Pay Per Click Advertising on LinkedIn

There are social media networks all over the place. Reddit, Digg, Facebook, Slashdot, Fark, 4Chan and a million others, each with their own unique communities, all with their own bylaws and cultural norms.  On most social networking sites, promoting a business you own is an invitation to get ridiculed or hacked. Furthermore, most of the folks on those sites can’t fund a business, hire a person, choose a provider or cut a deal.  Which is why there is LinkedIn, the social media network for folks in business. If you aren’t a member, join.

Because the LinkedIn community is all business all the time, it’s great place to run Pay Per Click ads targeted at C-level decisionmakers.

When advertising on LinkedIn it pays to remember that good ads for the right products and services can sell very well, but poorly designed ads may well generate lots of the wrong kinds of clicks. There are so many business professionals on LinkedIn looking for solutions that they’ll take a risk on following a link, but be smart enough to see instantly if your proposition isn’t right for them. Since LinkedIn ads can run over $10 per click . . . you have to get your ad absolutely right.

To run a LinkedIn ad:

1. Log in to LinkedIn.
2. Click the Start Now button.
3. Enter your password.
4. Enter a Campaign name.
5. Click to enter a headline.
6. Click to enter the body of the ad.
7. Click to enter a URL to display.
8. Click to enter a URL to go to.
9. Click to add a second ad if desired.
10. Click to add an image.
11. Click Next Step.
12. Identify your audience by Company Size, Job Function, Industry, Seniority, Gender, Age or Geography. Each parameter you specify will reduce the size of the population that sees your ad.  You want to make this number fairly small, and you’ll have to monitor how sales rise or fall as you vary your targeting choices.
13. Choose Next Step.
14. Specify Pay Per Click or Pay per 1000 Impressions. You may find the latter works better for exposing people to your company over several weeks with different ads.
15. Enter a Bid value then a Daily Value.
16. Click Submit and your ad will go live.

Start with a very small budget and work to refine your ad copy over a period of days to convert clicks to sales.  You may find that putting a location in the ad body reduces low-quality clicks, as does mentioning your target market by name.

If you need resellers in London for your umbrellas, mentioning London, reseller and umbrellas in your ad will result in far more effective marketing at a far lower cost than just mentioning umbrella resellers, or london resellers. You’ll be reluctant to do this because you have so few characters to work with, but its worth the “investment”.

Once you get a good LinkedIn ad that works you’ll find it becomes one of your best business to business sales tools.

If you want to learn more ways to effectively market your business online, make sure you join us at the Made in 48 Hours event September 10 & 11 in Sheffield. We’ll see you there!