Your AdWords campaign is kicking butt and your Facebook advertising is bringing in lots of new “likes” for your business page – awesome! But, have you thought about advertising on LinkedIn? With more than 467 million members in over 200 countries and territories, it’s not surprising that LinkedIn is the social network of choice for B2B marketers. Whether you are a marketing firm offering digital marketing services, a business owner, or a marketing manager, you need to pay attention to LinkedIn. Just check out these statistics:
- 79% of B2B marketers view LinkedIn as an effective source for generating B2B leads
- LinkedIn is considered the most effective social network in the sales cycle with 63% of marketers reporting positive results in that area
- Half of all users are likely to buy from a company they engage with on LinkedIn
- 45% of LinkedIn’s members are in upper management and the platform generates more leads for companies than Facebook, Twitter, or blogs
Image source: LinkedIn
Clearly there is a huge potential for reaching and engaging your audience on LinkedIn. Let’s dive deeper into how to optimize your ad dollars for LinkedIn by using account targeting.
What is Account Targeting?
LinkedIn Account Targeting lets you run effective account-based marketing campaigns on LinkedIn based off a priority list of accounts. Being able to target custom audiences is a powerful but fundamentally simple mode of digital marketing that utilizes the email addresses you’ve already gathered to source digital marketing campaigns. This functionality allows businesses to market products and generate opportunities to the right personas within the accounts that matter most to them.
How Does Account Targeting Work?
LinkedIn’s new account-targeting option will let businesses upload lists of companies they do business with or want to do business with, and LinkedIn will cross-reference those lists with its own list of more than eight million company pages and show ads to its users who work for those companies. In addition, you will also be able to upload lists of contacts that you don’t want to target, such as current customers. The suggested list size is 500 companies, with a maximum list size of 30,000 accounts. Oh, and don’t worry about competitors being able to see your lists because all the information is encrypted and secure.
Where to go to Get Started with Account Targeting
To get started, you will need to speak with a LinkedIn Account Representative. They can walk you through account-based marketing best practices, will help you prepare and upload your account list, and will run the audience match to give you an estimate of audience reach. You will then be able to use either Sponsored Updates, Linkedin’s native advertising product, or Sponsored InMail campaigns. Make sure that your ad includes an effective headline, compelling copy and a vibrant photo. A good rule of thumb it to run a couple variations of an ad (A/B testing) at the same time. Test which version performs the best and then optimize.
LinkedIn advertising offers a lot to marketers and business professionals looking to reach their target audience. Invest some quality time and money into your ads and you’ll have LinkedIn Ads working for your business in no time.