LinkedIn advertising has grown more than sevenfold in the last five years, and advertising on the platform offers incredibly effective ways to reach a professional audience, especially when it comes to B2B relationships.

Today, you can put LinkedIn, the pole star of digital advertising, at the centre of your marketing efforts, or you can put it further down the list, the choice is yours.

Before you invest, it is best to familiarise yourself with the main advantages and disadvantages of LinkedIn ads.

One of the main advantages of LinkedIn is that the professional (!) platform offers a number of benefits that other networks do not. Firstly, you have the ability to profile the audience by industry and career. Another is that the quality of conversions on this network is much higher than elsewhere.

What are LinkedIn Ads?

Aimed at promoting business-to-business solutions, LinkedIn ads allow you to target a user base of professionals, although you can reach fewer users than Facebook and Instagram, and unlike other social networking sites, you can select by title, position, company and industry.

Disadvantages of LinkedIn Ads

As with any advertising platform, LinkedIn Ads have some drawbacks. But being aware of these disadvantages should guide you on how to make the most of them, rather than persuade you to avoid them.

The Platform May Seem Complex

The platform is complex and can be difficult to use if you’re just starting out and don’t have professional support. It takes time to learn all the features of LinkedIn ads and how to use them correctly. This can be a disadvantage in a scenario where you are not getting the most out of the platform right away.

Targeting Not Detailed

The targeting options are not as granular as those available on other social media platforms such as Meta and Google AdWords, at least for now. This can be a factor that limits your ability to target your ads based on information such as interests.

Clunky User Interface

The interface can be slow and clunky at times, which can make it difficult to set up and manage your ads efficiently when trying to create a complex ad campaign.

Most Users Are Inactive

Unlike the heavy traffic of Facebook or other social media platforms, LinkedIn users are not active on a regular basis.

This means that far fewer people can be online at the same time and you need to think carefully about your already small advertising audience. It’s possible to maximise your budget and turn the problem to your advantage, but even with the right targeting, how can you be sure your audience is online to see your ads?

What are the Cons of LinkedIn Ads?

LinkedIn ads are a great tool for B2B marketing, but there are limitations. When creating your marketing campaigns, remember to consider the following:

Cost per click: LinkedIn generally has the highest average cost per click ($5.26).

No special reporting: Unfortunately, you will receive a summary at the end of your campaign. However, you can extract more data from your campaign by setting up a tracking link.

Geographical limitations. You can target countries or US states, but LinkedIn does not allow you to target very specific geographical areas (for example, specific postcodes).

Advantages of LinkedIn Ads

With access to millions of users at all levels of seniority and professionalism, LinkedIn ads have many advantages that can work in your favour.

In fact, with these benefits, investing in LinkedIn Ads gives you value you can’t find on other platforms.

As the platform is primarily aimed at industry professionals, users prefer to outline their credentials and expertise as they would on a CV.

This provides a unique targeting method that focuses on the user’s demographics, job title, company and job type. As you can see, LinkedIn is ideal for reaching users in specific industries or with specific levels of seniority.

LinkedIn Ads Create Opportunities

LinkedIn is an excellent lead generation platform because its users are interested in content and opportunities relevant to their business.

In fact, 72 per cent of LinkedIn members say they are open to receiving commercial messages from companies they know. Again, this is one of the positive effects of the professional platform.

Much Higher Conversion than AdWords and Facebook

The fact that LinkedIn’s user base is relatively small and open to targeting contributes greatly to conversion rates on the platform.

LinkedIn ads have a much higher conversion rate than traditional online advertising channels such as Google AdWords and Facebook Ads.

Data shows that companies that stick with LinkedIn ads see an average return on investment of 600%.

LinkedIn Ads and Fees

Based on conversion rates and cost per impression, LinkedIn ads are the most cost-effective advertising option in the online world.

On the platform, you can set a budget as low (!) as $10 per day for some geographies and only pay when someone clicks on your ad.

Combine this with optimisation techniques and you can be sure that you will get a serious return on your small investment.

Optimizing LinkedIn Ads

A keen awareness of the pros and cons of LinkedIn Ads will help you make much sharper optimisations.

In the meantime, being aware of the drawbacks listed in the introduction will help you prepare alternative solutions and an optimisation plan so that your budget is not wasted.

Let’s share a few quick headlines and tips to help you maximise the results of your LinkedIn advertising campaigns:

Use relevant keywords: When creating your ad, make sure you use keywords that are relevant to your business. This will help you target the right audience and generate more leads.

Create compelling ads: Your ads should be eye-catching enough to get people to click. Make sure you include a call to action and ask yourself whether your offer is attractive enough to potential customers.

Target the right audience: Targeting the right audience to get the most out of your ads is as important on LinkedIn as it is on any other network. Make sure you research your target audience and don’t leave them out of your campaign.

Test and measure your results: Always test different aspects of your campaign to see what works best. Try different headlines, visuals and calls to action and measure the results so you can fine-tune your campaign for better results.

Linkedin has a High Click Through Rate

LinkedIn ads have the highest conversion rate of any social media platform, averaging 3.75 per cent and a high click-through rate of 2.13 per cent. This means that for every 100 impressions your ad receives, 2.13 people will click on it.

This is much higher than the average CTR of other social media platforms such as Facebook (0.9%) and Twitter (0.5%).

The average cost per click (CPC) for LinkedIn ads is $2.62. This means that for each person who clicks on your ad, you will pay approximately $2.62.

Bonus Info

Because of the relatively high cost involved, paid advertising – whether through LinkedIn Ads or other channels – has both valuable advantages and critical disadvantages.

Being aware of all scenarios will help you build your strategies accordingly. Note that in addition to the above, you should also do the following:

Test and experiment with different applications. This is the best way to optimise your ad performance not only for your current digital marketing campaigns, but also for future campaigns.

Targeting everyone means that you will never reach anyone, even if you say budget is no problem. Despite the narrow audience, LinkedIn still has significant potential with its high targeting power. Touch them in the right way and prepare to reap unique rewards.

Manage your budget wisely. Don’t think that if you increase the budget you will get better access. In many cases it is not always a question of the budget. If you fall into this trap, you can lose money in an instant.

Social media marketing can be a complex process on LinkedIn, as it is on most networks.

Not only do you need to craft the right message to engage your audience, but you also need to make sure it reaches the people most likely to engage with your business at the right time.

While many businesses choose Facebook as their default social marketing channel, it may not always be the best choice!

First, perhaps the most important difference between LinkedIn and other social networks is the audience. Users on LinkedIn are older (let’s say more experienced), more educated and have higher incomes than those on almost any other platform.

Narrow Your Target with Sector Variables

As I mentioned in the introduction, the success of advertising on social media depends largely on how you ensure that your message reaches your target audience.

Targeting opportunities on your chosen channel is absolutely critical. For example, Facebook cannot keep up with its professional competitor when it comes to industry-specific variables. In addition to standard demographic information, LinkedIn allows you to target your ads based on certain variables:

• Job title
• Job description
• Seniority
• Company name
• Company size
• Industry
• Skills
• Degree type and name

These targeting capabilities make LinkedIn a good fit for brands targeting business audiences. But even consumer-based products and services that focus on specific industries, seniority levels and job titles can take advantage of LinkedIn’s tight targeting.

Sponsored InMail

Considered trusted and prestigious, LinkedIn also offers a Sponsored InMail service that integrates with its internal messaging platform. I am talking about those text messages that suddenly appear in your inbox, which you often only realise are advertisements when you open them.

These email-like messages have proven to be more successful than regular emails. Another relatively new option is lead advertising, which allows you to generate conversions without having to direct your target audience to your website.

Email List Targeting

With access to 90 million senior professionals and 60 million people in decision-making positions, LinkedIn is certainly one of the best at matching email addresses to real owners, although it is not the only ad platform that offers email targeting in a scenario where you upload a list of your email addresses.

You can upload your own list of customer email addresses or a list of companies you want to target, and LinkedIn will match your data with its own data on its platform. Compared to list targeting on other advertising platforms, LinkedIn’s email targeting is a significant advantage for advertisers.

LinkedIn Statistics You Should Know

Founded by Reid Hoffman, who built the first version in his living room, LinkedIn, which is available in 26 languages, was officially launched on 5 May 2003, just nine months before Facebook, and turns 20 in 2023. Today, 52 million people use LinkedIn every week to find a job.

With 36 offices and 21,000 employees, LinkedIn operates in more than 30 cities worldwide, including 10 in the United States. More than 19,000 of the company’s 21,000 employees are full-time.

The number of black and Latino leaders increased by 35 per cent and 20.3 per cent respectively by 2022. Women make up about 42 per cent of LinkedIn’s leadership.

Considering Instagram’s 1.4 billion users and Facebook’s nearly 3 billion users, LinkedIn may not be the largest of the social networks with 875 million members, but in my opinion it is much more valuable because its audience is business-oriented.

Among LinkedIn users, more than 77% of whose accounts are outside the US, 57.2% identify themselves as male and 42.8% as female.

Nearly 60% of LinkedIn users are between the ages of 25 and 34. This group is followed by the 18-24 age group.

With more than 35 million users, Bill Gates is the most followed person on LinkedIn.

With 67.6 million followers, India (#) is the most followed hashtag on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn’s international user base grew twice as fast as its US user base in the first quarter of 2023.

Although the US is LinkedIn’s largest market with more than 194 million users, the network is gaining traction worldwide.

This is followed by India with 96 million users, Brazil with 60 million users, China with 57 million users and Indonesia with 21 million users. That’s more than 227 million users in Europe, 49 million in the Middle East and Africa, 244 million in Asia Pacific and 136 million in Latin America.

101 job applications are made on LinkedIn every second and 8 people are hired every minute.

16.2% of LinkedIn users in the US log on to the platform every day. Again, 48.5% of US users use LinkedIn at least once a month.

40% of LinkedIn visitors engage with a page organically each week, and there are more than 36,000 newsletters on LinkedIn.

Pages that post weekly have 5.6 times more followers than those that post monthly. Again, companies with a complete, active LinkedIn page get 5 times more page views.

It can be difficult to decide how often to post on social media. According to LinkedIn statistics, Pages that post weekly have 5.6 times more followers than Pages that post monthly. So if you want to increase the number of social media followers for your business, aim to post at least once a week.

An ad on LinkedIn can reach 14.6% of the world’s population and 50% of brands are seen as “higher quality” after advertising on LinkedIn.

More than 58 million companies are listed on LinkedIn, with 2.7 million companies posting every day.

80% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn ads. Brands get 7x more reactions and 24x more comments on LinkedIn live streams than on regular videos.

Contact Our Digital Marketing Experts

At DMM Turkey, we strive to help you achieve your online marketing goals. For more information about advertising on LinkedIn, or to learn more about our online advertising services, please contact our team.