At the beginning of 2017, we started doing more and more LinkedIn Sponsored Content campaigns. From each campaign we were learning more and more about our target audiences and how they engaged with us.
I’ve come to find that the true value behind LinkedIn Sponsored Content is the Data
Although we also see great conversion rates, the data we have been able to extract from the campaigns is the #1 reason we continue to use LinkedIn Sponsored Content and find it to be extremely valuable in shaping our strategy and tactics for our overall marketing efforts.
The days of being a marketer and not being a numbers person are long gone. By using LinkedIn Sponsored Content and truly digging deep into the data behind the performance of each campaign, we found out a variety of very useful information about our audiences. This data has helped personalize and optimize all of our marketing campaigns. Personalization is the key, as each customer persona reacted differently to our campaigns. Knowing the most successful ways to personalize our content to each customer persona drastically improved our overall ROI and effectiveness at reaching our target audiences.
The data has helped us to determine what industries or job titles respond best to certain messages and imagery compared to others. We’ve seen how CEOs of advertising agencies engage differently when compared to CEOs from architecture firms, for example. We now know how to personalize and optimize our messaging and imagery to each audience and we can incorporate these learnings into our other marketing materials and campaigns.
Recommendation
I recommend a minimum of 3 different messages and 3 different image styles for each LinkedIn Sponsored Content campaign. By testing different types of images (product images vs. environment images vs. illustrations, etc.) and messages (different keywords i.e. exclusive vs. free or download vs. learn more, etc.) the data will tell you which ones resonate best with each of your audiences.
Targeting
The targeting options are very sophisticated for LinkedIn Sponsored Content so each audience that you target should be as precise as possible and clearly define your target (i.e. CEOs of software companies that are 11-50 employees in size in a certain geographical location).
If you’re currently doing LinkedIn Sponsored Content, you could be seeing great returns. However if you aren’t able to extract the personalized data for each sub-sector audience, you aren’t receiving the true value from your investment. If you’re not doing any LinkedIn Sponsored Content, I’d get started sooner rather than later to help optimize your marketing performance and improve your ROI.