When businesses want to quickly amplify the reach of digital content, paid advertising is often the recommended strategy. With the introduction of machine learning, campaigns can be built and launched in a matter of hours with platforms constantly refining ads based on performance.
Yet, for businesses that want granular ad targeting without the inherent privacy and security risks of leveraging third-party data, LinkedIn is the North Star of the advertising sphere. The data supports this, with B2B ad spend on the social platform skyrocketing between 2018 and 2023 — from 0.65 billion to 2.33 billion, respectively.
Clearly, the cat’s out of the bag: the benefits of LinkedIn advertising are undeniable, and businesses are affirming it with their pocketbooks.
Marketing spends aside, let’s take a deeper dive into the specific benefits of LinkedIn advertising, so you can decide if this paid social strategy is right for your business.
Benefit #1: Incredibly Granular Targeting
LinkedIn is the only social platform offering ad targeting by industry, job title, seniority, job experience, and other identifiers. Inversely, it also allows you to exclude identifiers in order to serve highly targeted ads.
Let’s say you want to reach people on LinkedIn with a specific job title, but you only want to show ads to those in senior roles. You can exclude those with entry level positions, so your ads only show to the most relevant audience. Likewise, you can exclude specific industries or job experience from your targeting parameters.
Benefit #2: Email List Targeting
While LinkedIn isn’t the only ad platform offering email list targeting — where you upload a list of your own email addresses — but it certainly offers one of the best in terms of matching email addresses to the actual owners.
You can upload either your own customer list of email addresses or a list of companies you want to target, and LinkedIn matches your data with the self-reported data contained in its platform. Compared with list targeting on other ad platforms, LinkedIn’s email targeting is a major benefit to advertisers.
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Benefit #3: Self-Reported Data
As we mentioned earlier, third-party data is a primary concern for both advertisers and audiences. But with LinkedIn, the privacy and security concerns are fewer, because the platform relies on data reported by the users themselves rather than data collected from across the internet.
Self-reported data can also be a more accurate and reliable form of personal information, as LinkedIn doesn’t have to infer data about gender, industry, job titles, and the like. Instead, it leverages what users choose to share in order to give advertisers better targeting and relevance.
Benefit #4: Lead Capture Forms
LinkedIn is an excellent paid advertising platform for lead generation, especially in terms of B2B audiences. One of the benefits of LinkedIn advertising is its lead capture forms, a built-in feature that auto-fills with a user’s account information rather than sending them to a landing page and having them fill it out there.
Lead capture forms remove the barrier to lead generation as it eliminates a step from the process and doesn’t require users to leave the platform to engage. Businesses that are prioritizing lead magnets in paid advertising certainly should consider using these forms.
Conclusion
Whether your goal with paid advertising is brand awareness or lead generation, LinkedIn advertising benefits businesses on many fronts. From spectacularly granular targeting to improved privacy and lead capture, LinkedIn is proving to be the tipping point in highly targeted, highly effective advertising.
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