Set Sail for Adventure: When to Use LinkedIn Ads

Increased traffic, brand awareness, qualified job candidates, marketing qualified leads… who wouldn’t want all of these things? What treasure chest do you need to plunder to find them? There’s no ragged, inscrutable treasure map to follow, you just need to set your sights on LinkedIn ads. 

Here’s how LinkedIn ads can help you uncover the good stuff with no plundering or piracy required.

Fly the Flag 

You can’t spread the word about your services by hiding in a harbor. Our client, a managed service provider, wanted to raise awareness of their services with local audiences in Seattle. We created a LinkedIn ad campaign that drove traffic to watch video ads. When their ads are running, the company sees increased website engagement, gains new followers, increases inbound leads and even gains traction in organic search traffic. From one ad, they tracked three conversions all the way from impression to MQL

In fact, one prospect reached out by phone and said, “I was crossing the Seattle Sound on the ferry and your LinkedIn ad prompted me to reach out for a quote.” This provided us a pretty clear-cut attribution of a contact to conversion path.

Most important, keep in mind that meaty, educational creative makes good bait: The ad this client runs offers business owners and leaders tips on responding to a ransomware attack. Another video ad aims to help people ask the right questions when selecting an IT service provider. Note the use of video was one key to success: According to an Aberdeen Group study, “video is hard to beat when it comes to giving buyers a good first impression of a brand. If you want people to know what your brand is all about; show them.”

Another benefit of LinkedIn ads is how easy they are to integrate with HubSpot. Choose a goal for your campaign–like “drive traffic,” “watch a video,” or “drive awareness”–and you can see ad results right in your HubSpot dashboard. 

If you need to raise awareness for your company, make LinkedIn a port of call. 

Cast a Wide Net 

If your company wants to lure new customers or clients from farther afield, you can look to LinkedIn ads, too. A new IT services client recently found and contracted with us at BigOrange Marketing thanks to a LinkedIn ad campaign targeting people by job title, size of company and service offerings. As a firm that serves MSP/IT services clients across the country, we designed a LinkedIn ad campaign to reach potential clients in every major city in the U.S. where we do not already have an IT services customer. This new customer explained that a LinkedIn video ad about this MSP Inbound Marketing case study was how he learned more about our services. 

An agency can help you navigate the details of LinkedIn ads to target the right demographics, location, job titles and more. And you can course-correct as the ad starts to yield results, tweaking it to bring more of the loot you’re searching for.    

Follow the Dotted Lines

Maybe you’ve been on this hunt long enough to know exactly where the “riches” are for your company. LinkedIn ads allow you to connect directly with pinpointed targets. For instance, one of our clients, an Ohio-based manufacturer, wanted to get in front of medical device manufacturers in the Midwest. We worked together to compile a shortlist of desirable targets. With a LinkedIn ad campaign, we could choose to put a promotional video right in the feed of people who work for those targeted companies, raising their awareness of AMS’s capabilities.

If account-based marketing is on your to-do list, take a look at LinkedIn ads. 

All Aboard

There’s no need to conscript unwilling recruits: When hiring, you can put your organization’s best foot forward through LinkedIn ads. Obviously, LinkedIn is the prime fishing hole for job seekers and employers. Make sure your organization is ship-shape before you put up those job listings. Have you updated your personal page on LinkedIn? Urge your current employees to do the same. All of you should be following your company page on LinkedIn, which should also be up to date. If you don’t have a company page, now’s a good time to create one and ask staff to follow it. 

Have you and your coworkers shared anything new lately on LinkedIn? Post a recent blog, comment on some industry news, announce a recent hire: You want your organization to appear engaged and active before you go searching for a new captain or crew. 

Again, when your LinkedIn job listing is integrated with HubSpot, it’s easy to track applicants and your interactions with them. 

Divvying Up the Treasure 

You shouldn’t have to invest bags of gold doubloons on LinkedIn, but you don’t want to be penny-wise and pound foolish either. Make sure you spend enough to make an impact and remember the cost of your service and what a great lead is worth to you. The cost per lead on LinkedIn tends to be much higher than other platforms, but considering that it could bring you a well-paying client, a perfect-fit new staffer or that dream account, it could be worth investing some jewels. 

No Pits of Despair

Of course, treasure maps can sometimes lead you to places you’d rather avoid (Dagger Point or Shark Cove anyone?). Likewise, there are some reasons not to use LinkedIn ads. You might try paid ads on another social platform if you’re: 

• Selling consumer goods like sailor hats, toy boats or tuna fish.
• Looking for job candidates among people who might not use LinkedIn.
• Hoping to advertise on social media but have a very small budget.

Smooth Sailing

HubSpot lists “generating traffic and leads” as the top marketing challenge in its 2020 report. Clearly, traffic and leads are the bounty we all seek. To make the most of your offers and marketing campaigns for LinkedIn, schedule a free consultation with BigOrange Marketing or get more ideas in our eBook “21 Ways to Drive Sustainable Lead Generation in 2021.”