Sponsored messaging is a great way to build relationships, nurture leads, and even recruit new employees. With a little bit of creativity and a solid understanding of their target audience, businesses can use sponsored messaging to achieve their marketing goals and stand out in a sea of professional networking noise.

Text Ads

Text Ads appear at the top or right side of LinkedIn’s desktop page, making them a great option for businesses looking to reach a professional audience. This ad format is ideal for lead generation and can help increase website traffic, job applications, or other desired actions. Text Ads are cost-effective, and businesses can set their own budget and targeting options.

Dynamic Ads

Dynamic Ads use personal details to catch users’ attention and encourage them to take action. These ads appear on the right side of LinkedIn’s desktop page, and they can use different ad formats like Follower Ads or Sponsored Ads. Follower Ads can help businesses grow their LinkedIn company page following, while Sponsored Ads can help promote job openings, events, or other targeted messaging. Dynamic Ads are highly personalized and can help increase engagement, lead generation, and social media following.

Moving on, LinkedIn also helps you decide your ad format and targeting based on your business objectives. For that, LinkedIn buckets your goals into three key business objectives. Let’s explore what they are.

LinkedIn Advertising Objectives

LinkedIn offers objective-based advertising that allows advertisers to create campaigns with specific goals in mind. Here are the three main types of objectives that businesses can work with, during all stages of the sales funnel, from building brand awareness to driving conversions

Consideration Ads on LinkedIn

Consideration ads are optimized for businesses that want to qualify leads who are already somewhat familiar with their brand. These types of ads are optimized to help advertisers meet several goals, such as:

• Website Visits: Drive more traffic to your website and landing pages.
• Engagement: Encourage likes, comments, and shares, as well as visits to other social media platforms and websites.
• Video Views: Tell your business story, showcase your latest product, or give a behind-the-scenes look at your company through video.

Conversion Ads on LinkedIn

When you want to generate leads or drive sales, conversion ads are the way to go. They can help meet three main objectives:

• Lead Generation: Use pre-filled forms with LinkedIn profile data to generate leads on LinkedIn.
• Website Conversions: Inspire website visitors to download an ebook, sign up for a newsletter, or make a purchase.
• Job Applicants: Spread the word about your company’s latest job openings with a job post.

Lastly, to completely understand the world of LinkedIn advertising, you must also know about the different ad formats that LinkedIn has to offer.

Step 1: Create a LinkedIn Page

To create Sponsored Content and Sponsored Messaging Ads, you must have a LinkedIn Page. If you don’t already have one, you can create a new one by clicking on the “Work” icon in the top right corner of the homepage, and then selecting “Create a Company Page.” Fill out the required information, and you’re ready to move on to step two.

Step 2: Log in to Campaign Manager

Campaign Manager is LinkedIn’s ad manager, and it’s where you’ll create and manage your advertising campaigns. You can log in to Campaign Manager using your LinkedIn account.

Step 3: Choose Your Ad Objective

Your ad objective will depend on the type of action you want your audience to take. LinkedIn offers three main ad objectives: awareness, consideration, and conversion. Consider what you want to achieve with your ad and select the objective that best fits your goals.

Step 4: Select Your Target Audience

LinkedIn allows you to target your ads based on a range of criteria, including job title, company name, industry, and personal or professional interests. For Sponsored Content and Text Ads, LinkedIn recommends a target audience of at least 50,000, while for Message Ads, 15,000 is sufficient. You can also use Matched Audiences to retarget people who have visited your website or uploaded email contacts.

Step 5: Choose Your Ad Format

Depending on your ad objective, you can choose from three ad formats: Sponsored Content, Text Ads, and Message Ads. Sponsored Content can be a single image, carousel, or video ad, while Text Ads are simple text-based ads that appear in the right-hand column of the LinkedIn homepage. Message Ads are personalized messages that are sent directly to a user’s LinkedIn inbox.

Step 6: Set Your Budget and Schedule

LinkedIn provides a budget range based on competing bids for your target audience. For testing, LinkedIn recommends a daily budget of at least $100 or a monthly budget of $5,000. You can also set a schedule for your ad campaign.

Step 7: Create Your Ad

Once you’ve selected your ad format, you can begin creating your ad. Campaign Manager provides templates for Sponsored Content and Text Ads, and you can preview your ad to see how it will look. For Message Ads, you can send yourself a test message to see how it will appear in a user’s inbox.

Step 8: Provide Billing Information

Before your ad can go live, you’ll need to provide payment information. You can use a credit card or PayPal account to pay for your ad campaign.

Step 9: Measure Your Performance

After your ad is live, you can use Campaign Manager to track its performance. You can view performance metrics, access charts, and demographics, or export a CSV report. You can also set up conversion tracking to see how many people took the desired action after seeing your ad.

Carousel Ads

Carousel ads on LinkedIn use a swipeable row of cards to showcase a brand’s story, products, or insights. Using eye-catching visuals is crucial in keeping readers engaged and swiping through the cards. The ad can have up to 255 characters for its name, 150 characters for the introductory text, and between two to ten cards. The maximum file size is 10 MB, and the maximum image dimension is 6012 x 6012 pixels. The ad can contain rich media formats such as JPG, PNG, and non-animated GIF. There is a limit of two lines in each card’s headline text and a 45-character limit for ads leading to a destination URL, while ads with a Lead Gen Form CTA have a 30-character limit.

Conversation Ads

Conversation ads allow audiences to choose their own path by selecting a response that resonates with them. These ads can promote products, and services, and encourage event or webinar signups. The ad can have up to 255 characters for its name, 300 x 250 pixels for the banner creative (desktop only), and up to 2,500 characters for the custom footer and terms and conditions (if needed). The introductory message can have up to 500 characters, and the optional image is 250 x 250 pixels using either JPEG or PNG. The CTA text has a limit of 25 characters, while up to five buttons can be included per message. The message text can have up to 500 characters.

Follower Ads

Follower ads are personalized dynamic ads that promote a LinkedIn page to other users in the hope of gaining more followers. These ads are best suited for increasing brand awareness, website visits, and engagement. The ad can have up to 70 characters for its description, up to 50 characters for the ad headline, and up to 25 characters for the company name. The ad image should preferably be 100 x 100 pixels in JPG or PNG format.

Job Ads

Job ads, also known as Work With Us ads, on LinkedIn have a significantly higher click-through rate than traditional recruitment ads. These ads leverage employee networks and prevent other competitors’ ads from appearing on employees’ profiles. The ad can have up to 25 characters for the company name, 100 x 100 pixels for the company logo, and up to 70 characters for the ad headline. Custom text can be used for the CTA, with up to 44 characters. Alternatively, pre-set options are also available. The primary goal of job ads is to attract job applicants and increase website visits.

Lead Gen Forms

Lead gen forms, which are available for message ads and sponsored content, can help businesses discover more qualified leads. For instance, if a business is hosting a webinar, they can connect a lead gen form to their CTA, which will automatically input the target audiences’ profile data. The form name can be up to 256 characters, the headline up to 60 characters, and details up to 70 characters to avoid truncation (up to 160 characters total). Additionally, a privacy policy text can be included, which can be up to 2,000 characters. Once leads are collected, they can be downloaded from LinkedIn’s ads manager or integrated with the business’s own CRM.

Message Ads

Message ads are another popular format that can help businesses achieve their goals of website visits, website conversions, and lead generation. More than 1 in 2 prospects open up a message ad, making this format very appealing to advertisers. This type of ad lets businesses send a direct message to their audiences’ inboxes, complete with a CTA. The message subject can be up to 60 characters, the CTA button copy must be up to 20 characters, and the message text up to 1,500 characters. Additionally, custom terms and conditions can be included, which can be up to 2,500 characters. The banner creative can be a JPEG, PNG, or GIF (non-animated) with a size of 300 x 250px.

Single Image Ads

Single image ads appear on LinkedIn’s home page and look like regular content posts, except that they’re paid for and will specifically be noted as “promoted” to distinguish them from other unpaid content. These ads only include one image and can help businesses achieve their goals of brand awareness, website visits, engagement, website conversions, lead generation, and job applicants. The name of the ad can be up to 225 characters, introductory text up to 150 characters, and the headline up to 70 characters to avoid shortening (but can use up to 200 characters). The destination URL can be up to 2,000 characters for the destination link. The ad image can be a JPG, GIF, or PNG file 5MB or smaller with a maximum image size of 7680 x 7680 pixels. The description can be up to 100 characters to avoid shortening (but can use up to 300 characters).

Single Job Ads

Single job ads promote opportunities directly in a business’s audiences’ newsfeed. If a business has been struggling to find that perfect candidate or always seems to be in hiring mode, these ads are the way to go. It also doesn’t hurt that LinkedIn internal data shows that these ads provide a 25% increase in the average click-to-apply rate. These ads can help businesses achieve their goals of job applications. The name of the ad can be up to 255 characters, and the introductory text can be up to 150 characters to avoid shortening of text (desktop max of 600 characters); any legally required language must go here.

Text Ads

Text ads are easy to set up and work within a business’s own budget. Since 80% of B2B leads on social media come through LinkedIn, text ads may be particularly attractive for those seeking B2B leads. These ads can help businesses achieve their goals of brand awareness, website visits, and website conversions. The image can be 100 x 100px with a JPG or PNG 2MB or less. The headline can be up to 25 characters, and the description can be up to 75 characters.

Video Ads

Video ads on LinkedIn allow you to showcase your brand’s story in a creative way. With video ads, you can promote thought leadership, provide insights into customer experience, unveil new products, offer a behind-the-scenes look at your company culture, and much more. The goal of video ads is to increase video views.

When creating LinkedIn video ads, you can optionally provide a name for your ad with a limit of up to 225 characters, as well as introductory text with a limit of up to 600 characters. The length of the video can be anywhere from 3 seconds to 30 minutes, but high-performing LinkedIn video ads tend to be 15 seconds or less. The file size must be between 75KB and 200MB, with a frame rate of fewer than 30 frames per second. The video must have a width between 640 to 1920 pixels, and a height between 360 to 1920 pixels, with an aspect ratio between 1.778 to 0.5652.

The final step to diving into LinkedIn advertising is to understand its process. Here’s how you can create a LinkedIn Ad.