by Do you know which objective to choose for your LinkedIn ad campaigns? Wondering which objectives deliver the most cost-effective results?
In this article, you’ll discover how to use five LinkedIn ads objectives. Learn which objective will give you the results you’re after, find tips for getting the lowest cost per click or cheapest cost per conversion, and more.
LinkedIn Objective-Based Advertising
If you’re used to advertising on Facebook, you’ll notice that the LinkedIn objectives look very similar. LinkedIn wanted to give Facebook advertisers a similar experience on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn has had objectives for quite some time but they’ve essentially been checkboxes and bid types. Now the process is very defined. When you go to set up a LinkedIn ad and click Create Campaign, you’ll see lots of different objectives to choose from.
I’m going to concentrate on a few of the main ones because some blend together or are very similar. If you know you want to drive toward a website conversion, you may be able to get that website conversion cheaper using a different objective. Don’t worry, I’ll decode each objective to make sure you get the most from your LinkedIn ad spend.
To learn how to choose the right objective for your LinkedIn campaign, read the article below for an easy-to-follow walkthrough or watch this video:
Note: This article assumes you know how to properly set up a LinkedIn ad. Read this article for step-by-step instructions.
#1: Engagement Objective
The first LinkedIn campaign objective I want to cover is engagement. With this objective, you can pay by click or impression. I almost always recommend bidding by click because it’s the least risky.
The engagement objective will optimize toward any sort of action on your LinkedIn ad. That means a social action such as a like, comment, or share; a follow to your company page; a visit to your company page; and even a click to your call-to-action link.
Engagement is the lowest-cost LinkedIn objective and it’s the one to select if you want to get more company page followers along the way.
#2: Website Visits Objective
If your goal is to get people to your landing page so they can convert there, choose the website visits objective. Again, I almost always bid by click.
Pro Tip: As a little hack, you can bid by click for a video view, which can get you the cheapest video traffic possible through this LinkedIn objective as well.
#3: Video Views Objective
The video views objective obviously applies only to video creative, but it’s helpful to understand that by using this objective, you can bid by impression or view. A view on LinkedIn video ads is considered to be 2 seconds.
You can expect to pay around $0.06 to $0.14 per 2-second view on LinkedIn. This is obviously much more expensive than Facebook, but again, you’re reaching a very specific, hyper-targeted audience.
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I recommend using whichever bid type—cost per view or cost per impression—gets you the cheapest cost. But there’s another way to potentially optimize this: You can run video creative with the website visits objective and pay only by click.
Run all three side by side in separate LinkedIn campaigns so you can find out which one gets you the lowest cost per click or cheapest cost per conversion.
#4: Lead Generation Objective
If you want to use LinkedIn’s lead gen form ads, you have to select the lead generation objective. This will allow you to have a form directly within the ad itself so you can skip the landing page experience entirely.
You can use the lead generation objective on any type of sponsored content or sponsored messaging ad. You can pay by cost per click or cost per impression. Going with cost per click provides the least risk up front and you can always change it later.
For more information about creating lead gen form ads, check out this video.
#5: Website Conversions Objective
The last LinkedIn objective I want to cover is website conversions. It’s similar to website visits except LinkedIn is now starting to make decisions about who they want to show your ads to because they have some data about who tends to convert and who doesn’t. I’m certain that as time goes on and LinkedIn gets more data about their users, this will become increasingly useful.
The Best LinkedIn Ad Format and Objective Combo for Beginner Advertisers
Now let’s talk about the right ad format and objective to use when you’re just testing things out and want the least amount of risk.
My recommendation is to always start by paying by cost per click with LinkedIn ads. If you’re paying by impression and you have a bad ad that no one clicks on, you’ll keep spending money and not have anything to show for it. But if you’re bidding by click and you have a bad ad, you’ll only pay for the traffic that you get. A bad ad isn’t going to penalize you; you just didn’t spend any money.
The sponsored content ad format is by far the most versatile. Start with the single image version because static images are easy to create, change, and troubleshoot.
If you’re sending traffic to your website, go with the website visits objective. If you want to keep that traffic on LinkedIn and use LinkedIn’s lead gen forms, use the lead generation objective.
Conclusion
LinkedIn released objectives just like Facebook but which objective you choose for your campaign may not be as straightforward as you’d think. This article focuses on five of these objectives so you can make the most of your ad spend.
You might be wondering about the two objectives that I didn’t cover: brand awareness and job applicants. Brand awareness isn’t any different from engagement; LinkedIn just takes away the option to pay by click. And the job applicants objective is specific to recruiting.
What do you think? Which LinkedIn ad objectives do you typically use? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
More articles on LinkedIn ads:
- Discover how to target your ideal audience with LinkedIn advertising.
- Learn how to analyze your LinkedIn ad performance.
- Find out how to use LinkedIn Conversation Ads for better conversions.
