LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 810 million members worldwide. With such a massive user base, it’s no surprise that many businesses and marketers want to advertise on LinkedIn to reach their target B2B audiences. But are you actually allowed to run ads on LinkedIn? What are LinkedIn’s advertising policies and guidelines?
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about advertising on LinkedIn, including:
- Can you advertise on LinkedIn?
- Types of LinkedIn ads
- LinkedIn advertising guidelines
- How to create LinkedIn ads
- LinkedIn advertising costs
- Targeting options for LinkedIn ads
- LinkedIn advertising benchmarks and best practices
- Pros and cons of advertising on LinkedIn
Let’s dive in…
Can You Advertise on LinkedIn?
Yes, LinkedIn does allow advertising on their platform. Advertisers can create highly targeted Sponsored Content, Sponsored InMail, and Text Ads through LinkedIn’s self-service advertising platform. You don’t need any special permissions to run ads on LinkedIn.
As long as your ads comply with LinkedIn’s policies and guidelines, any business or marketer can set up LinkedIn ad campaigns to reach their target audiences. LinkedIn provides robust targeting options to drill down to specific job titles, companies, interest/groups, and more.
Sponsored Content, Sponsored InMail, and Text Ads are the main ad formats available. There’s no option for traditional display banner ads on LinkedIn. All ads are native to the user experience.
Types of LinkedIn Ads
LinkedIn offers the following primary ad formats:
Sponsored Content
Sponsored Content places native ads in LinkedIn members’ feeds that look and feel just like regular non-promoted posts. You can use text, images, and video. Sponsored Content allows 6 lines of text plus an image or video. This mimics the format of organic content shared by members in the LinkedIn feed.
Sponsored InMail
Sponsored InMail allows you to send customized emails to targeted members that hit their LinkedIn inbox as native messages. You can write subject lines and message content to promote your offering. Sponsored InMail messages must comply with LinkedIn policies around promotional messaging. Open and click-through rates tend to be much higher than traditional email marketing.
Text Ads
Text Ads shows targeted text ads on the right rail of LinkedIn pages. These are designed to amplify your Sponsored Content and Sponsored InMail campaigns with simple text-only ads. You can showcase headlines, brief descriptions, and a clear call-to-action. Text ads are limited to 95 characters.
LinkedIn Advertising Guidelines
LinkedIn offers detailed policies and guidelines for all advertisers on their platform:
- Ads must comply with LinkedIn’s Professional Community Policies
- No misleading, false, or unsubstantiated claims
- Use proper ad transparency, identification, and disclaimers
- No adult content or services
- No offensive, profane, or derogatory content
- No promotion of illegal, regulated, or recreational drugs or drug paraphernalia
- No promotion of illegal activity of any kind
- No overtly sexual content
- No promotion of multi-level marketing (MLM) opportunities
- No ads for cryptocurrencies or related products/services
- Targeting limitations prohibit targeting based on healthcare conditions, religion, ethnicity, or political beliefs
It’s crucial to read LinkedIn’s full advertising policies before running any ads. Policy violations can lead to account suspension or blacklisting.
Some key highlights:
– Ads must be relevant and provide value to LinkedIn’s professional audience. Irrelevant or disruptive ads will be disapproved.
– Claims in ads must be accurate and supported. Superlatives and exaggerations may require substantiation.
– Proper ad identification and disclaimers are required. You must clearly identify yourself as the advertiser.
– Targeting limitations prohibit targeting sensitive segments based on health, religion, ethnicity, or political affiliations.
How to Create LinkedIn Ads
Creating and managing LinkedIn ads requires using LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager platform. This is accessed through LinkedIn.com or directly via the Campaign Manager login page.
Here’s an overview of the step-by-step process to create LinkedIn ad campaigns:
1. Choose Your Campaign Objective
LinkedIn Campaign Manager allows you to choose an objective to match your goals:
– Website visits (drive traffic to your site)
– Lead generation
– Video views
– Follower growth
– Company awareness
– Job applicants
– Contact acquisition
Your objective will inform how you optimize the campaign.
2. Set Your Budget and Duration
Choose your overall budget and campaign schedule. You can schedule campaigns on a daily budget or use a lifetime budget over longer durations. Budget minimums and durations depend on the ad format.
Evaluate historical LinkedIn ad pricing estimates to set an appropriate budget.
3. Target Your Audience
Use LinkedIn’s detailed targeting tools to narrow down your audience:
– Location
– Company size, name, industry
– Job title, function
– Age, gender
– Interests/groups
– Skills, experience
– Engagement targeting
Refine based on previous ads and website visitors. Leverage website analytics and LinkedIn’s Matched Audiences to identify who engages.
4. Design Your Ad Creative
Craft your ad copy, images, videos, and calls-to-action tailored to your audience and campaign goals. Follow LinkedIn’s ad specifications and best practices.
5. Place Your Ad Order
Place your ad order and submit for review. LinkedIn reviews all ads before they can run to ensure policy compliance.
6. Monitor and Optimize Your Campaigns
Use LinkedIn’s campaign analytics to monitor ad performance. Track clicks, conversions, engagement, and other KPIs. Use insights to refine targeting, bids, and creative. Continuously improve campaign performance.
LinkedIn Advertising Costs
How much does advertising on LinkedIn cost? LinkedIn pricing is based on an auction, similar to other major ad platforms. You set a daily or lifetime budget and max cost-per-click bid. Within your budgets, LinkedIn displays your ads to audiences that help maximize your goals, charging you only when people click your ad.
The average cost-per-click for LinkedIn ads is around $2-5 for most advertisers. Average CPCs can vary significantly based on your targeting, bid, and quality score. Competitive bids for high-value professional audiences can drive CPCs upwards of $10+. Key factors impacting costs include:
- Competition – bids for your target segments
- Targeting – targeting narrower audiences costs more
- Engagement – higher quality scores mean lower costs
- Landing pages – strong relevancy to ads drives lower costs over time
Sponsored InMail pricing starts at around $250 per 1,000 sends. Volume discounts are available.
Compare costs to your potential customer lifetime value when setting budgets. With strong targeting, LinkedIn delivers high-converting traffic that may justify higher CPCs.
Targeting Options for LinkedIn Ads
LinkedIn enables precise targeting to engage your ideal B2B prospects and existing customers:
Job Title Targeting
Target by precise job title based on members’ profile data: CEO, Director, Manager, Analyst, etc. Target multiple job titles.
Company Targeting
Target employees from specific companies you want to reach. Target based on company name, industry, size, location, etc.
Interest Targeting
Reach audiences based on LinkedIn members’ stated interests and group memberships, such as IT interests, professional skills, industry associations, etc.
Educational Targeting
Target LinkedIn members based on their listed education including degrees, fields of study, schools, etc.
Behavioral Targeting
Remarket to people who have already visited your website or engaged with your LinkedIn presence. Build audiences based on your first-party data.
Matters Tagging
Tag Sponsored Content posts with specific topics to attract members interested in those subjects. Ex: Innovation, Leadership, Technology, etc.
Flexible Audience Creation
Combine precise targeting criteria using Boolean logic to build tailored audiences, such as Directors AND Healthcare Industry, etc. Save these audiences for future use.
LinkedIn Advertising Benchmarks and Best Practices
When executed effectively, LinkedIn ads can drive outstanding results. Here are some benchmarks and tips:
Top LinkedIn Ad Benchmarks
– Clickthrough rate (CTR) – 0.025% to 0.5% is average
– Cost-per-click (CPC) – Average is $5, can range from $1 – $10+
– Conversion rate (CVR) – Varies widely by vertical, but 0.5-2%+ is viable
– Cost-per-lead (CPL) – Usually targeted around $100 CPL
– Engagement rate – Up to 10-20x higher than Facebook/Instagram
LinkedIn Advertising Best Practices
– Leverage precise targeting features to limit ad waste
– Test conversion-focused Sponsored Content with lead gen forms
– Ensure strong ad relevance to highly targeted audiences
– Use Matched Audiences to target engaged visitors and contacts
– A/B test ad creative, offers and calls-to-action
– Monitor campaign analytics and optimize based on insights
– Develop display/sequencing strategies across LinkedIn ad formats
– Combine with content amplification for targeted thought leadership
Pros and Cons of Advertising on LinkedIn
Advantages of LinkedIn Advertising
- Reach huge professional audiences
- Precise B2B target segmentation
- Higher conversion rates than other platforms
- Dedicated inbox placement with Sponsored InMail
- Powerful audience matching and remarketing
- Amplify thought leadership and posts
Challenges with LinkedIn Advertising
- Smaller audiences than Facebook or Instagram
- High competition for some segments
- Limited ad formats compared to other platforms
- Frequency caps limit campaign scale
- High barrier with $50 daily minimum budget
Despite a few limitations, LinkedIn advertising can be tremendously effective when strategically leveraged. The platform enables B2B brands to drive pipelines by putting targeted, relevant ads in front of motivated professional audiences. When executed well, it delivers outstanding ROI and conversions.
Conclusion
Yes, LinkedIn does allow businesses and marketers to advertise on their platform. LinkedIn offers Sponsored Content, Sponsored InMail, and Text Ads to reach targeted B2B audiences based on professional demographics, interests, and behavior.
Advertisers must comply with LinkedIn’s guidelines, but any business can create LinkedIn ad campaigns to promote their products, content, events, and more. With precise audience targeting, LinkedIn advertising can drive high-converting traffic and leads. But costs require sufficient budget, and competition is rising for professional audiences.
Following LinkedIn’s policies, optimizing based on analytics, and continually refining targeting/creative are keys to success. For B2B brands that can navigate the platform effectively, LinkedIn ads represent a major opportunity to boost pipelines by engaging motivated professionals. The platform offers unrivaled scale and segmentation capabilities to reach decision-makers throughout the purchase process.