LinkedIn is one of the world’s largest professional social networking platforms, with over 740 million members worldwide as of September 2022. As a social media platform, LinkedIn allows businesses to run ads and sponsored content to reach its vast audience. However, there have been growing concerns around the transparency and targeting of ads on LinkedIn. In this article, we’ll examine LinkedIn’s ad policies, targeting options, and overall transparency compared to other social platforms.
What types of ads can businesses run on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn offers several ad formats for businesses to promote their products, services, content, and more. These include:
- Sponsored content – Native ads that match the look and feel of regular LinkedIn posts.
- Sponsored InMail – Direct messages sent to LinkedIn members via their inbox.
- Text ads – Display ads with short headline, text, and call-to-action button.
- Dynamic ads – Customizable ads with dynamically generated content.
- Conversation ads – Visual display ads prompting users to click to ‘Join the conversation’.
Businesses can run ads across LinkedIn on desktop, mobile and tablet devices. Ads appear in the LinkedIn feed, groups, messages inbox, and other placements. With a self-service ad platform, businesses have control over targeting, creatives, budgets and other parameters.
What targeting options are available?
LinkedIn provides detailed targeting capabilities to reach specific audiences based on professional interests, job roles, skills, company details, and more. Key targeting options include:
- Job title – Target by job title such as Marketing Manager, Software Engineer, Executive Assistant.
- Job function – Target by roles like Engineering, IT, Sales, etc.
- Job seniority – Target entry-level, manager, director, CXO level members.
- Company – Target employees at specific companies.
- Industry – Target members by their industry such as tech, finance, healthcare.
- Skills – Target members with specific skills listed on their profile.
- Interests – Target based on LinkedIn members’ listed interests.
- Groups – Target members who are part of relevant LinkedIn groups.
- Demographics – Target by age, gender, location, education level and more.
In addition, LinkedIn offers lead generation forms and Matched Audiences to further refine targeting. Lead gen forms allow collecting lead information from people who click ads. Matched Audiences lets advertisers target existing customers by uploading email lists or contacts to find audience matches on LinkedIn.
Does LinkedIn offer transparency around ad targeting and delivery?
LinkedIn provides advertisers with transparency into ad targeting, delivery, and performance. When setting up a LinkedIn ad campaign, you can see all the available targeting options and estimates for how many members fall into each segment. LinkedIn’s self-service ads platform shows real-time statistics on campaign reach, engagement, clicks, conversions, and more.
On member ad transparency, LinkedIn does show members “Why am I seeing this ad?” notices on ads in their feed. By clicking the notice, members can see some details on why they were targeted such as job title or company. However, LinkedIn does not provide full transparency into all the targeting parameters used to serve an ad, similar to other social platforms like Facebook.
Pros of LinkedIn ad targeting transparency
- Self-serve ad platform shows available targeting options and audience size estimates.
- Real-time ad campaign analytics and reports.
- “Why am I seeing this ad?” notices provide some visibility to members on targeting.
- Businesses have control and insight into how their ads are targeted.
Cons of LinkedIn ad targeting transparency
- Does not show full scope of targeting parameters used for an ad.
- Members can’t see the specific interest, job role or other tags used to target them.
- No visibility into lookalike targeting or third-party data usage.
- Limited transparency compared to search ads or some social media platforms.
How does LinkedIn ad transparency compare to other social platforms?
Here is how LinkedIn’s ad transparency and targeting capabilities compare to other major social platforms:
- Detailed targeting by interests, behaviors, demographics.
- Offers some transparency through “Why am I seeing this ad?” option.
- Shows percentage of targeting parameters used.
- Provides downloadable “Ad Preferences” based on profile.
- Limited transparency into specific targeting parameters.
- “Why am I seeing this ad?” shows some general targeting reasons.
- Ad preferences page shows inferred interests to opt out of.
- Less granular targeting options compared to other platforms.
- Very transparent – shows all targeting parameters on ads.
- Users can see full scope of targeting through Ad Settings.
- Detailed audience insights and reporting for advertisers.
- Offers robust yet simple targeting capabilities.
Snapchat
- Minimal transparency into specific ad targeting reasons.
- No self-service ad platform – ads managed through Snapchat reps.
- Limited targeting mostly based on device/location data.
- Offer broad age, gender, geographic targeting.
Overall, LinkedIn provides moderate transparency into ad targeting compared to platforms like Facebook and Twitter. But it lacks the full transparency of search platforms like Google that show all targeting parameters. LinkedIn does enable precise targeting for reaching professional audiences but could improve member-facing transparency.
Does LinkedIn allow targeting based on sensitive attributes?
LinkedIn does not allow advertisers to directly target members based on sensitive attributes like race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or political beliefs. However, some potentially sensitive targeting is possible based on interests, employers, job titles and groups that could have high affinity with certain attributes. For example:
- Targeting members who work at religious organizations
- Targeting members interested in political issues
- Targeting members who joined LGBTQ professional groups
While not directly based on sensitive attributes, this type of targeting could raise ethical concerns in some instances. LinkedIn does prohibit discriminatory ads or targeting that promotes illegitimate interests based on their Advertising Policies.
What steps has LinkedIn taken to address ad transparency concerns?
In response to feedback around ad transparency, LinkedIn has taken some steps including:
- Introducing the “Why am I seeing this ad?” notices to provide visibility into targeting reasons.
- Advertising Policies prohibit discriminatory ads and mandate transparency.
- Self-service platform lets businesses have control over ad targeting settings.
- Offering analytics and dashboards to track ad performance and spending.
- Investing in more personalized, relevant advertising to members.
However, critics argue LinkedIn should provide full visibility to members on all parameters used to target ads similar to search engines like Google. This could help avoid concerns around exploitation of data or inappropriate targeting.
Does LinkedIn use member data and activity for ad targeting?
Yes, LinkedIn does use member data and platform activity for ad targeting in the following ways:
- Employment details – Company, job title, industry used for targeting.
- Profile information – Location, education, skills, interests used for targeting.
- Content engagement – Likes, follows, shares, and clicks used to infer interests.
- Groups joined – Target members who joined relevant industry or interest groups.
- Searches – Keywords entered in Linked Search used for targeting.
- 3rd party data – Partners with data providers like Oracle, Acxiom for targeted advertising.
This data enables precise targeting but has raised privacy concerns without full transparency. Members have limited visibility into how all this data gets used for ads targeting.
Does LinkedIn read messages for ad targeting?
LinkedIn states that it does not use private messages and conversations between members for ad targeting. However, LinkedIn does use the demographic and professional information members provide in their profile for targeted advertising. Here are LinkedIn’s official policies on using member data and messages for ads:
- Messages and conversations are not used to inform ads targeting.
- Public profile data like job title and industry are used for targeting.
- Personally identifiable data is not shared with advertisers directly.
- Aggregated metrics like engagement and clicks may inform ads.
- Users can limit data use and opt out of personalized ads.
LinkedIn faces the same types of data usage concerns around ad targeting as other social networks. While they claim not to use private messages, the lack of full transparency leaves some questions around how specific member data gets leveraged for ads.
How can LinkedIn members manage ad privacy settings?
LinkedIn members have some options to control privacy settings related to advertising, including:
- Ad targeting preferences – Opt out of personalized ads and data used for targeting under account Privacy & Settings.
- Visitor ad tracking – Manage visitor profile data used for targeting under Privacy & Settings.
- Hide ads – Select “Hide Ads” on any LinkedIn ad unit to hide that specific ad.
- Why am I seeing this ad? – Provides info on why you’re seeing ad and option to hide the ad.
- Block advertisers – Option to block a specific business from advertising to you.
- Account data – Review and limit profile and activity data LinkedIn uses under Privacy & Settings.
However, unlike other platforms, LinkedIn does not offer any tool to directly view, edit or delete interests that may be used for ad targeting based on profile activity and engagement.
Conclusion
In summary, LinkedIn provides robust targeting capabilities but only moderate transparency compared to some other platforms. While businesses get strong insights into audience targeting, members have limited visibility into the specific parameters used for ad targeting. LinkedIn does allow members some control over data usage and offers options to opt out of personalized ads. However, concerns remain around the lack of full transparency into targeting and data practices for advertising. Moving forward, LinkedIn could follow the lead of search platforms in providing users more transparency and control around ads to build further trust.