As the most popular professional network in Australia, LinkedIn has more than 10 million registered Australian users, half of whom engage with the social network every month. When you compare this against Australia’s working population of 13 million people, that’s a staggering 77% of the workforce using LinkedIn!
Furthermore, LinkedIn’s audience has twice the buying power of an average web audience with 4 out of 5 users responsible for making key business decisions. It also boasts the highest conversion rate of any other platform, with 80% of social media B2B leads coming from LinkedIn.
Yet LinkedIn remains a relatively untapped advertising gold mine, due in part to the cost of advertising on the platform. While Google’s average cost-per-click is $1-2 and Facebook’s is $1.72, the cost to advertise on LinkedIn averages much higher between $8-12 per-click.
So, why pay more on LinkedIn? Because it works. LinkedIn is responsible for 97% of a business’s social media leads. Read on to discover our top five reasons why your B2B business should be running LinkedIn ads.
1. LinkedIn’s unique targeting
There’s no doubt LinkedIn is the most powerful platform for targeting specific businesses and professionals. It’s unique segmentation attributes allow you to get ultra specific with audience targeting by using industry specific variables not available elsewhere such as company name, job title, industry, skills, location and education.
Such a specific level of targeting enables you to narrow your audience to the people that matter, ensuring your ads are seen by the decision makers within your target market.
2. Context
LinkedIn also offers the power of context when used for B2B marketing. The advantage of context is that unlike Facebook and Instagram, which people use to connect with family and friends, the primary reason people use LinkedIn is to enhance their professional life and business networks.
This means when your ads appear on LinkedIn, it’s in a news feed alongside industry news, career advice and industry updates and will be better received than an ad on Facebook in this context.
3. Engaging ad formats
LinkedIn offers multiple engaging ad platforms including single-image ads, carousel ads, video ads, lead form ads and InMail which can be personalised to ensure you reach your target audience.
One of our favourite ad platforms is LinkedIn InMail. Similar to MailChimp, LinkedIn InMail has the distinct advantage of being able to control when and where your campaign is delivered.
The power of InMail is that it sends your ad to people in your target audience only when they are on the platform. This means your message has a greater chance of being seen rather than getting lost in an inbox and results in much higher open rates (60% compared to normal email campaigns which have a 10-15% open rate).
4. Leverage your team
We all know employees are a company’s greatest asset so why not use this to your advantage? Optimising your employee’s LinkedIn profiles will provide a boost to search result visibility on LinkedIn and across the web.
Employee amplification is another great way to generate organic LinkedIn content. Although organic company posts are rarely seen on the average user’s feed, you can amplify your organic reach and be seen in more feeds by encouraging employees to share your company’s LinkedIn posts.
5. Find new audiences
LinkedIn also enables you to reach new audiences by matching your business data to their user-generated content. This means you can build customised audiences and run account-based marketing campaigns that target new customers with similar characteristics to your existing target market.
So, if you are looking for a platform that enables laser-focused targeting of your ideal customer and higher conversion rates, LinkedIn is the B2B social media marketing platform that you need to reach the ideal decision-makers to effectively drive business growth.
Contact us today to learn how we can help you execute an effective LinkedIn advertising campaign that will capture highly qualified sales leads.
