Anyone can easily setup and publish advertisements on LinkedIn. You don’t have to be an optimizing guru to reach a highly targeted group of qualified personnel on LinkedIn. Businesses can reach over 430 million professionals and companies in an industry type setting using LinkedIn advertising. Gather new leads, increase company page following, and direct website traffic are just a few of the many goals you can accomplish with ads on this social media platform.

Think LinkedIn advertising may be the next best outlet for your business? Strap on your advertising pants and get ready for a different type of social media advertising.

Follow the steps below to begin creating your first ad sets.

Step One: Create a LinkedIn Profile

If you don’t already have one, join LinkedIn immediately. Not only are there plenty of job opportunities available through LinkedIn, but the social network is a great place to connect with colleagues in the industry as well as like-minded professionals. Don’t expect to find the type of commentary on Facebook as you would on LinkedIn. The atmosphere is much more focused on professionalism and business, less pointless arguments and baby photos.

Step 2: Create a Campaign

LinkedIn campaigns offer two primary goals. The first is to reach LInkedIn members within the LinkedIn feed using Sponsored Content. This objective is best if you want to grow followers for a company page and/or increase engagement for company posts. The second goal is to display text advertisements throughout LinkedIn pages. These are more highly targeted ads that ca be used to reach a specific demographic.

Step 3: Setup the Advertisement

Campaign Objective: Sponsored Content

If you choose the first campaign objective, Sponsored Content, you’ll need to enter information about the LinkedIn company page and choose a campaign name. Once the basic information has been chosen, you’ll need to select which post you want to promote. This can be a post that was published on the company page in the past, or a new post that you want to publish just for this ad. To create a new post for this ad click on “Create New Sponsored Content” in the top right corner.

After deciding on the content to sponsor, you’ll then choose the audience to target. Specify LinkedIn users based on their job title, degrees, groups, and more professional categories to reach a very specific type of individual. At the bottom of the audience categories, you’ll notice two lines that are optional to include with targeting.

The first, Audience Expansion, is highly recommended to include with each ad. This option will extend the reach of the ad to an audience that is similar to the one selected. People who are members of the same groups, work at the same company or have the same set of skills are most likely to be added to your audience. Data such as metrics and clicks will include both the audience you chose and the expanded audience, but won’t affect the audience count number.

Deciding on a bid for LinkedIn Ads is incredibly simple because LinkedIn provides suggested bids based on the campaign details, such as targeting. A range of what other advertisers are bidding will also be provided, giving you the option to bid more aggressively or conservatively.

The minimum daily budget for LinkedIn advertising is $10 a day, but LinkedIn may spend up to 20% higher if the ad is being clicked on past the set budget.

Campaign Objective: Text Advertisements

The second objective asks for a campaign name and language to begin the setup process. You then need to clarify if members will be directed to a specific page on LinkedIn, such as a company page, or to a website.

For the ad itself, it needs to be catchy. As with any advertisement, the point is to grab people’s attention and encourage them to make an action. Here’s a few tips LinkedIn suggests for creating a captivating ad headline:

• Ask a question that sparks thought: “Want to get ahead?”
• Be direct: “Get 30% off today” or “Free e-book!”
• How to: “How to write a great ad”
• Command: “Get ahead with an MBA”

Ads with images receive 20% more clicks than without, so including an image is mandatory. Pick an image that matches with the headline and relates to what the offer is. Avoid using images with text since the display box for an image is generally too small for the text to be read on an image.

Once the text advertisement is finished, choose the audience targeting, just like in the above objective.

Have questions about setting up a new ad on LinkedIn?

Are you a LinkedIn advertising master with tons of tips?

Comment below and share your thoughts!