LinkedIn PPC / PPM Advertising

I got off topic on a thread last week and mentioned LinkedIn advertising as an alternative to Google AdWords.

Well since then we set up and set live a simple campaign in preparation for our new sign-up form going live in a week or so.

I thought I'd share with you some initial feedback and update this thread as we go along over the next couple of weeks.


The Set Up Process

• This was very easy - simply visit this link to get started: https://www.linkedin.com/ads/start
• You can use your personal or business account or link them together
• It cost $5 set up fee

Designing The Advert

• Again a very simple process - just fill in title / body / URL
• You can upload an image (50x50)

Targeting the Advert
You can choose the following options for targeting the advert:

• Location (Continent > Country > Area > Town)
• Company Employees (by company name or company type)
• Job Title
• LinkedIn Groups
• Gender
• Age

Here are the settings we chose for our first advert - as you can see the Target Audience is over 2.4m people.


The Daily Budget
You have the option to choose a maximum CPC (cost per click) or CPM (cost per 1k impressions) - the following are screen examples:


Performance
This is an area that I'll update over the next few weeks, however, we set two trials live yesterday. Once was a CPC and the other was CPM.

CPM Campaign
We went with the minimum suggested bid - this was $2.00 per 1,000 impressions and set it live with a $15 limit.

This was swallowed up within a couple of hours and no clicks were actioned.

CPC Campaign
Again we went with the minimum suggested bid per click - this was $2.00 but the recommended bid was $3.52 to $4.19.

We had 11,500 impressions within a couple of hours and 4 clicks were achieved that cost $8, i.e. our max bid was used for each click.

Conversions
No conversions were achieved on our site.

Early Findings

• Simple to use and set up
• CPC is expensive compared to AdWords (LinkedIn = £1.28 and AdWords = 50p on average for our business type)
• LinkedIn advertising is passive format and AdWords is targeted to what a user is actually looking for
• CPM is probably better for brands and gaining awareness (not necessary good for conversions)

Future Trials
Over the next few weeks we will:

• Trial ad variations and different logos
• Experiment with group targeting, e.g. targeting members of the Small Business Network may be good for our adverts

Anyway, just some early findings that may be helpful to you if you are thinking about trialing a LinkedIn Ads campaign.

__________________
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Adam - Wampit Business Directory - 115b Warwick St, Leamington Spa CV32 4QZ
Top 5 Business Directories
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Really interesting stuff, have been playing around with Linked in this week, so shall be watching your results closely!

Best of luck

__________________
cheers Steve
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