Performance Marketing Blog

LinkedIn B2B Marketing: How to Advertise on LinkedIn

Wed, 19 Jul 2023 16:17:08 GMT

LinkedIn B2B Marketing: How to Advertise on LinkedIn

3 Key Elements of a Successful LinkedIn Advertising Campaign

Struggling to make LinkedIn work for you? You're not alone. Marketing on LinkedIn isn’t the easiest, and there aren’t a ton of experts out there giving advice. That’s probably because there are no “quick hits” or “tricks” to make it work. It takes hard work, patience and a good-sized budget.

But as a B2B marketer you can’t ignore it. 850 million business professionals are using it regularly to keep tabs on their industry, competitors and network. LinkedIn states “4 out of 5 LinkedIn members drive business decisions” - you need to be in front of them.

We’ve put together the three cornerstones of a successful campaign to help you understand what works best on the platform, and how you start getting qualified leads for your business.

1 - LinkedIn Content Strategy: Master the Art of Great Content

At its core, LinkedIn is a content marketing platform. Users go there to discover and learn. Keeping this in mind:

Give the people what they want. “How To Do X...” instead of “We have the best solution for X.”
Focus on helping vs. selling. Educate your audience to gain their trust, don’t jump right into pushing your solution.
Commit to content marketing. Commit to a strategy, to your audience & to quality content that will pay off in the long run.

2 - LinkedIn Audience Targeting: Take the Time to Define Your Audience

LinkedIn isn’t a place for fishing. The more you know about your target audience, the better results you’ll get. Here are a few tactics to define yours:

Use multiple options in LinkedIn’s audience builder. Observe the audience insights to make sure it aligns your internal knowledge of company size, job titles, etc.
Don’t be afraid to test small audiences. Audiences under 5,000 can be very effective (contrary to LinkedIn’s recommendations) because they will see your ad more often, and thus be more likely to interact with it.
Ask your sales team for accounts. Get them to provide sample job titles, lists of target accounts and top industries to target. Alternately, use a tool like ZoomInfo to find people who are actively researching your solution.

Case-in-point: For an enterprise software client, we found that campaigns targeting under 100 accounts had 2-3x the number of highly engaged users (as defined by the number of impressions) as compared to larger audiences.

3 - Dig Deep with LinkedIn's Tools and Data

Most of the “good stuff” in LinkedIn is a bit hidden. Don’t just stick to the default settings or you’ll end up paying the most per lead. Use every bit of demographic data to continually refine your audiences until it’s hitting your very best prospects.

Go beyond LinkedIn’s automated settings. Tactics such as manual bidding and rotating creative and will help you make the most of your budget.
Obsess over demographics. View campaign results by LinkedIn’s profile data to make sure your ads are getting viewed by the right people. Don’t be afraid to continually update your audience to exclude unwanted job titles (think freelancer) and behemoths like Amazon which can dominate your impressions

Case-in-point: For an enterprise software client, switching to manual bidding not only decreased our cost per lead, it also gave more consistent results without the spikes and drops of automated bidding.

How to Get the Most Out of Facebook Broad Audience Targeting for eCommerce

lauren@lyteyear.com (Lauren Fellure) — Fri, 14 Jul 2023 16:42:50 GMT

Paid Facebook & Instagram Audience Targeting Best Practices Post-iOS14 - for eCommerce Retailers

The launch and widespread adoption of iOS14 reduced Meta's ability to track user interests and behaviors at the level of detail they were able to previously. This significantly decreased the effectiveness of Meta's ad targeting algorithm, and led to performance declines for most advertisers.

In response, Meta has been continually updating their algorithm to perform better without the ability to directly track user interests and behaviors on Meta or within other tech platforms and brands (such as Google).

As advertisers and brands adjust to this constantly evolving landscape , many are confused on how to best structure campaigns and audiences, and why strategies that previously were frowned upon are now the new norm.

See below for a summary of audience targeting best practices based on our experiences over the past few years, and click the button above to download the PDF version of this post.

*Note that we will use "Facebook" in this post to encompass strategies for both Facebook and Instagram.

Facebook Audience Targeting Best Practices Post-iOS14

Focus on broad audiences between 1M and 10MM people.
Avoid behavioral or interest (and thus most Lookalike) targeting.
Generally avoid narrow geo-targeting as this often causes audiences to fatigue over time. However, larger regional or country-wide geo-targeting can work well.
Key optimization driver is a continual flow of high-quality creatives that the algorithm can use to discern interest and behavioral targeting within a very large audience of potential prospects.

Why the Shift to Broad Audience Targeting in Facebook?

The large-scale adoption of iOS14 in the summer of 2021 led to a massive user data loss for Meta. Thus it was no longer able to understand behaviors, demographics, or interests the way it did previously.
Therefore traditional interest, behavioral, and lookalike targeting stopped performing as well as it used to.
In response, Meta updated their algorithm as an “AI” capable of machine learning .
A basic tenet of machine learning is that the more good conversions the system gets on a daily or weekly basis, the better it performs.
Large broad audiences ensure that the algorithm continually has enough potential prospects to test and learn from so audiences don’t continually fatigue .

Paid Facebook Account Structure Tips for eCommerce Brands

Employ some of the the following strategies to “segment” broad audiences:

Campaign type (ASC (Advantage Shopping), DABA (Dynamic Catalog Prospecting), DPA (Dynamic Catalog Retargeting), etc),
Offer / promo (free trial, 50% off, etc),
Product type or collection (modern farmhouse decor, anti-aging, etc.),
Price point (products under $50; decor from $7.99, etc),
Creative (video, static product shots, influencer reels, product collections (rattan, southwestern, succulents), etc),
Intent (Top of Funnel, Middle of Funnel, Bottom of Funnel), and
Goal (Purchase, Add to Cart, Landing Page View)

Case-in-point: Across all of our eCommerce accounts, we've found that targeting lookalike audiences (including high LTV or top tier customer lists) and targeting interest-based audiences (including competitor interests) no longer work as well as targeting all genders and ages across the US. Instead of segmenting by audience demographics, we've instead begun segmenting by a combination of the above strategies.

We've also begun creating a funnel (or segmenting) within the above segments. A few examples:

For brands with evergreen offers , we have created a full funnel structure for each offer via a mixture of segmenting by campaign type, intent, and creative.

We also have seen success when setting up the DPA as a funnel via a mixture of segmenting by intent and goal. For example, we break the DPA into 2 campaigns: Low Intent and High Intent. We then set up the Low Intent campaign to target an add to cart goal. Whenever someone adds to cart, they're then moved into the High Intent campaign that targets a purchase goal.

Creative and Optimization Tips for eComs

Static product images and offer creatives are top performers in all campaign types. Carousels and reels are also successful, but often not as much as static images.
If consumers are price-sensitive , creatives touting various low price point products (decor under $50) work well in ASCs, DABAs, and Bottom of Funnel campaigns.
DPAs are very successful campaigns for driving high-quality traffic and conversions. If you want to drive more traffic, consider using a DPA with an Add to Cart goal as opposed to a traffic campaign.
DABAs work well, but not with a large catalog . With large catalogs, segment the product by collections, styles, profitability, or other themes / goals.
Be wary of taking ASC Shopping campaign performance at face value . They often are more prone to view-through conversions than other campaign types, yet their metrics will usually look better than other campaigns in-platform.

Case-in-point:

Campaign Types: Although ASC campaign metrics usually look better than other campaign types targeting similar audiences in-platform, they always look worse when analyzing in GA4, Adobe, or other outside analytics providers. Because of this, we have begun shifting more budget into DPAs and DABAs. This has led to a noticeable improvement in revenue and quality traffic both in-platform and in GA4, Adobe, etc ( when set up correctly ).

Low Price Point Creatives: Recently we've found low price point creatives to be top performers. We've begun promoting static image ads, carousel ads, and dynamic DABA catalogs focused on products that fall within these price points ($50 and under is a top example).

Creative Themes: When products lend themselves to segmentation by theme (design trend, aesthetic, etc), we've found success in creating carousels and dynamic DABAs focused on these themes.

Creative Types: We are still seeing static images (product shots, promos, low price points) outperform most other types of creative, including TikTok-style reels. We oftentimes use these to begin carousels (static and video), and DABA campaigns.

How to Get the Most Out of Facebook Broad Audience Targeting - Post iOS14

lauren@lyteyear.com (Lauren Fellure) — Fri, 23 Jun 2023 16:47:06 GMT

Paid Meta (Facebook & Instagram) Audience Targeting Best Practices Post-iOS14 & Other Privacy Changes

See below for a summary of audience targeting best practices based on our experiences over the past few years, and click the button above to download the PDF version of this post.

*Note that we will use "Facebook" to encompass Facebook and Instagram in this post.

Facebook Audience Targeting Best Practices Post-iOS14

Focus on broad audiences between 1M and 10MM people .
Avoid behavioral or interest (and thus most Lookalike) targeting.
Generally avoid narrow geo-targeting as this often causes audiences to fatigue over time. However, larger regional or country-wide geo-targeting can work well.
Key optimization driver is a continual flow of high-quality creatives that the algorithm can use to discern interest and behavioral targeting within a very large audience of potential prospects.

Why the Shift to Broad Audience Targeting in Facebook?

The large-scale adoption of iOS14 in the summer of 2021 led to a massive user data loss for Meta . Thus it was no longer able to understand behaviors, demographics, or interests the way it did previously.
Therefore traditional interest, behavioral, and lookalike targeting stopped performing as well as it used to.
In response, Meta updated their algorithm as an “AI” capable of machine learning.
A basic tenet of machine learning is that the more good conversions the system gets on a daily or weekly basis, the better it performs.
Large broad audiences ensure that the algorithm continually has enough potential prospects to test and learn from so audiences don’t continually fatigue.

What Does Facebook Broad Audience Targeting Mean for Lead Generation Accounts?

Marketers should no longer rely on lookalikes, behavioral, or interest audiences as - even if they perform for awhile - they tend to fatigue over time.
Extremely broad audiences oftentimes work well if they are given strong creatives and are allowed to learn over a period of months (the longer they run, the better they perform).
Using different creative types and messaging themes is a good way to segment / target within broad audiences.
Segmenting broad audiences by large regions also can work well.
Creative is extremely important , and videos / slideshows and reels creatives tend to be top performers.

Case-in-point: We work with a healthcare client to drive leads for multiple clinics across the US. A few years ago, it worked best to target lookalike audiences built from lists of highest lifetime value (LTV) patients, and to target a narrow radius around each clinic. Now, we've found that our paid social ads perform best if we target a broad audience (18 to 64) and to expand our radius around clinics. As a next step, we are even considering targeting entire DMAs to give the algorithm as much data to learn from as possible, and thus limit fatigue.

What Does Facebook Broad Audience Targeting Mean for eCommerce Accounts?

Marketers should no longer rely on lookalikes, behavioral, or interest audiences as - even if they perform for awhile - they tend to fatigue over time.
Broad audience ASC (Advantage+) shopping campaigns tend to perform best, but drive more view-through conversions than many other campaign types.
Broad audience DABAs can perform well when segmented by the correct themes / product types / business goals.
Creative is extremely important. A healthy mix of quality video carousels, static carousels, reels, and static images is a winning combo. Static images (especially for promos and product shots) still are a top performer in eCom.

Case-in-point : Across all of our eCommerce accounts, we've found that targeting lookalike audiences (including high LTV or top tier customer lists) and targeting interest-based audiences (including competitor interests) no longer work as well as targeting all genders and ages across the US. Instead of segmenting by audience demographics, we've instead begun segmenting by a combination of:

Campaign type (ASC, DABA, DPA, etc),
Offer / promo (free trial, 50% off, etc),
Product type or collection (modern farmhouse decor, anti-aging, etc.),
Price point (products under $50; decor from $7.99, etc),
Creative (video, static product shots, influencer reels, product collections like rattan, etc),
Intent (Top of Funnel, Middle of Funnel, Bottom of Funnel), and
Goal (Purchase, Add to Cart, Landing Page View)

We've also begun creating a funnel (or segmenting) within the above segments. A few examples:

For brands with evergreen offers , we have created a full funnel structure for each offer via a mixture of segmenting by campaign type, intent, and creative.