LinkedIn is the world’s biggest professional networking site, with over 575 million members. We all know that millions of professionals use the site daily to network, but did you realize it can do so much more? As our founder and chief consultant, Christopher Ulrich points out:
It’s not only for people or professionals; it’s a very effective B2B marketing tool for reaching your target demographic and generating leads
Today, we’ll discuss Conversation Ads, one of LinkedIn’s exclusive features, and how you can utilize them to reach your target audience, create leads, and achieve your business objectives.
WHAT ARE LINKEDIN CONVERSATION ADS?
LinkedIn Conversation Ads enable users to begin conversations with professionals and important decision-makers using LinkedIn Messaging on desktop and mobile devices. Yes, they thought of everything. This type of ad is different from ordinary LinkedIn messages in that they are a sort of native advertising that is sent to users automatically based on the advertiser’s target audience.
Native advertising, for those unfamiliar, is a style of advertising tailored to the appearance and feel of the platform on which it appears. In other words, it blends in so well with the platform’s operation that it’s difficult to tell it’s an advertisement. Clever, right?
This is why LinkedIn Conversation Ads are so effective: they appear to be regular inbox communications while covertly being adverts.
HOW TO SET UP CONVERSATION ADS?
First, you need to focus on your target audience
The good news is that you can use any top-performing targets from other successful campaigns. We recommend leveraging conversations against a high-value remarketing audience. Conversation ads on LinkedIn are personal, and CTRs are higher when individuals have already interacted with your brand or adverts.
To get the most out of your audience targeting strategy, we recommend splitting individual audiences into unique campaigns. This makes it easier to A/B test audience performance, as currently, there is no way within LinkedIn to differentiate performance data across multiple audiences in a single campaign
The next step consists of selecting the Conversation ad format:
Now it’s time to set up your budget and bid
We recommend starting with LinkedIn’s bid recommendations, as this will improve your overall impression volume early on and capitalize on the audience members most likely to interact with your ad. Then, after a week or two in the market, you can start to reduce your MAX Bid strategy and improve your overall CPA.
Now it’s time to create your ad and select a sender:
Selecting a sender is important because you want to choose a brand of influencer your audience clicks with and looks up to. For example, if you’re looking to drive product demos, remember that it’s best to make your conversation ads come from a high-value person, like a Director of Product. Also, remember that a high-quality headshot on your sender’s profile will receive more clicks.
I hate to admit it, but our testing also shows that a pretty female face out clicks the competition up to 4:1.
Now add a banner image
Banner images are an easy way to ensure your brand is top-of-mind. Not only that, but if you don’t upload a banner image, another brand’s image can show up instead.
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The next step is all about creating personalized content
Luckily, LinkedIn offers a number of handy templates based on your marketing objectives to get started. Throughout your messaging, stick to a conversational tone. Prospective leads want to know that your sender is human and authentic, so aim for casual language as with a typical live conversation. Be sure to address the individual directly by leveraging the text %FIRSTNAME%! within your introduction. Keep testing to better understand what type of tone and delivery resonates best with your target audience.
Lastly, you will choose your CTA buttons and link them to post-click pages
Conversation Ad campaigns should be 2-5 layers deep, with each layer consisting of message text and call-to-action buttons as responses to the question in your message. Although you can select up to five CTA buttons per message, the sweet spot is at least two-three per message. For instance, to drive content downloads, share two pieces of content your audience can choose from, each with its own CTA button.
When your finished setting up your ad, don’t forget to hit “Create Ad” and it will be sent into the LinkedIn review process.
Using conversation ads for lead generation?
We recommend leveraging LinkedIn lead forms. Make sure you set these up ahead of time, and then apply them to your CTAs within the setup interface. The great news is that the leads are automatically captured within your LinkedIn campaign data. No additional tracking setup is needed!
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WHAT CAN YOU DO WITH CONVERSATION ADS?
You can target your Conversation Ads to whatever audience you choose, and the possibilities to engage them are limitless, thanks to LinkedIn Conversation Ads’ other features.
Ideally, conversation ads should come from an individual inside your company, not a business name profile. Often, distributing the message from an individual within the business will help it reach your target demographic better since it appears more personal. As a result, your target audience is considerably less likely to disregard a customized message from a natural person than a generic one issued from a business profile.
This best practice is an excellent approach to reaching out to your target audience and promoting engagement.
You may also add several customized call-to-action (CTA) buttons. Once you’ve reached your target audience, they will interact with your message and CTAs to aid with your marketing objectives.
For Example:
You can promote signup forms, demos, newsletters, events, and more. Keep testing and iterating monthly to see what resonates best with your audience.
Finally, extensive click monitoring, audience demographics, and conversion tracking provide insight into how people interact with your Conversation Ad. This is vital for reaching audiences and producing leads since it allows you to see your audience’s behavior, enhance your adverts or even redefine your target demographic.
Conversation Ads may be customized entirely to understand your audience’s intents better and increase conversions. Therefore, it is totally up to you how you build up a Conversation Ad, and it is dependent on the aims of your target audience personas.
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WHY ARE CONVERSATION ADS GREAT FOR AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT AND LEAD GENERATION?
1. They give out the appearance of a real conversation
Let’s be honest. Nothing beats a real conversation. Slowly but surely, more and more people in the sales business are discovering this fact. While automation might help you get sales meetings, having a live interaction will result in high-quality leads that convert. Reaching out to people in your audience and creating the illusion of an authentic discussion has far more power than a display advertisement on the side of a webpage.
Just remember, conversation ads only offer automated conversation interactions. The receiver of the message, and the sender, cannot communicate back and forth like you can with genuine direct messaging.
Conversation Ads, while not genuine conversations (instead, a sort of native advertising), create the appearance they are. Furthermore, if a person engages with your ad, you’ll have to connect with them depending on their actions (filling out a lead-gen form, landing on your website, etc.). So, review your leads regularly and have the senders “Connect” with them on LinkedIn.
2. Modifiable
Reaching out to your target demographic through advertising has never been easier. Conversation Ads are the next best thing to having a real conversation. Because the adverts are entirely tailored and encourage customers to interact based on where they are in their journey, they are almost like having a genuine conversation with a corporate representative. Mix, match and test language, tone, offers, senders, CTA’s, landing pages and more!
3. Convert Conversations into Sales
Oh yes! Now, this is the ultimate goal right here.
Conversation Ads are not just a type of ad that appears to be a real conversation, but they also lead to higher-quality conversions. Conversation Ads may also help you qualify leads before they reach a salesperson. By asking additional questions, you may acquire vital information about your target audience and undertake lead qualification retroactively, helping your sales staff complete transactions faster and simpler. You can instruct them to simulate a dialogue between a sales development agent and a lead. When a salesperson receives the lead, they have more information than if they had cold-called the prospect. Sounds like a dream, right?
4. Observations
We’ve already spoken about how Conversation Ads may help you reach out to your target audience and learn more about them. But how does this help with lead generation? First, knowing your audience’s activities can help you better understand where they are in the marketing funnel. Then you may update your Conversation Ad and employ other marketing objective strategies to serve your audience and business goals better.
Let’s take this simple example:
If you offer software and notice that many of your software leads are clicking a CTA button in your Conversation Ads to sign up for a product demo, this can help you improve in other areas. For example, your salespeople may discuss product demonstrations more in phone calls and emails, and your website building team can add more CTA buttons to the website for product demo signups. The information provided by Conversation Ads may help you improve not only your LinkedIn approach but also your whole lead generation strategy!
CONCLUSION
LinkedIn is an excellent tool for contacting your target demographic since it is a hub for B2B decision-makers. Conversation Ads enable you to reach your target audience and engage with them in the most effective way possible to create leads or satisfy other marketing objectives.
Are you looking to learn more about LinkedIn’s Conversation Ads? No problem, we’re here for you. Our team of experts is at your disposal with any questions you may have.
We know that the world of digital marketing can be a bit confusing, considering that it’s rapidly evolving. But don’t feel threatened. We here at Sorcery Media Group stay on top of things, so you can bet that nothing gets past us. Especially such a valuable feature as LinkedIn Conversation Ads.
And speaking of conversations, we’d love to chat with you about how much your business can benefit from this ad format. So don’t hesitate to contact us today so we can discuss further what you need to get you started with a successful LinkedIn advertising program.
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Written by: Christopher Ulrich, Sorcery Media Group