Monday, January 18, 2016

How to Create LinkedIn Ads That Generate Results For Your Business

You're generating leads. You're thinking about how to make paid social ads more relevant and valuable. What better way to get inspired than to look at great examples? 
These LinkedIn ads show why targeting your audience, developing good copy, and offering unique content generates leads. These ads are compelling and cut through the noise. Let's take a closer look at what makes them work. 
CommVault Knows Their Audience's Pain
CommVault receives points for sticking to a single line of text. It's the Internet Age, attention spans are short.
They receive even more points for appealing to a range of emotions. It's the type of ad that resonates with prospects because it says, "We know what you're going through." The ad then piques interest by teasing 5 troubleshooting areas. Problem then solution, classic advertising inspired by B2C marketers. 
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The Takeaway: Use headlines that empathize with prospect's challenges and painpoints. Then be the solution.  

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Checks A Calendar

We love the headline. It's focused on what is top of mind this month among their target buyer. It uses an action verb. We also love the content topic.
Quotes from thought leaders are easy to find, and compiling a roundup can provide good information. It's a great idea if you're struggling to find content ideas. 
The Takeaway: Target ads to specific by job levels or functions. Get attention with a timely topic your target audience is thinking about.


Bizible's Ad Gets 600% ROI

Why are we showing our own ad? Because we have data to back up its effectiveness. The ad below cost $20 and resulted in two customers totalling $12K in ACV.  
Fancy graphics aren't always necessary, as our ad shows, a timely offer directed at a targeted job role can be all you need. The first sentence qualifies our buyers immediately and the offer requires low-commitment. It was a very targeted campaign, limited to just 2,000 LinkedIn users. 
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The Takeaway: Don't have awesome Photoshop skills? No problem. Targeting your ads by asking users a specific, qualifying question can pull the right user in. Offering a giveaway works, and it doesn't need to be a high value item -- but make sure it's at least cool. 

Bizible Targets An Industry 

LinkedIn Ads offers the ability to target certain industries. Use it, and create content that's valuable for those industry practitioners.
This ad shares a customer success story, targeted at one of our verticals and linking to a landing page.The ad resonates with people in the same industry because they see the logo of a competitor, or complementary product or service, and it immediately identifies with them. How'd it perform?
For us, the CTR on industry targeted ads usually stays at 0.3%, which is about 20% higher than our content download ads. The below ad has a CTR of 0.45% which is 60% higher than content download ads. 
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The Takeaway: Target verticals with industry specific ads. It will allow you to be more focused in your content and create copy that resonates with your target buyer. 

Jacobs & Clevenger Target An Entire Job Vertical

This LinkedIn ad targets a certain audience, and not just the explicitly stated job role. This ad attracts career focused, aspiring marketing professionals with a tantalizing piece of content. Whether CMO or marketer, this ad appeals to the ideal LinkedIn user, e.g. those who are leaders or aspiring to be. A kit for evaluating your strengths? We love the unique offer. 
The Takeaway: Offer content that is aspirational. Something that helps your target audiences reach their goals or do their job better. 

Prudential Plays A Video 

We commend the embedded ad video. It's a great way to get the most use out of your owned media. And it's something we haven't experimented with yet. Just imagine the valuable information you can communicate in a video that plays inside your ad. It's a great way to engage right away. 
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As far as conversions go, we're not clear how effective this ad is. And it's not strictly a B2B ad. But for B2B marketers there is a lot of opportunity here. Here's what the ad looks like when you press Play.  
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The Takeaway: If you have video content, consider using it in a LinkedIn ad. We'd love to hear your expert tips on using video effectively in paid social channels, share a tip with us on Twitter at @Bizible.

That's All For Now

We're always on the hunt for inspiring LinkedIn ad ideas. What we really like are ads that convert to revenue. We'd love to hear your success stories on LinkedIn Ad campaigns that generated positive ROI.
Are you looking for advanced techniques for the LinkedIn Ads platform? Check out our Advanced Marketer's Guide to LinkedIn Ads
For More information visit us: http://www.bizible.com/blog/6-awesome-examples-of-linkedin-ads-that-convert