LinkedIn Ads Checklist for Founders & Marketing Professionals
In the fast-paced world of digital marketing, LinkedIn Ads have emerged as a powerful tool for reaching a professional audience. And this does not only apply to the big corporates of the world. Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) & startups can be very succesful as well. However, running LinkedIn Ads without too much experience with this channel can easily lead to you missing out on your full potential.
SMBs often waste quite some budget on this channel due to a whole number of factors. Usually this number ranges around 20-40%, but it can be more in certain cases. The effectiveness of LinkedIn Ads hinges on how well you can navigate its features and tools.
Your effectiveness hinges upon four things: targeting, your ad copy, the ‘technical’ campaign setup and, often overlooked, your ability to manage your campaigns. So below we will dig in these 4 areas with a checklist that we ourselves use every day for companies we work with. This checklist is designed to guide you through the essential steps to optimize your LinkedIn Ads, helping you to maximize ROI and achieve your business objectives.
Targeting:
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If there is one critical element to make LinkedIn Ads work it is to retarget your audience. This is where 80%+ of your conversions will come from.
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Filters like Gender, Age, Job Titles are generally not the best options to use. Check your campaigns if you're using them and re-assess whether those are really necessary.
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By default LAN is switched on for your campaigns. In almost all cases this will only lead to low quality traffic. Make sure to turn this off for your campaigns!
Ad Copy, Visuals & Offer:
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For Single Image ads you typically want to go with Portrait as this takes up more space.
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What's the intention of your ad campaigns? Sure you want conversions. But if your ads are only focused on this (eg Book a Demo, Sign Up). Such a strategy rarely works. Set your campaigns up such that they educate. About pains, challenges and potential solutions.
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What type of asset do you offer to your audience? Testimonials, Customer Success Stories, Educational Content work best to increase Click-Trough & Conversion Rates. Stay clear from directly funelling people to your Book A Demo page (unless this is a retargeting audience that have interacted with your brand multiple times).
Technical Set up:
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Make sure to set this up as soon as possible. It recognizes ALL your website traffic, not just the traffic that is routed via LinkedIn. This means that you can retarget people that do not convert on the first visit (often >95% for B2B!).
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Unfortunately, there is no way to time your ads with any native LinkedIn feature. Thus, your LinkedIn Ads will be shown to people 24 hours a day, decreasing performance of your campaigns. Either time it manually or work with a partner with tools for this.
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When you're just starting with LinkedIn Ads this may not seem as important. however, once your account is growing with new campaigns over time, you will soon realize a naming structure helps keep oversight. Some that we use/suggest are:
Warm vs Cold
Location
Industry/Company Size
Start of campaign (MM/YY)
Ad Type
Management:
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View/pull reports on a bi-weekly basis at minimum.
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Refresh creatives on a monthly basis. Check the ads that perform the least and focus on replacing those.
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Often (especially for start & scale-ups) campaigns do not A/B test properly. Generally due to the time it takes to set this up. A/B test on the following dimensions:
Message (Both visuals and copy)
Audience
Offer (this is however the hardest to do)
Optimizing LinkedIn Ads is not a one-time task but an ongoing process. As a marketing professional or a founder, staying ahead of the curve by continuously refining your approach is crucial. Use this checklist as a starting point to guide your efforts and remember to keep learning and adapting to new trends and insights. By doing so, you can ensure that your LinkedIn Ads not only reach but also engage and convert your target audience effectively.
In a competitive business landscape, leveraging LinkedIn Ads can give your SMB or startup a significant edge. Implementing these optimization strategies will help you maximize your advertising efforts, driving better results and ultimately contributing to your business growth. If you’re ready to elevate your LinkedIn Ads game, start checking off these steps today and watch your campaigns flourish.
