LinkedIn lead generation ads are a terrific social media option for B2B marketing.
Why? LinkedIn call their sales prospecting product ‘LeadGen’ and it is designed for auto-population, with all the commonly listed information on LinkedIn (like name, email, company, job title, and country) appearing on a download form automatically. This means people don’t have to manually enter any details to get access to a case study, industry report or white paper – they just hit ‘submit’.
This is in stark contrast to being directed to a landing page where prospects usually have to provide details for 8 to 12 or even more information fields in order to view or download an asset – including the highly contentious phone number, which if asked for, drastically reduces form completion rates. Done right, LinkedIn LeadGen can yield great results and R.O.I. – as we’ll see.
Key facts
We manage lots of LinkedIn campaigns for our clients. This is an example of one successful Lead Gen campaign in the ANZ market that we created and ran recently:
- The client is a cloud-based computer software technology company that works with more than 15,000 small to large businesses all over the world
- Activity ran in Australia and New Zealand for a total of 24 days during October 2018
- Only LinkedIn auto-populated information fields were used for the forms in order to gain the maximum number of leads with the best form completion rate
- Additional prospect information was gathered after the campaign by way of lead profiling, in order to provide more prospect info (phone, annual revenue, industry) for follow-up by the client’s sales team
- The client allocated a LinkedIn spend budget of $12,000
Our client’s situation
This client had a number of informative, downloadable white papers and case studies as assets that can be obtained via landing pages, a channel portal, or reached directly if the urls are shared. The limitation with landing pages in particular, is the lack of targeting. Students, researchers and other interested parties could input their details and subsequently access the download, but the client wanted to limit access to professionals only. By using LinkedIn’s LeadGen, they could attract the right prospects.
LinkedIn Lead Gen as a solution
What used to be named Sponsored Updates, LinkedIn somewhat confusingly now calls ‘Sponsored Content’. They also refer to their LeadGen Form product as sponsored content – but let’s call it LeadGen. It allows us to capture leads and measure results without using a client landing page, instead using the LeadGen form. Prospects are directed to the downloadable content via a url in the last stage of the Form.
Information is pre-filled from what is available on the prospects LinkedIn pages, and for this campaign, we opted to use six auto-populated fields (First Name, Surname, Email, Job Title, Country, Company Name). As in previous campaigns, we find that a combination of benefit-driven, engaging text with a clean and appealing image linked to a strong asset, really delivers in the B2B space – and this campaign was no exception.
Targeting options used
The client reiterated the type of prospects they were after so we set-up the targeting to reach them.
- Location: Our brief was Australia and New Zealand
- Job functions: 12 key categories were specified
- Job seniorities: We were after decision-makers
- Company size: Targeting individuals who work at companies with 2 to 50 employees
The LeadGen ads
One of Orion’s experienced content managers wrote ad text with direct response principals in mind, and formulated ad copy that was well received by the target audience. Strong, engaging photographic images were used to optimise the impact of each ad. The level of engagement was high and this is a strong indicator that messaging is resonating.
- Engagement Rate of 0.84% (industry benchmark is 0.45%)
- Total social actions (likes, comments and shares) = 1,171
Results from the analytics that matter
The campaign was hugely successful against key criteria. We achieved:
- 131 leads gained (31 over our target)
- 17.82% lead form completion rate (the benchmark is 10.5%)
- 939 clicks, with an average Cost Per Click of $12.78
- Click Through Rate of 0.67% (industry benchmark is 0.40%)
- Cost Per Lead of $91.64 (under our target ceiling)
Exceed expectations with targeted LinkedIn lead generation
LinkedIn lead generation ads definitely deliver. As most people on LinkedIn access the platform via a mobile device, the mobile-friendly nature of this product is a plus. As is the ability to target prospects based on advanced selection criteria that’s superior to all other social channels at present for B2B. Yet it all comes down to results. The client was delighted that we exceeded expectations, and we’ve continued to manage many other campaigns for them since this one.
For help with your paid social media marketing, advertising, marketing and graphic design, you can contact Orion Creative for a chat.
