Maybe you’ve heard about LinkedIn’s progress surrounding their advertising options for businesses. Ever since they were acquired by Microsoft, the network’s capabilities have extended and the allure for companies everywhere has elevated greatly.
One example of this is LinkedIn’s new Lead Gen Forms. It’s a fantastic way to create lead capture forms natively within LinkedIn, rather than forcing users off of LinkedIn to a third party site.
We are seeing more of this pop up on websites with strong user bases but LinkedIn’s targeting capabilities are what makes this such an appealing advertising option.
To help you with getting started with LinkedIn’s Lead Gen Forms, I walk you through the steps that will set you up with your first ads. If you have any questions after reading, please do not hesitate to reach out and ask.
#1 – Choose The Ad Type
Depending on your goals and KPI’s, you will want to select the ad type that will help you meet your goals. Advertisers can select Sponsored Content, Text Ads, or Sponsored InMail as ad types within LinkedIn.
#2 – Choose Your Settings and Language
Enter a meaningful name for the campaign and then select the language of your content and what you’d like to happen after someone clicks your ad. Then click “Next >” to proceed with Lead Generation Forms.
#3 – Choose Content You’d Like to Sponsor
There are a couple options to get started. Option one is to select existing content that will appear as “Sponsored Content” and will be shown in newsfeeds. or create a new post to promote. The second option is to choose “Direct Sponsored Content”, which will send customized messages to your audience segments (you’ll need Company Page Admin permission).
#4 – Create a New Form
If you haven’t already, you’ll need to create a form template that describes your offer. Simply enter your offer headline and offer a deal. Take the time to ensure that your headline and offer are compelling and speak to the needs of your target audience.
#5 – Identify Your Desired User Information
Depending on what information your team has determined is most beneficial for your campaign, select up to seven pieces of data you’d like to collect from each prospect.
#6 – Create A Custom Thank You Message
You can also determine what message your prospects see after submitting their form. This is a great opportunity to redirect the user to your company website for more information.
#7 – Define the Call-To-Action
Depending on your goal, you may want a prospect to sign up, download or request more information. Make sure that your CTA properly aligns with your ad message.
#8 – Specify Your Demographics
In order for an ad on LinkedIn to be effective, you must target your audience appropriately based on your message. You can select everything from locations and industries to specific job titles and even fields of study or skills.
#9 – Choose Your Budget and Time Period
You can choose to either pay when someone clicks on your ad, or pay based on the number of impressions. LinkedIn will also recommend a bidding strategy based on what other advertisers are doing. Typically, it will be best to start out by using LinkedIn’s recommended bid but you should optimize once you see which ads are performing best.
#10 – Review, Confirm, & Optimize (Continuously)
Keep a close eye on the performance of your ads and form completion to identify what is working best, and which ads to pause. That way you can optimize ad performance to increase results.
Test LinkedIn’s New Lead Generation Features
As you will notice, LinkedIn’s new Lead Generation Forms offer a way to make it easier for targeted audiences to convert based on your offer. By removing a barrier, these one-click conversions can help fill your customer database and encourage participation from targeted audiences.