Learn how to get the most out of LinkedIn in this advanced session that explores smart ways to organize, manage, track, and optimize your campaigns to achieve maximum results.
Expert advertiser and consultant AJ Wilcox shares strategies and tactics for leveraging the LinkedIn platform like a pro. Join AJ and our own in-house demand generation authority Cassandra Clark as they reveal proven techniques for how to:
- Structure campaigns for ease of scale, organization, and reporting
- Drive leads using LinkedIn’s advanced targeting and accurate, first-party data
- Create sophisticated targeting models around key audiences
- Bid strategically and budget effectively to accomplish your goals
- Launch creative and campaigns at scale
- Set up ad tracking for proper attribution
Distribution Ad Platform_ The Role of Distribution Ad Network.pdf
Live Webinar: Advanced Strategies for Leveraging Linkedin Like a Pro
1. AJ Wilcox
Founder B2Linked.com
LinkedIn Advertising Consultants
@wilcoxaj
Cassandra Clark
Marketing Manager
LinkedIn
@Cassandra3
Advanced Strategies for Leveraging
LinkedIn Like a Pro
2. Agenda
• Campaign Structure
• Targeting
• Strategic Bidding and Budgets
• Launching Campaigns at Scale
• A/B Testing
• Tracking and Attribution
#LinkedInMktg
5. • Having many campaigns in an account can be hard to keep organized
• Account sorts alphabetically by default, so name similar campaigns with
similar beginnings
e.g., SC | MKTG CMO
– SC (keeps Sponsored Content and Text Ad campaigns together)
– MKTG (keeps similar Job Functions together)
Good naming structure = easy campaign management
#LinkedInMktg
@wilcoxaj
6. Scale enabled when campaigns descriptively named
• Simple to audit audiences or content
SC | MKTG CMO Groups
SC | MKTG CMO JF
SC | MKTG CMO Skills
SC | MKTG CMO Titles
SC | MKTG Dir Groups
SC | MKTG Dir Skills
SC | MKTG Dir Titles
#LinkedInMktg
@wilcoxaj
7. Can easily filter in
Campaign Manager
or Excel:
• Description of
audience
• Type of targeting
• Type of content
Quickly interpret results with descriptive naming
#LinkedInMktg
@wilcoxaj
9. Market to who matters:
Reach the right professional audiences
Rich demographic data
Job Function, Seniority, Company Name,
Geo, Industry
Interest-based targeting
Group Membership, Skills,
Companies Followed
Persona targeting
Job Searchers, Opinion Leaders,
Mass Affluent, Business Travelers
Your own audience data
Target Account Lists
#LinkedInMktg
@cassandra3
10. How we deliver relevancy to our target audience
Total addressable audience
Any member in the
marketing, media, or
communication job function
Geo
Title
Company size
Account-based
Skills
Company
Industry
Targeting within addressable audience
#LinkedInMktg
13. Target by title and skills to differentiate between
brand and demand generation marketer
Job Title = Demand Generation Manager,
Digital Marketing, Acquisition Marketing,
SEO Marketing, Search Engine Marketing,
Marketing Automation Manager, etc
Job Title = Brand Manager, Brand
Marketing Manager, Global Marketing
Manager, Director Brand Marketing, etc
#LinkedInMktg
14. Targeting tips: best practices
1 Balance scale and relevancy
2 Align content and targeting strategy
3 Don’t be afraid to experiment
4 Try Audience Expansion
#LinkedInMktg
@cassandra3
16. Bids are a powerful lever for scale and performance
• Bid up to gain access to huge scale
• Bid down to tighten efficiency
#LinkedInMktg
@wilcoxaj
17. Budgets are a blunt instrument
• Artificial spend control
• Use daily campaign budget efficiently to ensure your are not spending above
necessary CPL.
#LinkedInMktg
@wilcoxaj
18. Bid vs. budget strategy
• Recommendations from AJ:
• Bid aggressively at launch with high budget caps
• Lower bids daily until the campaigns naturally spend just above your
comfortable daily budget
• Set budget cap to keep spend precise
• Find the balance between efficiency and scale
#LinkedInMktg
@wilcoxaj
20. Create a minimum of two ads in every campaign
• Biggest mistake: Single Sponsored
Content shared by multiple campaigns
• Lose both ad- and audience-level
attribution
• Audiences respond differently
• Differences in CTR, CPC, and CPL
should provide learnings
21. Keep track of your ads
• Create spreadsheet with all descriptive columns
• Then create ads in Excel (use =LEN() formula for character counts)
• 128, 38, 155 for SC
• 25, 75 for TA
#LinkedInMktg
@wilcoxaj
22. Keep track of your ads cont’d…
If you keep this sheet of all ads published, you’ll have:
1. Quick copy/paste for simple ad creation in bulk
2. Complete reference/record of each ad published
3. Easy way to dynamically affix tracking parameters for killer tracking
#LinkedInMktg
@wilcoxaj
24. Use Direct Sponsored Content to test campaigns
• Direct Sponsored content allows you to post multiple versions of creative without
posting to your company page. Also called a dark post.
• For creative tests, upload all creative in one campaign and the system will optimize
delivery for higher performing creative
• For audience tests, create separate campaigns
#LinkedInMktg
@cassandra3
25. Build a testing plan to iterate on your campaigns
• Goal: Increase CTR and conversion rate by X%
• Week 1: Headline
– Stat vs. no stat
• Week 2: Image
– Person vs. object background
• Week 3: Call to Action
– Download eBook vs. Download Guide
#LinkedInMktg
@cassandra3
26. A/B testing examples: headline test
vs.
+37% CTR
+162% impressions
#LinkedInMktg
@Cassandra3
27. +95% increase in CTR
+50% impressions
vs.
A/B testing examples: CTA test
#LinkedInMktg
30. Three Buckets of B2B Metrics
#LinkedInMktg
@Cassandra3
Engagement Metrics
•CTR
•Opens
•Shares
Lead Generation
Metrics
•Lead volume
•Cost per lead
•Conversion rate
Post Conversion
Metrics
•Integrating
marketing data with
sales data
31. Track marketing campaigns through the sales funnel
Landing page
conversion
Marketing
qualified lead
Opportunities
created
Closed won
opportunities/#
new customers
Closed
dollars/revenue
#LinkedInMktg
@Cassandra3
32. Three methods to track conversions from campaigns
• Website (Google Analytics UTM parameters)
• Marketing automation (Eloqua or Marketo)
• CRM (Microsoft Dynamics or Salesforce)
#LinkedInMktg
@Cassandra3
33. First steps to B2B attribution
1. Ensure tracking scripts are all landing pages.
2. Adding tracking parameters to your URLs.
• Campaign URL will look something like this:
https://www.marketing.linkedin.com/?utm_source=linkedin&utm_mediu
m=sponsoredcontent&utm_content=20160728&utm_campaign=LMS_2
01607_SMB_IntlCampaign_CA_Online&elqCampaignId=1234
3. Marketing and sales data intergration
35. B2B attribution
• Challenges:
– All leads not created equal
– Delayed sales cycle
– Offline conversion events
• Unique ad-level tracking code
– Passed into CRM and/or marketing automation platform
#LinkedInMktg
@wilcoxaj
36. How to use attribution data
• Sales dispositions leads in CRM
- Marketing exports data from CRM, and marries to ad performance data
• Must be cohort-basis and not trending
#LinkedInMktg
@wilcoxaj
37. Why attribute LinkedIn spend?
• A campaign might appear to have high CPC or CPLs
- Higher close rates, lead quality, and deal sizes than any other channel
- Not attributing? You’re missing the insights
Questions about attribution? Let’s geek out!
#LinkedInMktg
@wilcoxaj
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Slides 4-7 - These currently all have the same content? Maybe you're still updating. If there's an opportunity to add visuals here, I think that would be a plus, but only if they add to the slides.
Left out a JF campaign
Slides 4-7 - These currently all have the same content? Maybe you're still updating. If there's an opportunity to add visuals here, I think that would be a plus, but only if they add to the slides.
Removed:
So I’m going to briefly talk about how we leveraged targeting in our paid Sponsored Content, in order to expand our company page reach and deliver helpful content to our target audience. As we spoke about earlier, people come to LinkedIn to invest time here. To find content that is helpful for them to succeed. We strive to do that on our LinkedIn Marketing showcase page and targeting is a big piece of that.
At LinkedIn we have a unique way to reach professional audiences that mean the most to our business. Here is a high lever overview of all the targeting capabilities at hand on Linkedin. We use a wide variety of these features in order to drive relevancy to our audience. Trying to drive the right content to the right person at the right time.
<briefly touch on all four with examples>
Slides 4-7 - These currently all have the same content? Maybe you're still updating. If there's an opportunity to add visuals here, I think that would be a plus, but only if they add to the slides.
Removed:
Slides 4-7 - These currently all have the same content? Maybe you're still updating. If there's an opportunity to add visuals here, I think that would be a plus, but only if they add to the slides.
Removed:
Slides 4-7 - These currently all have the same content? Maybe you're still updating. If there's an opportunity to add visuals here, I think that would be a plus, but only if they add to the slides.
Removed:
Slides 4-7 - These currently all have the same content? Maybe you're still updating. If there's an opportunity to add visuals here, I think that would be a plus, but only if they add to the slides.
Removed:
Slides 4-7 - These currently all have the same content? Maybe you're still updating. If there's an opportunity to add visuals here, I think that would be a plus, but only if they add to the slides.
Removed:
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Slide 18 - I would change the full sentences to more digestible bullets. Also, let's keep out sentiments like "huge pain, but it's worth it" as actual text on the slides. Also, let's try for a more specific title since "Launching Creative at Scale" is the section title. e.g. Create Two Ads in Every Campaign. And, since this is all about creative, can we add some creative visuals?
Slide 19 - Change up the title here, too/Add some creative visuals. Or, maybe take your step-by-step process and turn that into a process flow visual or something.
Caveat: No linear structure of attribution when it comes to platforms Everyone has a different marketing stack and integrations look very different. So it could be the case that you track all three of these in one system, usually your CRM.
Caveat: No linear structure of attribution when it comes to platforms Everyone has a different marketing stack and integrations look very different. So it could be the case that you track all three of these in one system, usually your CRM.
Caveat: No linear structure of attribution when it comes to platforms Everyone has a different marketing stack and integrations look very different. These aren’t always mutually exclusive. So it could be the case that you track all three of these in one system, usually your CRM.
Caveat: No linear structure of attribution when it comes to platforms Everyone has a different marketing stack and integrations look very different. So it could be the case that you track all three of these in one system, usually your CRM.
Caveat: No linear structure of attribution when it comes to platforms Everyone has a different marketing stack and integrations look very different. So it could be the case that you track all three of these in one system, usually your CRM.
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