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LinkedIn is a highly valuable tool to network with like-minded professionals. But here’s something we don’t talk about as much as we should — it’s also a highly useful marketing platform.

It might seem a little bit intimidating. You have enough on your plate — do you really need to be figuring out yet another way to create targeted content? Actually, yes. You have more power at your disposal with LinkedIn than you might realize.

That’s because LinkedIn has a powerful ads platform. If you’re already using pay-per-click (PPC) techniques to power your presence on Facebook, Twitter, or Google, consider yourself lucky — you can add LinkedIn to that list, too.

But if you’re new to LinkedIn ads, fear not — we’ve put together a step-by-step guide to setting up your first LinkedIn ad campaign. Bookmark this post, and refer to it when you’re ready to get started.

How to Run LinkedIn Ad Campaigns

1) Create a New Ad Campaign

To start, go to http://ift.tt/Agqtkd. Once in the ads platform, select “Create Ad.”

From there, you’ll be taken to your member dashboard, where you’ll be prompted to add billing information to your account, if you haven’t already. Don’t worry — you won’t be charged until your campaign is live, and from there, you’ll be charged periodically for ad clicks and other engagements.

On your dashboard — or “Campaign Manager,” as it’s formally called — you’ll see a call-to-action (CTA) to create a campaign. Click that button, and you’ll be redirected to a site where you select what kind of ad you want to create.

As you’ll see, there are two types of campaigns that you can create:

1. Sponsored Content, which is used to “attract new followers to your company or showcase page” and “drives engagement with company-specific content.”
2. Text Ads, which are said to be the budget-friendlier option, but are still “highly targeted.”

The differences between the two are largely visual — Giovanni Perri of Rebel Hack likens them to the visuals that might appear in your Facebook News Feed. And while that can lead to a higher clickthrough rate (CTR), his own data shows that Text Ads can often yield a higher conversion rate. 

In this post, we’ll be walking you through how to create a Text Ad. That said, Sponsored Content is still highly valuable — to learn more about it, check out this page. If you’re first starting out, decided between the two might come down to budget. Outline your priorities, and then you can decide which type works best for you.

2) Set Your Ad’s Basic Parameters

Once you’ve selected your campaign type, you’ll be asked to answer a few basic questions, like the language in which you’d like your ad to appear. You’ll also be asked to choose a name for your campaign. These are only visible internally, so the more informative the name, the better.

For example, if I was doing a test to determine the best type of demographic targeting, I might use the title, “Unicorn Food Ad Test-North America 18 to 24-female.” That name describes exactly who I’m targeting, without having to view its details — as opposed to something like “Unicorn food test 1,” which doesn’t indicate anything about who the ad is targeting.

When selecting a language, keep in mind that LinkedIn won’t translate your ad into other languages — but it can be written in any of the languages LinkedIn supports, including Spanish, French, and German.

Hit “Next,” and then, the fun begins.

3) Establish the Ad’s Media and Format

Once you establish the basic parameters for your ad, you’ll be prompted to start building it. Decide where you want visitors to be directed when they click on your ad — either to a specific LinkedIn page, or to a website. You’ll want to create the copy for your ad, pair it with an image, and preview the different layout options. Of course, there are a few guidelines around the copy that we would suggest.

Ad Headline

The headline of your ad cannot be more than 25 characters.

Ad Body

The body of a LinkedIn ad can be up to 75 characters long. The copy should be relevant both to the person viewing the ad, and the offer or page to which you’re sending them.

For best results, create a different ad for each of your buyer personas, and tweak the copy accordingly. For example, when promoting a book to college professors, leading the title with the words, “College Professor’s Guide to” may generate a higher CTR than generic, un-targeted copy.

Call-to-Action (CTA)

Having an actionable CTA within your ad copy will also help you improve your ad’s clickthrough rate. Consider asking people to “Download your ebook now,” or “Click now for free samples,” instead of writing copy that’s devoid of actionable next steps.

Value

Incorporate your value proposition into your ad copy — that can make people more likely to click on your ad. By boasting something like, “20% off your first purchase,” or “Clearance sale ends today, shop now,” you’re sending a clear signal of what someone will specifically gain when he or she clicks your ad.

Testing

Don’t be afraid to test your ad copy, either. You can create multiple variations of your ad in each campaign, which allow you to test different images and copy within ads, to find what works best for your audience.

5) Target Your Ad

Targeting who sees your ad can help increase conversions — the more specific and relevant it is to your audience, the more clicks it’s likely to get. LinkedIn allows you to target according to a few different categories, which we’ve outlined below. Even better? This process is the same for both text ads and sponsored content.

Note: You don’t have to use all of these options, but the more specific your targeting criteria, the more relevant it’s likely to be to the audience you select — and, therefore, the more likely you are to have a better ROI.

Location

You must select at least one location for your ads. Depending on your business, more specific targeting may be helpful. You can select a location as broad as North America, or as specific as the San Francisco Bay Area. If you’re trying to expand franchise sales in Hartford, Connecticut, for example, it won’t be a very good use of advertising dollars to target people in, say, Los Angeles.

You can also tailor your ad copy to specific locations. For instance, hardware stores trying to sell snow shovels might target Massachusetts, whereas hurricane protection might be best targeted to audiences in states like Florida.

Company

If your target audience has a certain employer, you can target it directly — even by name. You don’t need to have specific names in mind, though; LinkedIn allows you to also target companies based on industry — like Legal, Non-Profit, or Finance — and company size.

Job Title

If your product or service is best for CFOs, targeting only people with “CFO” in their titles will increase your conversions, and ultimately save you money. You can choose specific job titles, or chose from job functions, seniority, and years of experience. From the CEO of manufacturing companies, to the entry-level associates at an accounting firm, you can target a specific group of people for your ads.

Member Schools

If you are looking to target people who have a particular educational background, you can target your ads based on schools. For example, perhaps you’re trying to target a certain alumni association — you can reach out to it through a LinkedIn ad. You can also customize the targeting according to field of study and degree,

Member Skills

Your target audience may have a certain skill set — email marketing, financial planning, risk management. Think about what your target audience does well, or where it aspires to excel. Then, use the ad to target people with similar capabilities.

Member Groups

One of LinkedIn’s best attributes is the ability to join groups with like-minded professionals, where you can discuss industry trends and topics. If your audience is very vocal on a topic, or you’re trying to gain thought leadership in a certain area, this type of targeting might be a good option for you.

Gender and Age

If your audience is heavily skewed toward one gender and/or age group, target your ad toward them.

Once you establish your ad targeting criteria, you can save it as a template for future campaigns.

5) Choose Your Bidding Options

After selecting your targeting options, you can set up the bidding options that work best for you. The two options you have for any pay-per-click advertising are:

1. Cost Per Click (CPC). You’ll be charged each time someone clicks on your ad. LinkedIn will suggest a bid range depending on your budget and the competition for your ads — the more advertisers bidding on a similar campaign, the higher your bid will need to be. This bid is the maximum you will be charged. If the current rate is lower than your max bid, you will only be charged the current rate.
2. Pay Per 1,000 Impressions (CPM). You will be charged a certain amount each time your ad is viewed by 1,000 people on LinkedIn.

Deciding on the best maximum bid can be tricky. When deciding between CPC and CPM, think about your end goal. Are you trying to get as many people as possible to see your ad to help with something like a branding campaign? If so, CPM might be your best option.

On the other hand, if you want more people to click on your ads to drive traffic to your website or generate new leads, CPC might be better for you.

As for your optimal maximum bid, some trial and error might be necessary. LinkedIn will give you a suggested bid, which is a good place to start. Then, think about when your audience is most likely online. You’ll want to bid higher during that particular time, to be sure that your ads are the ones being seen. And make sure LinkedIn is actually the best place to reach them, too — different populations use different types of social media. Play around with your bids, and see when you get the most return for your dollars spent.

6) Set a Daily Budget

Set a daily budget for what works best for your company’s marketing spending. Before investing a lot into one campaign, test and measure the success of each campaign and ad variation. You don’t want to put thousands of dollars, for example, into an ad that doesn’t end up resonating with your target audience.

Let’s say you’re the VP of Marketing at a high-end floral company. You might assume that the majority of your target market is made up of soon-to-be brides, for example — so you direct your ads on LinkedIn to bridal groups. But after spending thousands of dollars, you only generated 10% of the leads you were hoping for, which your subsequent research shows was the wrong move, and you later learn that people near your store who are on LinkedIn are actually looking for flowers for corporate events. It would have been nice to know that before spending a large amount of your budget on LinkedIn ads.

That said, LinkedIn ads can successfully target niche markets, because of its extensive targeting opportunities. But the cautionary experimentation is crucial to do early on — if you observe a campaign performing well, then you can put a larger budget toward it.

Finally, you can choose if you want your campaign to be shown continuously, or until a certain date.

LinkedIn Ad Reporting

Congratulations — you’ve launched your LinkedIn Ad campaign. Now, you can track your progress in the Campaign Manager dashboard, where you’ll see various charts that measure things like clicks, expenditures, and CTR, over certain periods of time. You can also keep track of conversions in the graphs toward the bottom of the dashboard. And to automatically track conversions and the ROI of your ads, HubSpot Ads allows you to create and manage your LinkedIn spend.

When you finish setting up your first campaign, you’ll see a lot of “0”s — that’s because it’s new, obviously, and because LinkedIn usually has to approve your ad before it goes live.

What’s Next?

If Your Campaigns Are Under-Performing

There are things you can do to optimize campaigns that aren’t performing as well as you’d hope, especially if you have multiple ads. Look at the CTR of each one — is one out-performing the other(s)? If so, you may want to pause the less successful campaign. LinkedIn will automatically display less successful campaigns with lower frequency, so it makes sense to minimize any resources spent on them. Instead, putting more resources into successful ad variations and campaigns is more likely to accomplish your marketing goals.

Post-Click Reporting

Once your ads are running and people begin clicking on them, it’s time to determine if they’re actually driving qualified traffic to your website. That isn’t something LinkedIn can tell you — you need to do some closed-loop reporting on these campaigns to get more details on the makeup of this traffic.

How can you figure that out? It’s all about “gated” offers and forms — when someone clicks on your ad and lands on your website, putting the content you are offering behind a form will help you collect the data that qualifies that person as a good lead, or not. Connect that lead capture form to your customer relationship management (CRM) software, so that once the information is imported, your sales team can act upon them.

But pay close attention to your ad campaigns, alongside the landing page form data in your CRM. Is the traffic to your website generated by LinkedIn ads qualified? Is it generating customers? If not, you might need to further optimize your campaigns.

For example, if your LinkedIn ads are targeting people in companies sized 1-10, but you find that the majority of your closed deals are from leads with companies sized 100-200 — stop targeting those smaller companies on LinkedIn.

The targeting options we covered above allow you to change any of your criteria, so use it to your advantage. With the right amount of patience and strategy, LinkedIn Ads can be a huge factor in your brand’s success.

What has your experience been with LinkedIn Ads? Let us know in the comments.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in January 2013 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

The field of artificial intelligence (AI) is dominating both headlines and the attention of businesses — and for good reason. In 2016 alone, at least 40 AI companies were acquired.

The increasing sophistication of AI is also predicted to change the work force. An analysis from Oxford researchers reported than 47% of jobs are at risk, while a more recent Forrester report predicts that 7% of jobs may be eliminated by 2025.

This sounds ominous, and while there will be industries completely upended by the “robots,” the bigger impact will be on how we work. New types of jobs and processes will be created, and different skills will be required by the rise of AI.

For knowledge workers, the automation of time-consuming, menial tasks will free up their time for more strategic and impactful work, while the improvements in data processing speeds and insights can lead improvements in every area of a business — from customer service to marketing to sales to hiring.

To clarify what AI is and what it’s not, we’ve put together a guide on the technology and why marketers need to understand it. And to better explain the future impact on how we work and why business leaders need to understand AI, we’ve organized a live event on YouTube with Amir Salihefendic of Doist (the maker of Todoist), Bastiaan Janmaat of DataFox, and Adam Long of Automated Insights.

They’re going to discuss how AI is changing productivity, hiring, content creation, marketing, and more. If you want to learn more about how AI will impact your day-to-day work and the future of business, join us on February 9, 2017 at 11 a.m. EST (8 a.m. PST, 4 p.m. GMT) for an hour-long discussion.

Click here to save your seat for this live event.

Will 2017 be the year agencies fall dangerously out of touch with client expectations?

How will the shift towards project-based work impact your agency’s ability to retain long-term clients?

Do clients intend to move more marketing services in-house in 2017? 

A new report from RSW/US examines these and other troubling trends, offering valuable insights into both agency and marketer perspectives on key topics such as spending, project work versus AORs, and the explosive rise of marketing technology.

Now in its 11th year of publication, the annual RSW/US New Year Outlook Report gathers and analyzes data from over 10,000 agencies and over 100,000 marketing decision makers across the US and Canada. As you begin to set your marketing and sales priorities for 2017, consider how the RSW/US data will impact your goals.

5 Trends Defining Agency New Business

1) There’s a growing disconnect between marketer plans and agency expectations for spending in 2017.

Since RSW/US first conducted the survey in 2011, marketer plans for marketing and advertising spending has seen a steady increase.

According to the 2017 survey, marketers will continue to get more aggressive with their spending, with 67% of marketers saying their budgets will increase somewhat or significantly this year.

Data from RSW/US 2017 Outlook Report

While broadening client budgets might seem like great news for agencies, there appears to be a growing expectations gap between what marketers plan on spending and what agencies predict they will spend this year.

Of the agencies surveyed, only 48% expected marketer spending to increase somewhat or significantly in 2017. That’s a nearly 20% disconnect — one of the largest gaps in spending expectations between agencies and clients since 2011.

Mark Sneider, the president and owner of RSW/US, chalks this lack of alignment up to cautious optimism on the part of agencies, rather than an indication of a greater underlying disconnect between agencies and their clients. He urges agencies to take advantage of marketers’ willingness to spend more in 2017 by regularly pursuing new prospects, and keeping current clients consistently engaged with new project opportunities. 

Data from RSW/US 2017 Outlook Report

2) Agencies are investing slightly less in business operations (people, marketing, and sales).

Even though a solid majority of agencies (89%) say they plan to invest somewhat or heavily in their business operations for 2017, this percentage has seen a slight decline since 2014, when a whopping 96% of agencies reported plans to invest more internally in their people, marketing, and sales resources.

So why are agencies more reluctant than previous years to invest in their own business functions? It could be due to a perceived shift in client marketing/ad spends going towards project-based and in-house work, which agencies might take as a sign to invest less aggressively in building up their resources. 

Data from RSW/US 2017 Outlook Report

3) Nearly half (44%) of marketers plan to move money away from marketing and into marketing technology.

If there’s one area agencies should be growing their expertise and beefing up their services offerings, it’s marketing technology. Marketers are actively seeking opportunities to leverage automation and analytics to make more data-driven decisions — and agencies need to keep pace.

Marketers are so committed to investing in marketing technologies, many are dipping into their traditional marketing and advertising budgets to reallocate money towards new tools. 44% of marketers told RSW/US they plan on moving funds away from marketing and towards marketing technology in 2017, and 74% said they plan on investing in more in marketing technology over the next three years.

Agencies planning on spending less on resources and talent in 2017 might want to reconsider. Meeting marketer expectations over the next few years is going to require an advanced understanding of data and automation, and agencies shouldn’t wait to fortify their teams against the impending shift.

Data from RSW/US 2017 Outlook Report

4) Marketers are parsing out the majority of their work as projects (versus discipline-specific AORs)

The shift away from AORs and towards project-based work continues to intensify, with 35% of agencies reporting that over 60% of their current work is project-based. This is a 15 point jump from last year, when only 20% of agencies reported over 60% of their work as project-based.

So what does this shift mean for agencies looking to build long-term client relationships? Project work can no longer be approached as a quick payout option — it’s just the starting point of a relationship that needs to be nurtured over time. Agencies need to look beyond a single project and evaluate whether or not it sets them up for future opportunities with the client.

Data from RSW/US 2017 Outlook Report

5) Agencies are seeing more marketers move agency services in-house.

Nearly 80% of agencies predict their clients will move some marketing services in-house in 2017 — that’s a 23% increase over 2016’s prediction.

Even though this number seems intimidating, agencies shouldn’t start to panic yet. Marketers themselves reported a much smaller shift, with a solid majority (84%) saying they’ll be moving 20% or less of their marketing services in-house in 2017.

According to the RSW/US report, most of what marketers are moving in-house is “smaller stuff,” and as long as agencies continue to offer large value propositions, they shouldn’t get overly worried.

Data from RSW/US 2017 Outlook Report

What are your predictions for agencies in 2017? Let us know in the comments.