News and Insights

LinkedIn advertising in 2020: New features

August 20, 2020

In our last article about LinkedIn advertising, we introduced the process of submitting an ad through the platform, and the different options offered. Now that the Coronavirus crisis has shaken all sectors globally, a wide range of companies have decided to lay off some of their workers. It is a good time then to introduce the new features that the social network for professionals have added lately.

Advertising campaigns seem more detailed now, as the platform has introduced a new option in Campaign Manager: Objective-based advertising. This new format will allow you to create campaigns based on your own goals, focusing on those aspects you want to boost in your online campaign. Brand awareness (leverage your brand’s digital presence), conversions (the number of people who access your site), user engagement, lead generation or website conversion are the offered options.

 

Objective-based advertising

Following this, you may want to focus your marketing efforts on one objective or another. Our social advertising team can help you develop a bespoke advertising strategy for your brand even if you do not have your overall social goals clear yet.

Get in touch today to get your bespoke social strategy started.

New format InMail conversation ads

LinkedIn Conversation ads are another new feature that the social networking site has introduced this year. It differs from the traditional InMail ad format in terms of interaction.

conversation ads in LinkedIn

In the old version, the target user received a message, which contained just one call to action (CTA).  In this new extension, you can interact with your prospects more privately, maximising the overall experience, as you can send multiple calls to actions to your target audience. These messages offer a wide range of options to the users you reach. The main objective here is to improve conversion rates.

You can even select amongst a range of conversation templates, to help you drive engagement in a more personal way. It also allows you to create events or webinars. These ad engagements are purely designed to promote a real-time interaction, as messages can only be sent when your target customer is live on LinkedIn.

A sample conversation layout showing interactions about a charitable event.

 

Use the different templates that are available to create an original and engaging conversation that leads to better CTA. As visuals are also important, you can also include a picture on the conversation. Depending on the template that you select, a different type of conversation will be created. Then click on the “Flowchart” tab to follow the communication stream.

Company targeting options

LinkedIn has made available to its users a Company Category tab, which are different categories composed by the platform, coming from some high-profile sites such as Fortune and Forbes:

  • Forbes World’s Most Innovative Companies
  • Fortune 100 Fast Growing Companies
  • Fortune 500 (US)
  • LinkedIn News Editors’ Top Companies (from different countries)
  • LinkedIn News Editors’ Top Start-ups (From different countries)

This is a valuable extension to start building your audience and targeting those relevant markets for your brand.

Company growth rate

This new feature allows you to target just those companies that have a growth percentage over time. These rates are only available for those companies which LinkedIn has data. These rankings follow a series of premises that LinkedIn produces, relying on aspects such as revenue or employee. The different classifications established by the company are:

  • Negative growth companies.
  • 0% – 3% company growth.
  • 3% – 10% company growth.
  • 10% – 20% company growth.
  • +20% company growth.

You could use this new facet to boost your B2B marketing efforts, for example, to target those companies with a high-growth rate to boost your brand awareness and to exclude those businesses with a poor growth-rate. This will also save you tons of time when designing a meaningful digital strategy.