefit. 

Develop an Audience on Your Company Page

You want your company page to inform and educate visitors about your brand. But you also want to entertain and attract them. By applying your brand guidelines and identity to your company page, you can grow your audience. 

Using media such as infographics, videos, or photos engages users. This is a great way to capture their attention and keep it! 

A few best practices for developing your company page are: 

1. Share short updates often
2. Share content from others
3. Track your links to understand the impact
4. Avoid links in every post
5. Research content suggestions provided by LinkedIn 
6. Use Hashtags
7. Respond to comments to increase engagement 

By applying these best practices, you can grow and engage your page. 

Share Short Updates Often

The digital world is all about immediate satisfaction. When someone is browsing through their LinkedIn feed, they don’t want to read a long article to understand what a post is about. 

They want to know before they dedicate the time to reading. Creating short and sweet headlines or taglines for your content is the best way to grab users’ attention. 

Add in a form of rich media, like a short video, and you’ve increased your potential for success. 

Share Content From Others

Your audience doesn’t want to just hear from you! Share relevant content from other creators and websites. You don’t want your feed to be only about your business. 

Potential customers will not like that. It doesn’t give the best image. 

Track Your Links to Understand the Impact

You can track your links to see how much traffic your LinkedIn ads or page generates. This is helpful when updating or creating new strategies. 

Avoid Links in Every Post

On the other hand, you don’t want to post too many links. It can get overwhelming to the reader to see link after link in their feed. It’s important to share content without going to another location sometimes. 

This type of content can do really well when used occasionally. 

Research Content Suggestions Provided by LinkedIn

LinkedIn has a tool to show you exactly the types of content that your audience likes. It can vary based on demographics, but overall it’s a great resource to have. 

Researching the suggestions can inspire future content or questions to engage your audience. 

Use Hashtags

This one is pretty common across all social platforms. Hashtags help users find the content they want quickly. And using them will help your content show up more often in searches. 

Strategically using hashtags can help you get new audience members. It can also let readers know what topics are covered in your post before reading it. 

Respond to Comments to Increase Engagement 

When creating posts or ads, write in a way that encourages people to comment. And then you should go and respond to those comments. This will boost your engagement significantly. 

Plus, who doesn’t want to hear back from their favorite brand? It will help to enhance your image. It also reminds visitors that your page is run by a person. 

It’s not just a source of selling. This helps visitors to connect and build relationships that lead to opportunities. If your page has countless comments, respond to the ones that will add value to the commenter and other readers browsing. 

Large Audience to Target

With hundreds of millions of users, your audience potential is massive. You can have an audience as narrow or broad as you’d like. When setting your ad up, you choose the following: 

• Location
• Interests
• Language
• Education
• Company
• Gender
• Age 
• Job title

You can choose only one of these or all of them. It is important to have at least one location and to set the language so you aren’t being placed in front of people who can’t understand it. 

You can also provide your audience information from your website. This helps LinkedIn’s advertising platform to understand and decipher who you want to target. 

There are also automation tools available to increase your leads by targeting segments. 

Choose From a Variety of Ad Options

You have a variety of options when creating an ad. Do you want to set up an ad to increase website traffic? Or maybe you want people to download your informative e-book? 

Either way, there is an ad option for you. You can choose from four objectives: 

1. Engagement
2. Lead generation
3. Website visits
4. Video views

Engagement encourages your intended audience to interact with the post. This option often increases follower counts. 

Lead generation increases leads. This can be done through a variety of methods, including forms, newsletter sign-ups, or registration to an event. 

You can choose to increase your website, sending the user to a specific page on your website. This is great if you are promoting a specific product or service. Or if you have a really great landing page to convert traffic. 

If you have an engaging video telling your brand story, you can increase the views on it with an ad. 

Customized Bids and Budgets

You get to choose how long your ad runs, how much you spend, and what you pay for. You can choose to pay-per-click or per-impression. LinkedIn also offers an automated option where the platform chooses the best option based on the ad’s performance. 

Once you have determined a budget, you can set it for the life of the ad or cap it at a certain amount each day. You also get to decide if there is an end date or if the ad will run until you turn it off. 

Having so much customization ability allows you to truly create ads based on the needs of your company. Does your company have a limited budget? That’s ok! 

Your company sets the guidelines, and you can create the ads that meet them. It enables you to have complete control over your LinkedIn advertising. 

Increase Leads 

With the right data and a strategic marketing plan, you can increase your leads exponentially through LinkedIn advertising. Before creating an ad, you should: 

1. Know your buyer persona
2. Define a content strategy
3. Understand paid advertising

By placing yourself in the shoes of your buyer, you begin to understand exactly what they want. You learn where they hang out and what they search. All this information is vital to correctly targeting audiences. 

Know Your Buyer Persona

Understanding your target audience is a must. With LinkedIn ads, you get to determine the following guidelines for ads: 

• Interests
• Age
• Location
• Job and company
• Gender

Having a specific buyer persona will help you to target your ads better. This will increase leads! 

Define a Content Strategy

A strong content strategy gets your content in front of as many people as possible. And it gives them quality content that they learn from or enjoy reading. 

Some types of content: 

• Blog posts
• Articles
• E-books
• White papers
• Case studies
• Tutorials
• Infographics
• How-tos
• Job openings

Your strategy should shift depending on the ad goal and objective. 

Understand Paid Advertising

LinkedIn ads can’t benefit your company if you don’t understand the basics of paid advertising. If B2B marketing or paid advertising is new to your company, it may be best to get help from an expert in the field. 

Build Brand Awareness with Company Pages

Being active on your company page allows you to build brand awareness. LinkedIn shows others when people engage or comment on a post. Posting regularly with engaging content can increase your reach organically. 

When building awareness, most B2B marketers focus on: 

• Increasing followers
• Engagement
• Growing reach

When utilizing LinkedIn ads, it’s important to remember many users will visit your page and profile to get a better feel for you who are, and to understand more about your company. 

Having an active page with relevant content helps to build your reputation. It also enables decision-makers to gather the information they want and need to make the best decisions for their companies. 

Establish Yourself as a Thought Leader

LinkedIn offers professionals several ways to establish themselves in their industry. They can share content or write blog posts directly on the LinkedIn site. They also have the ability to interact with industry professionals to share their knowledge and expertise. 

Each of these interactions is a step toward becoming a trusted advisor and thought leader in your industry. A thought leader influences and inspires others. 

A thought leader doesn’t just speak about their business. They share information related to their areas of expertise. They advise others on how to succeed. 

By being present and active on LinkedIn, you can grow your reputation. Thought leaders are continuously learning and listening to others. 

Expand Your Network + Increase Opportunities

For company leaders, marketers, and executives, it’s important to actively expand your network. LinkedIn is all about networking. And you can use that to your advantage. 

By expanding your network, you are increasing your opportunities. For example, say you comment on a connection’s post and share knowledge for that specific topic. Their followers are more likely to see that comment, leading to more connections for you. 

More connections lead to more opportunities! Don’t miss out on this great marketing capability on LinkedIn. Use it to your advantage! 

You Can Create a Group and Build Community

Once you have a company page on LinkedIn, you can create a group associated with it. This is a great way to build a community around your brand, and to deepen and nurture relationships through one-on-one interactions. 

You can increase engagement and share your content in a more intimate setting. There are even ads you can create to promote your group to increase the number of members. 

When you run a group for your brand, you build your reputation as a thought leader and industry expert. You also gain access to messaging members directly, much like you would with an InMail campaign. 

That capability is invaluable. A group will benefit your company greatly and ads can help you grow it. 

Get Started Today With Business Advertising on LinkedIn 

If your organization is ready to scale with LinkedIn, we are ready to help! At Thumbstop Media, we have vast experience in helping companies just like yours. 

We’ve helped thousands of companies to establish and grow their brand on LinkedIn. With our program, LinkedIn Ads On-Demand, we help you create marketing campaigns that convert. 

We research your industry. Then we create the ad and set up your campaign. We continuously review reports to ensure your campaign stays optimized for maximum results. 

If your company is ready to leverage LinkedIn for B2B, reach out to us today for a free audit and consultation.