Social media marketing has long since become part of everyday life for most companies. However, in addition to the usual suspects, namely Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, there are other portals that should not be ignored, especially if B2B marketing is the chosen target.
The two career networks LinkedIn and XING should not be missing from the company’s marketing strategy. The two largest business platforms in Germany offer various opportunities to reach new and existing target groups and to expand the customer portfolio or address customers in retargeting. The XING AdManager and the LinkedIn Campaign Manager each provide a marketing tool that can be used to create and manage your own campaigns.
But which network should be used for an upcoming campaign? What is the difference between LinkedIn and XING in terms of ad placement and what advantages and disadvantages do the two platforms offer? To answer these questions, we took a closer look at the two platforms.
Reach
According to its own figures, XING currently has around 18 million members in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and is therefore ahead of LinkedIn, which has around 15 million users. While XING is only available in German-speaking countries, LinkedIn is used in over 200 countries and by around 722 million users worldwide. In terms of German-speaking reach, XING is therefore ahead, while LinkedIn appears to be of more interest to internationally operating companies. However, this is not correct, as the networks have different advantages and disadvantages when it comes to placing an ad.
Campaign goals
Selecting a campaign objective on XING is very simple, as the objectives directly specify the medium or channel to be advertised. With LinkedIn Ads, the final goal of the campaign is placed in the foreground. Both selection lists are shown below.
For more information about campaign goals on LinkedIn, please refer to our blog post LinkedIn Ads – campaign goals and target groups.
Ad formats
The ad formats offered by LinkedIn Ads and XING Ads differ primarily in the number of advertising options that the two networks offer. While the LinkedIn Campaign Manager offers a wide range of ad formats, the XING AdManager only offers sponsored content and the new video ads. XING enables the placement of image ads, which can be used to advertise company profiles, events, groups or job ads. In addition, a contact form can be attached to a single image ad, turning it into a XING Lead Ad. A few days ago, XING launched a new format via the Ad Manager: XING Video Ads. A video can easily be uploaded here, which can then be advertised as a video ad. All other ad formats cannot be managed via the XING Ad Manager.
XING also offers Sponsored Articles. These are displayed as created editorial content in the XING News section and in the XING industry newsletters. This variant is available from a minimum booking volume of €10,000 and includes advice, planning and management by XING consultants. Finally, XING offers an advertising format called XING Mailings. The company’s marketing message is sent directly to the selected XING target group by e-mail. This makes it possible to address the high-quality XING target group outside the actual XING cosmos. XING Mailings are available from a minimum booking volume of €10,000 and also include advice and planning by XING consultants.
Unfortunately, A/B testing is only possible in the LinkedIn Campaign Manager, as a new campaign has to be created for each ad in the XING AdManager.
For more information about the formats of a LinkedIn ad, please refer to our blog post LinkedIn Ads – ad formats.
Target group
When it comes to defining the target group, LinkedIn and XING stand out in comparison to other social media platforms. Users can be addressed in a more targeted manner due to their own interest in the accuracy of the profile data provided. This precise targeting results in a particularly low scatter loss. XING and LinkedIn provide various attributes for this purpose, such as the associated company, job title, work environment and company size. Standard attributes such as location and demographic data are also available. By precisely defining the target group, the ad to be placed can be perfectly tailored to the respective contact person.
While LinkedIn and XING both offer a variety of possible target group attributes, LinkedIn is ahead here. LinkedIn Ads offers significantly more and also more in-depth options for target group definition. In addition, target group attributes can be excluded in the LinkedIn Campaign Manager. This is not possible with XING.
For more information about LinkedIn target groups, please refer to our blog post LinkedIn Ads – campaign goals and target groups.
Budgets & bidding strategies
At least five euros must be set as the total budget for a campaign on XING Ads and two euros as the minimum daily budget. For LinkedIn, the minimum spend for the daily and total budget is ten euros per campaign. Manual CPC (cost-per-click) and CPM (cost-per-mille) bids are available in both the XING AdManager and the LinkedIn Campaign Manager.
LinkedIn has gone one step further again here: with the “#Maximum distribution (automatic)” function, LinkedIn automatically carries out the bids to achieve the maximum possible results with the set budget.
Conversion Tracking
With the LinkedIn Pixel (Insight Tag), LinkedIn Ads provides a helpful add-on to the company website. This makes it easy to track the success of campaigns and to record website visitors who do not come via LinkedIn. These can then be included as “matched audiences” on LinkedIn as a target group in a retargeting campaign. In addition, a lookalike campaign can be created based on these “matched audiences”.
Due to the lack of a pixel, campaign tracking on XING must be carried out via UTM parameters in the URLs leading to the website. Instead of the LinkedIn pixel, this method can also be used for tracking LinkedIn ads.
LinkedIn Ads or XING Ads - the bottom line
Although LinkedIn has some advantages in terms of marketing opportunities, ad formats, budget control and the usability of the LinkedIn Campaign Manager, a campaign should be run on both networks. The fact that XING covers a larger user base in German-speaking countries alone makes a campaign via the XING AdManager unavoidable. German-speaking companies and users in particular are still very active on XING. The good advertising opportunities for groups and events are particularly noteworthy here.
If an international campaign is planned, then LinkedIn is the clear choice. However, LinkedIn should not be neglected for national campaigns either. In addition to the advantages mentioned, LinkedIn offers significantly more options for distributing content, placing ads and tracking the KPIs of campaigns. Finally, it may be that users are only active on one of the two platforms and can therefore only be reached with a two-pronged approach. Especially in B2B marketing, where a single lead usually represents an enormously high value, reaching every single potential customer is of the utmost importance.
To summarize, you should be aware of your target group and make a decision on this basis. Our clear recommendation is to place ads on both platforms in order to take full advantage of XING Ads and LinkedIn Ads.
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