LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional networking platform with over 722 million users worldwide. With its vast database of profiles and company pages, LinkedIn provides marketers and businesses an effective way to target their ideal customers.
While LinkedIn advertising allows you to target your ads by various demographics and interests, one of the most powerful targeting options is by specific company accounts. Targeting by accounts enables you to reach key decision makers and contacts at your dream companies.
This guide will explain the main ways to target specific accounts when advertising on LinkedIn. We’ll cover how to:
- Use LinkedIn’s account targeting options for Sponsored Content and Sponsored InMail.
- Create targeted lead generation campaigns.
- Use website demographics to identify accounts.
- Engage accounts through LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
Whether you want to boost brand awareness with your key accounts or generate leads, LinkedIn provides the targeting precision needed to accomplish your goals. Let’s start exploring the different options.
Use LinkedIn’s Account Targeting Options
LinkedIn offers two main advertising formats that allow for account targeting: Sponsored Content and Sponsored InMail.
Sponsored Content
Sponsored Content are the branded feed posts you see in LinkedIn’s desktop and mobile apps. This popular ad type allows you to display content to your target accounts.
When creating a Sponsored Content campaign in LinkedIn’s Ads Manager, select “Accounts” under Audience Targeting. You can then choose from the following options:
- Target by Specific Accounts – Upload a .csv list of company page names or IDs you want to target. This precise targeting ensures your content reaches the decision makers at your priority accounts.
- Target Similar Accounts – Enter a company and LinkedIn will find accounts that are similar to that company to target. The similarity is based on factors like industry, company size, and location.
Sponsored Content is ideal for raising brand awareness and affinity with your key accounts. For example, you can promote ebooks, whitepapers, and other thought leadership content.
Sponsored InMail
Sponsored InMail are LinkedIn messaging ads that appear in a member’s inbox, allowing for highly personalized outreach at scale.
To target by account, first choose “Accounts” under Audience Targeting when building your campaign in Ads Manager. You can then select from these options:
- Target by Specific Accounts – Upload a list of accounts and target by company page name or ID.
- Target Similar Accounts – Enter an account to find similar companies to target based on LinkedIn’s proprietary data.
- Target Company Followers – Reach followers of specific company pages. For example, target followers of your own company page.
Sponsored InMail facilitate one-to-one relationship building. You can send personalized messages and content like free trials, demos, and product samples to your dream accounts.
Create Targeted Lead Generation Campaigns
LinkedIn’s Lead Generation ad format lets you collect leads directly from LinkedIn members through customizable lead forms.
While Lead Gen ads don’t offer specific account targeting, you can target by criteria commonly associated with your ideal accounts such as:
- Company Size
- Industry
- Job Title and Seniority
- Groups and Interests
For example, you can target executives and managers at mid-market and enterprise companies.
The leads generated from these targeted Lead Gen ads can then be exported and used to identify top accounts to pursue. Any leads from your dream companies represent contacts open to your messaging.
You can then target these accounts with Sponsored InMail and expand your network presence there. Lead Gen ads help fuel your overall account-based strategy on LinkedIn.
Use Website Demographics to Identify Accounts
Your own website visitors provide another resource for finding target accounts on LinkedIn. The platform offers two ways to leverage your web traffic for account targeting:
LinkedIn Website Demographics
This is a LinkedIn Insight Tag integration that shows the companies visiting your website most. You can see the top companies by volume over a specified time frame.
Website Demographics provides a prioritized list of accounts already engaging with your brand. You can then build LinkedIn advertising campaigns targeting those actively interested accounts with Sponsored Content and InMail.
Matched Audiences from Website Visitors
Matched Audiences allow you to target LinkedIn members based on email addresses or website visits.
To identify accounts, upload a .csv list of company website domains your target personas visited. Then create a Matched Audience to target LinkedIn members who work at those accounts.
This enables your ads to reach prospects who recently engaged with your brand. You are warming up known interested accounts for future campaigns.
Engage Accounts through LinkedIn Sales Navigator
LinkedIn Sales Navigator provides a direct way to connect with your target accounts through social selling. The premium sales tool gives you these capabilities:
Save Leads from Target Accounts
Search for contacts at your accounts in Sales Navigator and save them as leads. The system will also recommend new relevant leads over time using AI.
Request Intros to Accounts
If someone in your network knows contacts at a target account, ask for an email introduction through Sales Navigator. This gives you a warm referral into hard-to-reach companies.
Send InMail to Accounts
Identify key decision makers at your accounts and reach out directly through InMail messages. Sales Navigator provides credits to send these one-to-one emails.
View Added Company Details
Sales Navigator shows enhanced company pages with news mentions, statistics, contacts at the account, and organizational charts. This intel helps personalize your outreach.
While LinkedIn advertising can reach top-of-funnel decision makers at scale, Sales Navigator facilitates personalized account engagement. Use the two solutions together to execute an end-to-end account-based approach.
Conclusion
Targeting specific accounts is vital for LinkedIn advertising and sales success. The platform provides robust options for precision targeting at the company level.
To summarize, you can target accounts by:
- Using Sponsored Content and Sponsored InMail’s account targeting features.
- Creating targeted Lead Gen campaigns by job role and company demographics.
- Leveraging your website visitor data to identify key accounts.
- Using Sales Navigator for one-to-one account research and outreach.
With over 26 million company pages on LinkedIn, the platform grants access to your total addressable market. And account targeting options give you the ability to penetrate your dream accounts and drive results.
Start experimenting with LinkedIn’s targeting features today. Use the tips in this guide as a strategic playbook for your own account-based marketing on LinkedIn.