In our latest podcast episode, we had a talk with AJ Wilcox, the world’s biggest LinkedIn ad spender and founder of B2Linked. Listen to the full podcast episode here. In this blog post we have summarized the highlights of the podcast episode, where you will get our best LinkedIn tips when it comes to LinkedIn advertising.
The difference between Google Ads and LinkedIn advertising
One of the most common questions when you start talking about LinkedIn advertising is the difference between LinkedIn ads and Google Ads. The difference is a matter of lead quality. Anyone can type a key word, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they are good leads, and that’s where LinkedIn really shines. But, of course, lead quality depends on what you expect. If budget and authority are important parameters, LinkedIn Ads will be really effective.
Complete with light social media and retargeting
At some point, you will run out of new prospects to target on LinkedIn. To fill the top of the sales funnel, you should therefore use retargeting on Facebook and Instagram. Also, you should not guess what works, you should make sure to allocate budget into testing what works and what doesn’t.
Start the bidding at a minimum and then scale
The cost per click has gone up over the years. So, some might ask, “Is advertising really worth the investment?”. Well, it depends on the deal. If you are a company that will earn multiple billions, a click is worth a high price. The general rule is to start out by bidding the minimum and see what kind of traffic it can get. If it acts well and converts, you can expand and scale up.
By taking care of two simple things you avoid the vast majority of mistakes you can make:
- Unclick the box “Audience expansion” – a “look alike” audience you have no insight to.
- Change from automated bidding to cost per click (CPC) and start by bidding low. CPM is only effective when clicks are exceptionally high.
A lot of cool features are coming up on LinkedIn, but the best would be if LinkedIn would focus more on improved functionality, such as:
- Engagement retargeting and the ability to target by device
- Local time zones
We also get many questions about publishing tools as HubSpot and HootSuite, and there are some good features here, but the general recommendation is to build everything within the LinkedIn campaign manager.
Do you work at a B2B tech company and want to learn how to generate great leads on LinkedIn? Connect for a chat! Or do you want insight on the best lead generation strategies for B2B tech companies in general? Download our eBook!
