LinkedIn is a powerful platform for B2B marketing and lead generation. With over 722 million users worldwide, it offers marketers a unique opportunity to connect with professionals and promote their business. Two of the main ways to amplify your reach on LinkedIn are boosting posts and running paid ads. But which strategy should you focus on? Here is an in-depth look at the pros and cons of each option.
Boosting LinkedIn Posts
Boosting allows you to pay to extend the reach of your organic LinkedIn posts beyond your current followers. It’s an easy way to get your content in front of more of your target audience without having to create new ads from scratch. Here are some of the potential benefits of boosting LinkedIn posts:
- Leverages existing content. You can boost any posts you’ve already shared instead of starting from zero.
- Appears in feeds organically. Boosted posts show up directly in the LinkedIn feed looking like regular content.
- Tap into social proof. Boosted posts retain comments, likes, and shares from your current followers.
- Flexible budget and duration. You control exactly how much you want to spend and how long to boost.
- Detailed analytics. LinkedIn provides data on impressions, engagement, clicks, followers gained, etc.
Boosting is ideal for repurposing evergreen content or promoting posts that are already performing well organically. The main advantages are its simplicity and the fact that it feels like native content to viewers. But there are some limitations to consider as well:
- Limited targeting options. You can only target by age, location, gender, job title, company, and school.
- Lower visibility than ads. Boosted posts may get lost among other content in busy feeds.
- No control over positioning. You can’t choose exactly where your boosted post appears.
- One-time reach. Boosting only amplifies the post during your campaign duration.
So while easier to set up, post boosting has less customization and precision than building a full-fledged ad campaign.
LinkedIn Paid Ads
LinkedIn’s self-serve ads platform allows you to create customized campaigns and meticulously target your offerings to your audience. Here are some potential upsides to running LinkedIn ads:
- Highly targeted. You can target by job title, skills, company size, seniority, and much more.
- Multiple ad formats. Options include Sponsored Content, Message Ads, Dynamic Ads, and more.
- Appear as ads. Clearly branded as “Sponsored” so viewers recognize them as ads.
- Significant reach. Ad placement across LinkedIn desktop and mobile puts you in front of millions of users.
- Retargeting capabilities. Remarket to people who have already engaged with your content or ads.
- Robust analytics. Track impressions, clicks, conversions, ROI, and other in-depth metrics.
The greater targeting precision and diverse ad formats give you more control over how and where your ads appear. This makes LinkedIn ads ideal when you want to:
- Drive visitors to your website, offers, or gated content
- Generate quality leads for your sales team
- Build awareness and followers for your brand, products or services
- Engage cold audiences that may not be following you yet
However, there are some potential drawbacks to weigh as well when considering LinkedIn ads:
- More effort to create and manage. You start from scratch building ads vs. just boosting existing posts.
- Often higher cost. Minimum daily budget of $10 per campaign.
- Seen as interruptions. Some viewers may find ads disruptive compared to organic posts.
- Steeper learning curve. More to learn about ad formats, bidding, targeting, etc.
Key Factors to Consider
When deciding whether to boost LinkedIn posts or use paid ads, here are some key factors to consider:
Your Goals
What are you trying to accomplish? Boosting works well for increasing organic reach and engagement. But ads are better for driving site traffic, capturing leads, and targeting new audiences.
Your Budget
Boosting can start at just $10 per day, while ads often have $50+ minimums. But boosting offers less impressions per dollar compared to well-optimized ads.
Your Content Format
Boosting works for almost any type of post. But ads enable you to use a wider range of content types and ad formats beyond regular posts.
Your Time Investment
Boosting takes just minutes to set up, while building successful ads takes significant time to test and refine.
Targeting Capabilities
Boosting only lets you target basic demographics. But ads provide much more advanced targeting based on job role, skills, interests, company, behavior, and more.
When to Use Each Strategy
In general, here are some best practices on when to boost posts vs. run ads on LinkedIn:
Consider Boosting Posts When You Want to:
- Amplify reach and engagement for individual pieces of content
- Promote thought leadership posts to establish expertise
- Quickly get in front of more of your existing audience and followers
- Increase organic following and build community
- Test the performance of different types of content
Consider LinkedIn Ads When You Want to:
- Drive visitors to your site, landing pages, offers, or downloads
- Generate quality leads to fuel your sales pipeline
- Build awareness and interest in your brand, products, or services
- Engage audiences outside your existing followers
- Remarket to people who have visited your site or engaged with your content
Best Practices for Success
To maximize the impact of boosting LinkedIn posts and running ads, keep these tips in mind:
For Boosting:
- Boost your best-performing posts that already have strong engagement
- Write compelling headlines that will catch attention in the feed
- Include relevant hashtags so your posts come up in target users’ searches
- Add high-quality images and video to make your posts more eye-catching
- Analyze performance data to refine your targeting and content strategy
For LinkedIn Ads:
- Align your ad objectives, targeting, creative, and calls-to-action
- A/B test multiple versions of copy, visuals, offers, and landing pages
- Make ads visually consistent with your brand identity
- Retarget engaged visitors with customized follow-up ads
- Monitor campaign metrics and optimize based on highest-converting elements
The Final Word
So which LinkedIn marketing strategy should you focus on – post boosting or paid ads? In reality, the two options work very well together.
A savvy strategy is to boost your best-performing posts to expand your organic reach and then leverage LinkedIn ads to remarket to post engagers to drive conversions.
This coordinated approach allows you to maximize the benefits of both tactics to build awareness, increase engagement, and generate leads.
The vital thing is to have clear marketing objectives and track the data to see what’s working best. Test different approaches and optimize over time. With the right boosting and ad strategy tailored to your business, LinkedIn can be a valuable driver of leads and revenue.