LinkedIn now has around 740 million users in 200 countries, over 16 million of them in the DACH region alone, and is currently the world’s largest social network with a focus on business. This specialisation allows LinkedIn to take a very unique direction in marketing. While Facebook and Instagram primarily use interests to narrow down the target group, the targeting options on LinkedIn are based on hard facts. The fact that users have a vested interest in the accuracy of the data provided in their profiles is a particular boon for every marketer. This means that not only specific companies, industries or fields of activity, but also specific job titles, skills or educational backgrounds can be incorporated into the targeting. However, in order to be able to utilise all of this, a LinkedIn campaign must first be created and this is exactly what this blog post is about.
Step-by-step guide for LinkedIn Ads
First of all, if you don’t already have one, you need to create a LinkedIn account. As a LinkedIn account goes beyond purely professional use for marketing activities, it is advisable to maintain this account as well.
Your profile has been created. There are now three ways to access the LinkedIn Campaign Manager:
The first way is via the area marked in red in the image with the caption ‘The way to the LinkedIn Campaign Manager’. If the Marketing button is not displayed here, clicking on the ‘More’ button will help. After clicking on ‘More’, a sidebar opens in which the ‘Marketing’ section can then be found.
The second leads via the direct link to the LinkedIn Campaign Manager. It may be necessary to log in again when visiting via the direct link.
The third way is via an invitation. If the company already has an advertising account, people or LinkedIn profiles can be invited to manage the company and its advertising accounts.
How do I create a LinkedIn Ads advertising account?
After accessing the LinkedIn Campaign Manager, an advertising account must be created. Of course, this only applies if an advertising account does not yet exist for the company.
The advertising account is named in the ‘Account name’ field. It is easiest to use the name of the company, brand or service to be advertised.
In the next field, select the currency in which the invoices are created and the settings for the advertising budget are made.
Please note: The currency setting cannot be changed at a later date.
Finally, the advertising account is assigned to a LinkedIn company page. Although this is optional, we recommend linking the company page directly or, if it does not yet exist, creating one in this step.
After clicking on ‘Create account’, the first big step is done and the advertising account is created.
Excursus: The administrative structure in the LinkedIn Campaign Manager
At this point, let’s take a brief look at the structure of the LinkedIn Campaign Manager. Anyone who has ever worked with Google Ads or Facebook Ads will initially find it difficult to understand the names of the different levels, as the ad group and campaign are interchanged in LinkedIn. Accordingly, the ad groups can be found under an advertising account, followed by the campaigns, in which the individual ads are then created.
The functionality of the individual levels is the same as for the previously mentioned products. The only thing that can lead to misunderstandings from time to time is that the names are mixed up.
Create your first LinkedIn Ads advert
The LinkedIn Campaign Manager should look something like this image after clicking on the desired account. Here you will find an overview of all campaigns ever created. The first campaign can be created by clicking on ‘Create campaign group’.
But beware: With LinkedIn, campaign groups that have been created can never be deleted (although they can be renamed). Campaigns that are no longer used can only be archived and are still listed in the overview. A campaign group should therefore only be created if a new campaign group is actually required.
Create campaign group
Appointment of the campaign group
After clicking on the ‘Create campaign group’ button, a pop-up appears in which the campaign group can be named. As several campaign groups are usually created, it is advisable to choose a naming system here. An example of this would be ‘001-001-Akquise’. Campaign groups with a different purpose can then be named ‘002-001-ABC’, ‘003-001-DEF’, etc. and campaigns that pursue a similar goal can be named ‘001-002-Leads’, for example.
Status and term
Once the campaign group has been named, the status of the campaign should first be changed from ‘Active’ to ‘Draft’ so that no unintentional ad placement can take place. Finally, the start date of the campaign group is set. This can be adjusted at any time, so it is not yet necessary to specify it precisely. The ad group is created by clicking on ‘Save’.
Create a campaign
Once the campaign group has been created, a new campaign should be created by clicking on ‘Create campaign’. A view appears as shown in the first of the two following images. The campaign can be named by clicking on the pencil next to ‘Untitled Campaign’ in the top left-hand corner. You can then click on ‘Next’ after checking that the correct campaign group has been selected.
After naming and clicking on ‘Next’, you will be redirected to the campaign settings, as shown in the second image. The campaign objective and the target group to be addressed are defined here first. We have covered this in detail in our blog post ‘LinkedIn Ads – campaign objectives and target groups’.
Once the campaign objective has been defined and the target groups have been narrowed down, the ad format that the ad should later have must be selected. We have described in detail which ad formats are available on LinkedIn and when they can be placed in our blog post ‘LinkedIn Ads – ad formats’.
Budget and schedule
In the ‘Budget and schedule’ area, the duration of the campaign and the associated budget are assigned. You can choose between a daily budget and a duration budget or a combination of the two. Each option has its own advantages and disadvantages.
A daily budget is more suitable for continuous campaigns, as the campaign does not have to be activated again and again.
With a runtime budget, a start and end date is selected in which the allocated budget is to be spent. This option is useful if a campaign has a clear end, for example an event or the end of an offer. LinkedIn tries to distribute the defined budget evenly over the entire period and as required.
If you want to make sure that the budget is really spent evenly, select the ‘Set daily and duration budget’ option. This guarantees that a certain amount of the total budget is allocated to each day and that LinkedIn does not exceed it.
Conversion tracking
In the last step of the campaign settings, conversion tracking must be set. This is particularly important if certain user actions on the company’s website are specified as the goal of the campaign. In our example, our goal is for users to contact MISSION OM and we have therefore defined the successful submission of the contact form as a conversion.
Create a LinkedIn Ads advert
After clicking on ‘Next’ and ‘Save’, you will be redirected to the ad administration. The individual adverts are created in this window. Please note that the selection of the ad format on LinkedIn is binding for the entire campaign. This means that a video ad and an image ad cannot be created in the same campaign, but they can be created in the same campaign group.
LinkedIn Ads offers two options for creating ads:
- ‘Create new ad’
- ‘Search existing content’
The ‘Search existing content’ option is aimed at promoting existing posts that have already been published on the LinkedIn company page.
If no company update is to be sponsored, the ‘Create new advert’ option is selected. The next step is to create the advert to be displayed. For almost all ad formats, this requires an introductory text (the text above the image, video, etc.), a target URL, a profile slogan (the ‘headline’ next to the call-to-action button), the selection of a suitable call-to-action for the button and, of course, the image, video, etc.
Check and launch campaign
Once the advert has been created, click on ‘Create’ and the advert will be saved. After forwarding to the ad overview, the created ad is now listed there. You can now create further adverts with different texts or other creatives as required. As soon as the desired number of adverts have been created and the campaign is to go live, click on ‘Next’.
An overview of the campaign is now displayed, in which all settings can be checked again. If all settings are satisfactory, the campaign can be activated by clicking on the ‘Start campaign’ button. If this button cannot be clicked, this is because either the campaign or the entire campaign group is still in draft mode. If this is the case, it is advisable to ‘Save and end’ the current campaign and activate the campaign group. Then click through again to start the campaign.
Congratulations! Your first LinkedIn is now online and MISSION OM wishes you every success!
Conclusion
Thanks to the many targeting options, LinkedIn is an extremely interesting marketing tool, especially in B2B marketing but also in the B2C sector. Running a marketing campaign on LinkedIn can therefore be well worthwhile and is definitely worth a try!
If you have never run a LinkedIn Ads campaign before, we hope this guide has given you a helping hand and (hopefully) enabled you to run your first successful LinkedIn campaign.
If you need help with LinkedIn Ads or other areas of online marketing, contact us now without obligation and arrange a free initial consultation!
