LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 810 million members worldwide. As one of the most popular social media platforms, LinkedIn offers a unique opportunity for businesses to connect with relevant professionals and promote their products and services through LinkedIn ads.
One of the ad formats offered by LinkedIn is Audience Network ads. These ads allow businesses to display ads across LinkedIn as well as major third-party websites and apps. By expanding beyond the LinkedIn platform, Audience Network ads can help businesses reach new audiences and increase brand awareness.
What are LinkedIn Audience Network ads?
LinkedIn Audience Network ads are display ads that appear on LinkedIn as well as premium third-party publishers. These ads leverage LinkedIn’s extensive member data to target relevant professionals on LinkedIn and other sites those members frequent.
With Audience Network ads, businesses can:
- Reach LinkedIn members beyond LinkedIn.com
- Increase brand awareness with professionals outside of LinkedIn
- Expand reach through premium third-party publishers
- Retarget people who have already engaged with your brand
In addition to expanded reach, LinkedIn Audience Network allows for greater precision targeting based on member data such as job title, industry, interests, skills, and more. This helps ensure your ads are being seen by people within your target audience.
Where do LinkedIn Audience Network ads appear?
LinkedIn Audience Network ads can appear across LinkedIn as well as a network of premium third-party publishers. Here are some of the specific places you may see LinkedIn Audience Network ads:
On LinkedIn
- LinkedIn Feed
- LinkedIn Messaging
- LinkedIn Jobs
- Other various sections of LinkedIn.com
On Third-Party Publishers
LinkedIn claims to have partnerships with premium publishers across the web. Some examples of places you may see Audience Network ads include:
- Prominent news sites like Wall Street Journal and Washington Post
- Popular business and tech sites like Business Insider, Mashable, TechCrunch
- Leading entertainment sites like IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes
- Sites frequently visited by professionals like Harvard Business Review, Entrepreneur, and Fast Company
In addition to websites, LinkedIn Audience Network ads can appear within mobile apps that professionals commonly use. This includes apps for news, business, productivity, and more.
Retargeting Across Devices
LinkedIn also enables advertisers to retarget people who have already engaged with their brand across devices. For example, if someone views your LinkedIn Sponsored Content on desktop, you can retarget them with Audience Network ads on their mobile device as they browse other sites and apps.
How do LinkedIn Audience Network ads work?
LinkedIn Audience Network ads work by leveraging LinkedIn member data to target relevant people both on and off the LinkedIn platform. Here is a quick overview of how it works:
- You create a LinkedIn ad campaign using Audience Network.
- You select your target audience using LinkedIn member data and interests.
- LinkedIn displays your ads to your target audience on LinkedIn.
- LinkedIn identifies sites and apps frequently visited by your audience and displays your ads there as well.
- You only pay when your target audience sees or clicks on your ads.
This ability to target ads based on professional data like job title, employer, and interests is what makes LinkedIn Audience Network so effective compared to traditional display networks.
What are the benefits of LinkedIn Audience Network ads?
Here are some of the key benefits of using LinkedIn Audience Network ads for your business:
Expanded Reach
By extending your ads beyond LinkedIn to premium third-party publishers, Audience Network significantly increases the number of places your target audience will see your message. This expanded reach can help drive greater brand awareness.
Advanced Targeting
Audience Network allows you to leverage LinkedIn’s powerful targeting capabilities to reach your ideal customers. You can target by job role, industry, skills, interests, and more.
Brand Safety
LinkedIn Audience Network only includes premium publishers that align with LinkedIn’s brand safety standards. So you can feel confident your ads will appear in appropriate environments.
Greater Engagement
Studies show that audiences are more receptive to targeted ads that feel relevant. By tailoring Audience Network ads to a user’s professional interests, you can drive higher engagement and click-through rates.
Retargeting Across Devices
Retarget people who have already shown interest in your brand by displaying coordinated ads across the platforms and devices they use frequently.
What are LinkedIn Audience Network ad formats?
LinkedIn Audience Network supports a range of ad formats to match different campaign objectives and content types. Here are some of the common ad units available:
Display Ads
- Leaderboard (728×90 pixels)
- Big Box or Medium Rectangle (300×250 pixels)
- Skyscraper (120×600 pixels)
These standard banner ad sizes can feature images, text, and links to drive traffic to your site or LinkedIn page.
Sponsored Content
Publish your own articles, images, infographics, or videos and promote them to your target audience.
Text Ads
Text-based ads with a headline, description, and call-to-action button. Ideal for conveying a promotional offer or event.
Dynamic Ads
Automatically generated product/service recommendations based on previous engagement. Helpful for retargeting.
You can use a combination of these formats within an Audience Network campaign to support different goals and creative needs.
How much do LinkedIn Audience Network ads cost?
LinkedIn Audience Network ads are sold through an auction-based pricing model. You set a maximum bid for how much you’re willing to pay, then LinkedIn holds an auction each time your ad is eligible to show and displays your ad if your bid exceeds the current auction rate.
Since the auction rate fluctuates based on many factors like audience size, targeting, and current demand, there is no fixed CPM or CPC for Audience Network ads. However, LinkedIn reports that average CPMs tend to fall within the following ranges:
Placement | Average CPM Range |
---|---|
LinkedIn Feed | $8 – $12 |
Third-Party Publishers | $5 – $15+* |
*Third-party publisher rates vary greatly depending on audience size and targeting.
To maximize your budget efficiency, it’s recommended to test out different max bid amounts and target more specific audiences when possible. LinkedIn’s reporting will show you the average CPM and CPC your ads are actually achieving, so you can adjust your bids accordingly.
How to create LinkedIn Audience Network campaigns
Creating a LinkedIn Audience Network campaign is very similar to setting up standard Sponsored Content and Display ad campaigns within LinkedIn Campaign Manager.
Here are the key steps:
- Navigate to Campaign Manager
- Click “Create campaign”
- Select your objective (Traffic, Brand Awareness, etc.)
- Name your campaign and set the run dates
- Under Placements, select “Audience Network”
- Target your audience using professional targeting criteria
- Set up your ad creative and define your max bid
- Submit your campaign for review
- LinkedIn will then place your ads on relevant publisher sites automatically
Be sure to analyze the performance reports once your campaign launches to optimize and refine your Audience Network strategy over time.
Conclusion
LinkedIn Audience Network provides a major opportunity to extend your LinkedIn ads to premium third-party publishers frequented by professionals. By combining the expansive reach of Audience Network with LinkedIn’s precise targeting capabilities, businesses can drive greater brand awareness, engagement, and website traffic from target audiences.
With the right objectives, audience targeting, and creative in place, LinkedIn Audience Network can take your LinkedIn advertising results to the next level.