Are you looking to amplify your company’s influence and reach a larger B2B audience? Thought leadership ads on LinkedIn can be a powerful tool to help you achieve this goal. With this brand-new ad format on LinkedIn, you can target the right people, establish your company’s subject matter experts as the expert in your field, and increase engagement.
As a PPC Specialist here at Zen, I’m always looking for new ways to amplify the expertise of our talented team while increasing our brand’s impression share. Thought leadership ads are a promising avenue that can significantly impact a brand by aligning it with informative and inspiring content relevant to its target audience.
Benefits of Thought Leadership Ads on Linkedin
Thought leadership ads on LinkedIn are a powerful advertising tool that allows brands to promote posts from their thought leaders. These ads appear as if they’ve been posted by the original author, maintaining credibility and authenticity. The beta trials conducted by LinkedIn have shown impressive results, with thought leader ads having a 1.7x higher click-through rate and a 1.6x higher engagement rate compared to other single-image ad campaigns.
From a strategic perspective, thought leadership is a critical component of B2B marketing. It helps position organizations as industry leaders while also establishing trust and driving high-quality leads. If you want to amplify your influence and leverage the power of thought leadership, these ads are an excellent choice. With thought leadership ads on LinkedIn, brands can promote posts from their thought leaders that will seamlessly integrate into a member’s newsfeed, providing a more personal and authentic interaction. This integration not only enhances the user experience but also increases the likelihood of individuals engaging with the content.
Thought Leadership Ad Requirements
Thought leadership ads on LinkedIn are only available for brand awareness and engagement objectives, exclusively through the single image ads format. While you cannot promote a video or document post, you can include a link within the body of the thought leadership ad. It’s also important to note that the Linkedin Audience Network must be disabled, and the employee who owns the post must list the company as an active role on their LinkedIn profile when you’re setting up the campaign.
Case Study: Elevating Shama Hyder’s Brand with Thought Leadership Ads.
To test this new ad format, our team ran two posts created by our CEO, Shama Hyder, over the course of two weeks. We placed these ads in front of our target audience of C-suite executives within the software and financial technology industries, as well as our top-of-funnel leads. LinkedIn’s recommended minimum daily spend is $50, so we spent $50 a day to see what results we could get for the least amount of optimal spending throughout the two-week test.
It’s important to note that both of these posts are meant to share new ideas and create a conversation around topics within the B2B marketing world. This subliminally prompts our audience to engage with the posts and get involved in discussion within the comments section.
Shama’s first post was about how our Zen Media team can show a direct correlation between ROI and PR campaigns by using data analytics. Within two weeks of running this post as a thought leadership ad, we saw an 83.25% increase in post impressions and a 73.2% increase in overall post engagements.
The second post highlighted the changes that LinkedIn has made on its platform this year to date. Just like the first post we promoted, we also saw a significant increase in impressions, which went up by 46%, and a 24% increase in engagements.
The number of shares, comments, and reactions increased across the board for both posts, and we saw that people were continuing to engage with the posts, despite the fact that they were initially shared more than three weeks ago.
Shama’s profile also gained an additional 1,000 followers and an increase in profile views throughout our ad experiment, proving that thought leadership ads are a great way to get company thought leaders in front of more target audience members.
Best Practices for Thought Leadership Ads
When it comes to creating effective thought leadership ads on LinkedIn, there are a few best practices to keep in mind. First and foremost, it’s important to test posts from different employees to leverage unique voices and perspectives from different departments within your company. This not only adds diversity to your content but also allows for a more comprehensive approach to B2B marketing.
Another best practice is to use relevant and timely posts that can start a conversation or share a unique point of view. LinkedIn is a platform for professionals, so make sure your content is informative, insightful, and valuable to your target audience. This will help position your company as a thought leader in your industry.
If possible, include posts that link to your company’s website. This allows users to easily learn more about your products or services and can drive traffic to your site. Just make sure the landing page is optimized for conversions to maximize the effectiveness of your ads.
Lastly, record baseline metrics from employees’ profiles to measure the results of your thought leadership ads. This will help you determine the impact of your content and make necessary adjustments as needed.
By following these best practices, you can create effective thought leadership ads on LinkedIn that not only amplify your influence but also establish your company as a trusted authority in your field.
Want to see how your brand can leverage LinkedIn thought leadership ads? Reach out today to connect with Sammie and the rest of Zen’s incredible team.
