All You Need To Know About LinkedIn Ads With AJ Wilcox
In the Podcast:
00:46 – Intro
05:41 – Which Type Of Business LinkedIn Ads Are Perfect For
07:41 – Difference of LinkedIn Ads vs. Facebook Ads
11:14 – How to Distinguish Leads from Different Platforms
12:00 – What Types of Offers Works Best in LinkedIn Ads
16:14 – How is LinkedIn in terms for Retargeting
18:22 – Recommended Ad Types in LinkedIn
20:12 – Paying for Impressions
21:38 – Recommended Ad Format
27:12 – LinkedIn Ads Still Needs Catching Up
29:54 – Why LinkedIn Ads are Expensive
31:37 – What Type of Ad Copy Works
35:42 – Experimenting with Ad Copy and Addressing The Pain Points
38:28 – Ideal Audience Size
41:41 – Optimizing Ads in LinkedIn
43:24 – Elaborating Further With The Offers
AJ Wilcox and I discuss all about LinkedIn Ads. We discuss who the platform is best for, which ad placements are best and also which ad types convert the best. If you’ve thought about running LinkedIn ads, you definitely don’t want to miss this episode. AJ shares lots of nuggets of gold.
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Intro
Ilana:
Welcome back to another episode of Talking Web Marketing. Today, I have a very interesting episode and I interview a guy called AJ Wilcox. And if you’ve been in this space for a little while, you might have heard of AJ, because He is an expert in LinkedIn ads, he runs a dedicated LinkedIn ad agency called https://b2linked.com/. And that’s all they do. So I thought I had a specialized agency doing Google ads and Facebook ads. And that’s it, AJ is gone even more specialized, and he only does LinkedIn ads. So if you’ve thought about running LinkedIn ads, or if you’re currently running any LinkedIn ads, you definitely want to listen to this episode, because AJ is definitely an expert in it. And we talk about lots of nuggets of gold, which I’m sure you can apply to your existing campaigns, if you’ve got them running, or also apply to your new campaigns that you might be thinking of implementing. We talked about a ton of information. So don’t worry about making writing down notes and and jotting down the information, you can just download the show notes that we are going to prepare for you on our website, you can go to https://greenarrowdigital.com/, and find the episode on our website. And you can download the show notes there. So let’s not wait any longer. Let’s get stuck in today’s episode.
AJ:
Thanks so much a lot. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to be chatting with you today!
Ilana:
This really is for me, let me tell you, because I’ve been wanting to talk to someone about LinkedIn ads, and you by world renowned expert on LinkedIn ads, and the number one person to talk to you. So thank you for taking the time to come on our show. The thrill is mine to have you on. So you want to give us a quick background about you and what you do and how you got into this.
AJ:
Yeah, sure thing. So I’m a long time digital marketer, I mean, long time in our industry is 12 years. I started out as an SEO guy, I really liked search. And then I kind of stumbled onto business to business about seven years into my career. And on my very first day of a job as a digital marketing manager, I was talking to my CMO and laid out all my digital marketing strategy. And she was like, Okay, that sounds great. Go ahead and execute it. But just so you know, we just started a pilot with LinkedIn ads. So see what you can do. And I saluted and said, Yes, ma’am. But I walked out of her office and went, What is a LinkedIn ads, I’ve never I certainly didn’t want to look stupid to my new boss. So I jumped in. And I did my due diligence in the platform. And about two weeks later, I had a new sales rep come up to me, and who said, Hey, AJ, we don’t know what you’re doing over here. But we’re fighting over your leads, keep it up. And so I went and started doing my research trying to figure out what what leads is this guy talking about. And I found them, every single one of them was sourced from LinkedIn ads. And that was not the only channel I was running.
So that was like my first glimmer of, ooh, maybe there’s something more here that I should be paying attention to. Long story short, just kept investing, kept investing and growing that account until I grew it to become LinkedIn largest spending customer worldwide. And after running that account for about two and a half years, I actually ended up getting laid off. And so after getting laid off, I kind of went to my wife with three kids and one on the way. And I was like, I’m a breadwinner without any bread. No, what do we do? And she was like, I’d like you to go get another job. And so I I interviewed got four job offers. Yeah, we’re, we’re pretty religious people. And so we actually ended up praying about the opportunities and just felt prompted to like, turn them all down, which was kind of sad, because two of them for for way more money than I was making before. But, you know, then I started thinking like, well, I’ve got this skill around LinkedIn ads, and no one else in the world seems to be doing anything about this. Maybe that should be me. And so we prayed about that opportunity. And it was like, yeah, that’s what you’re supposed to be doing. So I call myself an accidental entrepreneur. I never thought I would be out on my own. But here I am, you know, four and a half years later, we started bt, LinkedIn. It’s an ad agency that literally, the only thing we do is LinkedIn ads.
Ilana:
Yeah. Interesting. I mean, that’s amazing, I guess, journey and specialty. And I guess I also kind of call myself, the accidental entrepreneur as well, where I also had zero intention of starting my own business, but the decision was made for me three different circumstances. But that’s okay. We all got there in the end, right?
AJ:
That’s right,
Which Type Of Business LinkedIn Ads Are Perfect For
Ilana:
and never, never looked back. So as somebody who also has a very specialized agency, like we only do Google ads, and Facebook ads, it’s interesting to talk to someone like you only does LinkedIn ads. And I can definitely see the merits in becoming a specialist in just one platform. Maybe the best place for us to start, because I’ve actually talked to lots of clients who’ve sort of had the idea of maybe LinkedIn ads could could be good for our business. Who do you think LinkedIn ads is perfect for? And who is it not perfect for?
AJ:
Perfect. So whenever I’m talking to someone, usually, these are people who are coming to seek me out because they want to do LinkedIn ads. And some of the very first questions I’m asking them is, you know, number one, who is your target audience, because the whole beauty behind LinkedIn ads is the targeting. And if they bring a targeting, that doesn’t make sense, it’s not an exact fit, then I know, kind of like one strike against them, like maybe this isn’t the right channel for them. The next thing is, they’ve got to have a pretty high lifetime value of a customer, or a large deal size. Because as many of you probably know, LinkedIn ads are just really expensive. Here in the US the average cost per click somewhere between about $6-$9, depending on an audience, and some people are paying more like 11 to 13. You know, if they’ve got really competitive audiences, so..
Ilana:
that’s not much compared to Google search.
AJ:
Oh, it’s true. But then on Google search, you’ve got this intent behind it, like someone sought you out because they’ve, they have a problem that you can solve. And so you can send them right to a contact page, or right to a buying page. But on LinkedIn, we’re trying to get their attention. And we don’t know where they’re at in the buying cycle. So the the deal sizes take longer to close. So I really do like search in conjunction with social, just because there’s some variety there and, and kind of a very different type of lead. But, but yeah, lower than, than a lot of search. But it’s also lower intent. So you know, there’s some gives and takes for sure.
Difference of LinkedIn Ads vs. Facebook Ads
Ilana:
So it’s kind of like Facebook ads, in that it’s some interruption type marketing, but without the cheaper cost per click.
AJ:
Exactly, Facebook is a much closer analogy to LinkedIn, it’s, it would be like Facebook, with a much better b2b targeting set. But with the cost being higher, the one advantage that LinkedIn does have is that when you’re on LinkedIn, you’re in the right mindset, you’re thinking about work. Whereas on Facebook, someone could easily be off to look at pictures of grandkids, or, you know, trying to play Farmville or something along those lines. But LinkedIn, there’s usually very few other purposes aside from just work.
Ilana:
Yes. It’s funny, because I have, obviously dabbled with trying to accommodate Facebook ads for b2b, you know, and sort of targeting people by job title, etc. And it’s not entirely accurate. For example, I was once trying to target people by the job title, CEO. And this is quite a large audience that fits into that sort of targeting criteria. And I could see these people that were engaging with the advice, like, who liking it. And so you sort of have a look at these people, we have a look at their profile, and like, they didn’t really look like CEO, like I can’t articulate it without kind of graphically showing you. And then I sort of look what’s going on here, Facebook, why? Why are you showing my ads to people like this? And then I look in their profile, it says, CEO of Love. So I would imagine at least that people’s LinkedIn profile job titles would be somewhat more accurate than Facebook.
AJ:
Yeah, so that’s absolutely correct. I mean, people will tend to kind of play around in the business section of Facebook, but on LinkedIn, you know, these are your colleagues. So you’re pretty straightforward about what your job title is, and what your experience look like. And so what we see is people are right now in business to business paying between about $1 to per click to be on Facebook, and the sales team is telling them, Hey, guys, the leads here aren’t that great. And that’s usually because the targeting isn’t amazing for b2b. And so if you’re paying one to $2, click on Facebook, or you’re paying six to nine on LinkedIn, but the LinkedIn quality of leads is, you know, at least three to 10 times higher than all of a sudden that makes sense to start exploring.
Ilana:
Yeah, hence, I guess, the need to look at the entire funnel, etc. To see the you know, I guess you can perhaps distinguish between the leads that you’re getting from LinkedIn and leads from Facebook to compare the quality because it is all about quality, not quantity, really.
AJ:
Yes. And that really is gold that you just brought up. Because if you are not tracking your leads all the way down the funnel, if you’re not tracking to at least like a cost per sales, qualified lead, you’re going to absolutely miss the whole value of of what LinkedIn provides. And, and I’m okay with that. I mean, if if the less sophisticated advertisers are looking at it going, ooh, our cost per lead was three times higher on LinkedIn, let’s shut it down. They’re staying out of my auctions. And I’m getting lower cost per click on my other clients. So please feel free. But if you are a sophisticated marketer, you want to to, you know, track all the way down the funnel and actually see what’s leading the business. Most of the time, LinkedIn starts looking really good, especially if you’ve got that large deal size, and the audience that’s that’s, you know, easily definable by who they are professionally.
How to Distinguish Leads from Different Platforms
Ilana:
Yes. What would you say is the simplest way for people to distinguish their leads from the different platforms? Do you create separate landing pages, or do you do more do it on the back end, tagging wise,
AJ:
We pretty much handle it, however, the client wants to handle it. But I really like going off of a single landing page, that way, we know that all traffic from all channels is going to the same place. And so that’s a standard that’s a, you know, something we can hold, hold a steady. And then all of our traffic we’re sending with custom UTM parameters, even unique to every single ad that we publish. So as long as their landing page is passing that information into the CRM, then we’ve got a really accurate method of tracking we can use.
What Types of Offers Works Best in LinkedIn Ads
Ilana:
Awesome. So as we both know, that perhaps others don’t so intimately know like you and I do that your ads are as good as your offer. So it is all about getting an offer that converts and therefore obviously putting in front of the right people, but no amount of good targeting. And no amount of amazing ad copy is going to work if your offer is not compelling to people. So given that, what do you say working on LinkedIn as in terms of an offer,
AJ:
Oh Ilana, you are speaking my language here. You preach sister. Yeah. So I mean, you couldn’t have said it better than than that. When a client brings us a bad offer. There’s only so much lipstick that we can put on that pig, there’s only so much performance that we can sway by just the message the the ad copy itself. But client brings us a great offer, we can do no wrong, we can put misspellings, we could you have not even put a call to action in there. And and even then it’s still going to perform really well. So you can cover a multitude of sins with a good offer, the best kinds of offers we found. So I like to picture this, this scale, in my mind of offers from least amount of friction to the most amount of friction. And those at the very least amount of friction would be like here, just come read this blog post we wrote or come look at this infographic. And we know that that provides a lot of goodwill to the, to the visitors. But on the other hand, you’re paying $6-$9 to send someone to something that has a an inherently weak call to action.
And so eventually, at some point, you’re gonna have to look at the metrics and say, ooh, we’re paying $1,000 per conversion here, maybe that’s not sustainable. And on the absolute opposite end of the spectrum, you have offers like talk to a sales rep, open up your wallet, for any reason, take a take a demo, we’re trial some software. And these are things that because LinkedIn is interrupted, they provide no inherent value to the prospect. And so there’s no reason for them to click on the ad. And so what happens then is just that one clicks your ads, and so LinkedIn just kind of shuts them off. So the goal then of your asset is to be somewhere in between somewhere in kind of the mid friction level, where you’re at least going to get an email address out of them for your money. But it’s also not so friction prone that people aren’t willing to do it. The types of content that we’ve seen work really well are things like, here’s a free checklist or a cheat sheet, a free guide had a webinar, a free in person event, a white paper webinar, things like that work really well.
Ilana:
Okay. And then obviously, on the webinar, the goal of the webinar is to move them to the next point. Do you think people that were in that frame of mind when they’re on LinkedIn, to watch a webinar? I mean, would it be something that what straight away or will register for a webinar at a later date?
AJ:
You know, I think it has to be register at a later date. And it doesn’t have to be like a certain amount of time in the future. What we found is, if we put up a webinar, if we put up ads for a webinar, that’s a month out, we’ll have a chunk of registrations right at the beginning, from people who are like, Ooh, this looks interesting. Let me get it on my calendar. And then we’ll have a nice lol, and then a chunk of registrations at the last minute right there at the end. And the reason why we want to run it for an entire month is because people on average, only login to LinkedIn, like one to four times a month. And so you know, make sure that you give them enough time, like give everyone a chance to see it. But yeah, that’s that’s the goal, get someone to register. If you have something that’s on demand, like, Hey, you registered, you can watch it right now, if you want, all of a sudden all of the urgency goes out the window, and your conversion rates go down. So as a annoying it is as it is because we have the technology to do these on demand webinars, I would say actually do an a webinar at a certain time. And, you know, put it on, don’t try to just let people watch it in their own time because they won’t do it.
How is LinkedIn in terms for Retargeting
Ilana:
Interesting. How is LinkedIn in terms of their retargeting so could you say, you know, social ad to register for the webinar? Let’s say in five days time, could you then re target to them saying hey, you know, we thought to the day.
AJ:
LinkedIn retargeting is not very good right now. So I don’t, I don’t think I would go that direction. And the limitations are pretty simple. It’s a cookie based type of retargeting, which means that your browser has to be able to accept a cookie, and you have to keep it in order to be in that audience. And we know that half of pretty much everyone who interacts with our ads is on an iOS device, like iPhone or iPad. And so immediately how our audience has gone, we also know that the cookies only live for about 90 days. So that’s a lot of money to invest into something that just evaporates after a quarter. So my recommendation then is go ahead and send the traffic from LinkedIn because it’s the best targeting in the world we can make sure exactly the right people are seeing it. But then rely on both your Google that the Google Display Network and Facebook custom audiences retargeting to then nurture those leads, and then you really could get that specific.
Ilana:
Interesting. I did not know that their retargeting was so bad. That’s really, I guess it’s an area that they will hopefully be developing because as somebody who does a lot of retargeting on Google and Facebook were huge amounts of ROI are captured like that would be serious, low hanging fruit for LinkedIn.
AJ:
Absolutely. And I think what it really comes down to is that retargeting is all about staying top of mind. And on a platform like LinkedIn, where people are logging in one to four times a month, there’s not much of an opportunity to actually stay top of mind with people. But across the entire GDN. Yes, please. And across all of Facebook and Instagram. Absolutely. I think the opportunities are simply better. So even if LinkedIn is retargeting was top shelf, amazing, I would probably still say, Yeah, I’d still rather augment it with both Google and Facebook.
Recommended Ad Types in LinkedIn
Ilana:
Cool. Okay, so we’ve talked about what would be a good offer. So something which we could definitely exchange some content for an email address, as you said, now that we’ve kind of identified what offer we’re going to show people, what are some of the different types of ad types that you would recommend for that type of offer? I know LinkedIn has a number of different ad types, some which you recommend is a, which you definitely don’t recommend to maybe touch on on that.
AJ:
Absolutely. So let’s start with what I recommend most of the time, there’s an ad format called sponsored content. And it shows up just right in your newsfeed. So think of it like a like a Facebook promoted post. And it has quite a few different flavors, they have video, they have carousel and just the single image. If I were you and you are just getting started, I would start out with single image because it’s the easiest to troubleshoot. And it’s the simplest just to understand. So if you can start out with your absolute core audience, the people who have the bleeding next that you have the the bandage to solve with the right offer. And the simplest message, I think you’re setting yourself up for a really solid test. And the sponsored content, you’ll expect to have a click through rate anywhere, probably in the range of about a half of a percent. It’s technically like point three 9% is average. But most of what our team launches lands anywhere between about a point eight and a 1.2%. So it’s really not that hard to outperform the average, there must be some bad advertisers out there. And you’ll probably end up paying 6$-$9 a click for that traffic. But it’s just a really happy medium. It’s LinkedIn most versatile ad format, and kind of middle of the road cost with a good deal of reach, that’s probably a great place to start.
Paying for Impressions and Recommended Sponsored Content
Ilana:
Okay. Do you pay for impression?
AJ:
You can choose to pay by the impression, I would recommend starting paying by the click though. The reason why is because LinkedIn auction isn’t that kind to the impression. So what I found is, as soon as you beat the click the sorry, the average click through rate of the network by two and a half to three times, that’s when it becomes cheaper to bid by the impression than it does by the click. So we will start out bidding cost per click. And as soon as we see a click through rate over like 1%, then we go cool. This is right for for bidding CPM, and getting a nice little discount on our effective CPC’s.
Ilana:
But I guess that’s a good strategy. Because if you been whatever is that range, the $6-$9 per click, can you get no clicks, then you know something’s wrong with either your offer or your copy.
AJ:
Exactly. Yes, the easiest way to troubleshoot something, it’s like you just go top to bottom, you look at am I getting impressions from the network? Cool. And then now am I getting enough clicks? And are those clicks? cost effective enough? Okay, cool. And then you start getting conversions. And then after you get conversions, then you start seeing, like marketing qualified leads get enough of those, you get down to sales qualified leads. So at any step of the way, if there’s an inefficiency, you can spot it just by you know, just watching that data aggregate.
Recommended Ad Format
Ilana
Interesting. Okay, so you recommend sponsored content? Is there any other type of ad format that you would recommend?
AJ:
Yeah, so I think the next one I recommend 95% of the time, sponsored content to start, there’s one that I recommend about 15% of the time called text ads. And it’s, it’s kind of not an exciting ad format, it’s really similar to Facebook’s right rail, it has a really, really low click through rate like point zero to 5% is the average, which is 2.5 clicks out of every 10,000 times that it has loaded. So very, very low. But the cool things that this ad unit has our number one, it’s LinkedIn, cheapest ad format, so you can pay all the way down to essentially $2 a click, most people are probably paying three to five. And it because it has a low click through rate, it’s just a lot of free branding.
So you know, very low risk, because it it doesn’t get clicked on a whole lot, and very low cost. And so you can essentially run these in support of your other ad format. So by the time people see your sponsored content, they go, Oh, yeah, I’ve heard of you guys before you must be legit. Then next, you’ve got sponsored in mail, I end up recommending this about 5% of the time, because it’s not like the others where you pay only when someone clicks. This is a you pay to send it to someone, and then you have no guarantee that they’ll open it or, you know, even see that they got it, let alone click on it. So LinkedIn will tell you this is a pretty inexpensive ad format, because you’re only paying like 35 to 85 cents to send it to someone. But if you look at just the averages, you’re going to have a 50% open rate, and then about a 3% click through rate. So you do that math, and it comes out to something like a $23 to $56 cost per click.So I end up that’s why I only recommend it about 5% of the time.
But here’s the redeeming factor. There are certain kinds of offers that this absolutely sleighs and crushes it with these are, I mean, basically anything that you would send in an email that sounded like a great opportunity, or sounds like a personal invitation, those kinds of things are going to perform really well here. So for instance, if you had an offer that was like, hey, because of who you are professionally, we want to invite you to have early access, or a sneak peek, or come to a VIP event. You know, we’re interested in you potentially for a job opportunity, those types of things that would feel very much like a personal invitation and email are going to be very well received, you’ll have higher than a 50% open rate, and then you’ll have a much higher than 3% click through rate. On the other hand, if it just looks like something that you might consider spam or promotional email, then people are going to ignore it. And ignoring your sponsored in mail is the worst thing that could happen because it’s you know, you already paid to send it to him. So it makes your your effective cost per click super high. And then finally, there’s an ad format called dynamic ads. I recommend this about zero percent of the time. And the reason why is…
Ilana:
Tell us what you really think (laughs)
AJ:
I’m trying not to pull punches here (laughs). Dynamic are more expensive than sponsored content. But they’re they have low click through rates, like text ads. So they’re really the worst kind of combination. And I can’t find a good a good use case for these ad formats. So I try to stay as far away from them as possible.
Ilana:
Interesting. So as a LinkedIn ad agency, by the sounds of it, you do a combination majority during the sponsored content, and then perhaps some text ads on the right rail, is that right?
AJ:
Yep, that’s right. And then if any of them have a really special offer, like, you know, just kind of a personal invitation kind of offer. Then we’ll throw in sponsored in mail, we actually run the largest sponsored in mail account in the world, because we have a client who it just works really, really well for them with their offer. But yeah, for the most part, I would say start with sponsored content. Don’t go fancy with carousel or video just stick to the the static, you know, single image and then branch out from there.
Ilana:
Interesting. Let’s say you did do a video ad in the sponsored content. Is it like Facebook, where you can create a custom audience of the people who’ve watched a portion of the video?
AJ:
Oh, not yet. I don’t recommend video to almost anyone right now. And the reason why is because especially when you compare it with Facebook, the the the floor, it’s where the bidding starts on LinkedIn video is six cents per to second view. And so most people are paying one to two cents per three second view on Facebook. So immediately, it’s like 3 to 10 times more expensive. And because they’re retargeting isn’t event based yet, it means that once you pay for that traffic, you can do literally nothing with it. But I say give it another quarter to I know, this is something LinkedIn is working on, we will be able to create custom audiences and say, once someone has watched 50% of this video, then show them the next one. But until then we can’t do anything with it. So I don’t recommend it yet.
Ilana:
Sounds like LinkedIn is sort of got a lot of catching up to do in terms of the other ad platforms.
AJ:
Yeah, yeah, it’s, uh….
LinkedIn Ads Still Needs To Catch Up With Other Ad Platforms
Ilana
Obviously, there’s a business case for it for some individuals. But in terms of the flexibility and the power of it in other platforms they’ve got, yeah…Don’t you think?
AJ:
And I think they’ll be the first ones to admit that I remember when I first started playing with LinkedIn ads, I was looking at it and I, they have just a handful of engineers, and, you know, LinkedIn, still, to this day make 60% of their revenue from selling recruiter licenses. And so ads have always been like the red headed stepchild of their network. And so they haven’t paid attention to it. But what I’ve seen over, especially the last several years is, you know, what used to be, you know, six years ago, when they said, we’re going to have a new version of the platform, it came out two years later. Now they’re coming out with new versions of the platform every, like six months. So I know they have a lot more firepower, I know, they’re putting a lot more more engineering resources and speed into it. So I’m really excited to see this this breakneck speed. But you’re absolutely right there, they’re far behind the technology of Facebook. The cool part about that, though, is that they have a guide to follow, they get to see what Facebook has done well, and then they will follow up and create that there’s no reason for them to create a whole bunch of other pilots of things and test their way and into, you know, put, you know, potentially great, great tools, they can just copy Facebook and go faster.
Ilana:
Totally, I can totally see this becoming a massive, massive ad platform with a business case for so many people. I mean, as you say they’re targeting is second to none, I think you said, I listened to your one of your talks, AJ, before we recorded today that LinkedIn is the second person to find out about your changing job title after your wife or so. I might be butchering. And I’m sorry, but it’s very true. And so therefore, you know, it’s some, it’s very, I can totally see an application for this, hopefully, LinkedIn kind of can offer some of the capabilities that the other ad platforms can and then I think it’s going to be an absolutely based in the platform.
AJ:
I totally agree with that. I see, you know, people on Facebook, the four to 8% of people who even bother to fill in their professional information on the profile, they might switch jobs, and then forget to update that for six months. But LinkedIn, really we do, you know, update it very quickly. It’s a reflection of our personal self. And I, unless you went from working at a fortune 500 to, you know, delivering Domino’s Pizza. You might not be super proud of that advancement. But I think the majority of our job advancements we’re really proud of, and we want to show it off.
Why LinkedIn Ads are Expensive
Ilana:
Exactly. Why do you think it is so expensive, then if it’s not that many advertisers?
AJ:
Well, I think the cost has always been high from LinkedIn, they started you know, whereas both Google and Facebook started their costs all the way, like way, way, way down. And what that meant was, every single person who came to the platform and tested it out, had a ton of success and went and told their friends. So there was this very grassroots growth among basically every other big network. But LinkedIn started from the beginning and said, Hey, we don’t want anyone ever to pay less than $2 per click, because then we’d have all the belly fat ads and the high low quality advertisers. And, you know, I, honestly, I think it was a mistake, I wish they would have started with the floor like everyone else, and just let competition kind of run its course.
But I think what is the most interesting side of this equation is that both Facebook and Google costs are increasing exponentially. Maybe not Google, but but Facebook, certainly. I mean, we’re seeing like, there were a couple quarters where it was like, triple digit percentage, every question, growth in CPM. And I have been telling people for the last three years that the average cost per click on LinkedIn is between six and $9. So what has happened, I think, is that more and more people are seeing the value of LinkedIn. So they’re coming and spending time on it. And thus creating new ad inventory, keeping prices low, so that when new advertisers come in, and you know, start to inflate the price, it doesn’t inflate too much. So we see the prices holding somewhat steady. Whereas on the other networks, they’re, you know, screaming high. Interesting.
What Type of Ad Copy Works
Ilana:
I have a question about. So in doing the sponsored content type of ad, I know on Facebook, and I keep comparing it because it’s a similar kind of advertising. I’ve done a lot of long copy ad, and I made like, really long copy, like 500 words, and I find it’s very story based, long copy ads work really well on Facebook. Have you done that kind of ad on on LinkedIn with long copy and story based? Do you find that works? Or is it really sort of short, punchy kind of ad copy that works?
AJ:
Oh, I love this question. So back in the day, and this is what I say back in the day, it’s like six months ago.
Ilana:
It is a long time (laughs).
AJ:
Exactly (laughs). Back about that long, there was an issue where if you went longer than 150 characters on your ad, there’d be a little like truncation and then a link that says see more. And what would happen is when someone was trying to read your long copy ad, they would click Seymour and LinkedIn would go, oh, cool, someone clicked and then they would charge you. So people were getting paid, like getting charged six to $9 a click just for someone to view the rest of their ad. And they weren’t even on their landing page yet. So yeah, thank goodness, this has since been rectified. But so back before then, I said you avoid See more at all costs like avoid like the plague like strep throat, like an STD stay away.
But now that’s been fixed, we we have quite a bit more freedom. However, even though we’re testing some longer versions of copy, we’ve only found one case where the long copy outperformed. And pretty much every case, what we’ve decided is that when you’re on LinkedIn, you’ve you’ve probably got something that you’re trying to do, there’s usually some objective. And so you don’t have time to just kind of sift through ads, and kind of explore like you might do on Facebook. So what we have found is even if LinkedIn gives you 150 characters before it truncate, we try to use less than that we get, you know, right to the are you experiencing this problem? Here’s the call to action. And if it’s, you know, hundred and 30 characters or less great. The more simply the more straightforward. You say it on LinkedIn, the more attention you’re going to get.
Ilana:
Interesting so story based ads is it’s not the right platform for it.
AJ:
Yeah, but certainly still test because like I said, we have had that one edge case where the long version is absolutely slang it. But for the majority of tests, yeah, keep it short.
Ilana:
Interesting. Is it like Facebook, where if somebody shares, you can you can people sharing that?
AJ:
They can, yeah, they can like comment and share an ad. And it works the same way it does organically where if you like, comment or share, it then opens that same ad up to be seen by other people in your network. And so there is a little bit of a viral kind of approach there where you know, the very first click, they do cost you money, but everyone else in their network who sees it, those are all free viral clicks.
Ilana:
That’s where I was going with that. So therefore, trying to keep trying trying to create engaging ads that compel people to comment and share is, is one kind of strategy to get some free impressions.
AJ:
Yeah, and I think the real value behind LinkedIn is the targeting. And so most people who come to the platform are like, yeah, there’s a, a very specific type of professional I’m trying to reach. And if I’m just relying on on organic reach, I’m probably not going to hit that person. So I want to use ads and make sure it’s getting right to them. But imagine if you’re targeting someone who might be fairly broad like, like, if you’re targeting someone in human resources, chances are people in human resources are also connected to a lot of other people in human resources. And so that viral kind of boost that you could get could still get you in front of more other similar audiences. So may or may not be worth trying to elicit a comment there to try to get people to share it. Because I think most people aren’t really thinking that they, they want to be sharing an ad. But maybe if your offer is really good, maybe they want to share it with their friends and network.
Experimenting with Ad Copy and Addressing The Pain Points
Ilana:
Do you ever experiment with ad copy, sort of calling out your target audience? So going on the example of human resource people like just leading with, you know, attention, human resource professionals define that? Do you have experimented with that?
AJ:
Yeah, we especially used to experiment that with that back like, like, six, seven years ago. And the reason why is because it works especially well, with text ads, because they have such a low engagement rate to start out with, we were just doing anything to just like get these things to get any attention to give us some sort of volume. With sponsored content, we have done quite a bit of testing there. And we find that sometimes it’s effective, sometimes it’s not.
But what is effective, the majority of the time is playing off of their motivations. So for instance, rather than calling out to them and specifically saying, hey, HR professionals, if you’re saying something like, are you losing a lot of employees to two companies with better salary, you know, here, check out our guide on how to how to retain talent, how to put together better, better compensation packages, to keep your employees and retain them longer. You know, something like that tends to get their their attention a little bit better. But certainly, it’s worth testing, because the targeting is good.
Ilana:
So really cool. Yep, the pain point rather than their profession?
AJ:
Yes, the pain point is by far the best way we found and you don’t have to frame it negatively, like are you struggling with Does this hurt, you can certainly make it more of like the the aspirational, like, hey, if you fix this, you’re going to be the hero you’ll be you’ll be a super hero of your company. But yeah, make sure you hit on something that really would be a pain point that they would like to solve.
Ilana:
Maybe you want to get better results from the LinkedIn ads.
AJ:
You know, what’s really funny, as I tried advertising, it’s probably been like three years now. And, and I was just like, we already got enough leads where I went, I don’t want to pay for more leads. And, and and and so so we have really I mean, we advertised for like, a quarter. And then ever since we have and so we’re the epitome of not eating your own dog food.
Ilana:
Well, you know what? I don’t do ads for my business. There you go. (laughs)
AJ:
Yes, yes, we could be friends! (laughs)
Ilana:
Yeah, exactly. Well, I guess like you, I’m in the fortunate position where people come to me, which is a very, very good problem to have. And I’m very grateful for that. So it helps obviously, you know, speaking in events, and having a podcast and all that kind of stuff and provide content marketing. Really?
AJ:
Yeah, personal branding, everyone, it’s totally worth investing in!
Ideal Audience Size
Ilana:
Okay, so that has been really helpful. Can I ask you a quick question about the ideal audience size? So I know in Facebook, for example, we go back to that, you know, you choose certain targeting and have a look at the size of the audience. Is there an ideal audience size for LinkedIn.
AJ:
So LinkedIn will tell you the ideal audience size is at least 300,000 people. But for me, audience size is not just about, like, Can I put something together that will spend money to audience size is about having different segments of my population to compare. And what I mean by that is, if I’m just targeting, let’s say, people in marketing with a seniority of manager, and above, that would be really easy to put together one campaign, and just throw a bunch of cash at it and see what happens. But ultimately, when the results come back, even if they were really good, or maybe they’re just really poor, there’s nothing actionable I can do with that. So I’m just kind of stuck with, you know, I have to accept whatever the performance is.
However, if I break that into four separate campaigns, and I have marketing managers, marketing, directors, marketing, VP, and CMOS, even if I put exactly the same two ads, I’m running the same AB test, inside of all four of them, what I’m going to find are slight differences, where, oh, wow, CMOS click all the time, but maybe they don’t convert as much, or maybe they’re really hard for the sales team to get on the phone. So our cost per sale, qualified lead becomes really high for them. And maybe marketing managers don’t click as much, but they convert higher and they’re easier to get on the phone. So maybe we we cater more to the managers, if we need that lower Cpl.
Or maybe we know that CMOS have a very specific type of pain point. And we want to show them something very different than what we’re showing to managers. So because of that, I really like to break up my audiences into what I call micro segments. And I like to keep these somewhere between about 20,000 to 80,000. We do have some clients that we’re running campaigns for that are, you know, all the way down to like 300 people is the minimum. But you know, if you want something that’s really sustainable, something that is throwing off data, you probably want to have 20,000, 80,000, if I ever had an audience that had 300,000 in it, like LinkedIn recommends, I’d look at that and say, Man, I know, I could, you know, break that up at least three different ways, and actually have data that meant something afterwards.
Ilana:
It sounds like you structure your campaigns kind of like how I do with structure is critical to I guess the ongoing management part of it in terms of identifying what’s working and optimizing, etc. Would you agree with that?
AJ:
Oh, a lot. I knew I knew I liked you. Yes, absolutely. We are mere religious about the way that we structure our campaigns. And for that exact reason, you will find some segments that cost per click is higher, or conversion rate is lower, or lead quality is lower. And all of those things are potential levers that you can switches that you can flip up and down to optimize. And so yeah, absolutely break out everything. Name it in a way that gives you ultimate control.
Optimizing Ads in LinkedIn
Ilana:
Yeah, I am meticulous with structure, people think I’m crazy. But I find it’s the only way to have a very, very clear vision of what’s working and equally important, what’s not working. It kind of leads me to my next question, which is kind of one of my last questions is in that optimization part ads? Does LinkedIn provide you with the level of data that you need to optimize? Or I guess, what’s involved in optimizing your campaign?
AJ:
Yeah, I think LinkedIn probably gives you what you need all the way down to the conversion, if you have conversion tracking setup, but as you know, with business to business, you know, tracking only to the initial form fill is just a very small part of that journey and story. So I think what you have to do as a sophisticated b2b advertiser is you have to track deeper down in the funnel. So LinkedIn will tell you here’s what, here’s what your click through rate was, so you know how interesting your ads are. And then here’s what your conversion rate is. So you know how interesting your offer was to that audience. But past that, you miss everything, like lead quality, and like how profitable they are, and how big the deal sizes are. So and I think it’s the same way, if you’re running both Facebook and Google, they’ll tell you everything down to the converter down to like the initial form fell, but very little past that. So definitely make sure that you as a b2b marketer, you’re learning how to work with your CRM team, your sales team and your technology.
Ilana:
Yeah. Interesting. Wow, AJ, you’ve been a wealth of knowledge. I think we’ve pretty much covered a lot of the basics that I wanted to talk about. Is there something that we haven’t talked about that you think is important?
Elaborating Further With The Offers
AJ:
Well, I would love if you don’t mind spending a few more minutes on the offer. Because we know that by far, the important the offer is the most important part of any LinkedIn ads campaign. I get asked by people all the time when when they come to us, and they say we want to run LinkedIn ads, and I go, okay, what’s your offer, and they say, talk to our sales rep.
And I’ll tell them that that just won’t work. People won’t click on that. So you’ve got to have something else, you’ve got to provide value. So inevitably, the next questions are, what type of content should I create? And what should it be about? So I think my favorite way to go about this is to go and interview your sales team, or whoever is talking to your potential clients or your clients all day long. Because they’re going to have like a very short list of frequently asked questions that are everyone asked about this, everyone’s curious about this, these are the things that keep all of your clients up at night or your potential clients.
And so if you can come out with a piece of content that either solves that problem, or satisfies a major curiosity for them, they will, they will absolutely give you their personal information in order to figure out how to solve that problem. So start by interviewing them get a piece of content that ideally does, it either solves the pain point or satisfies the curiosity, and it leads people into, you know, you could do this yourself. But if you buy our product, or subscribe to our service, it’s so much easier. That kind of that kind of setup is just, you know, the absolute ideal for LinkedIn.
Ilana:
Interesting, that’s very, very good information. And I’m sure is applicable to so many different types of businesses. And I mean, that’s so many businesses don’t realize that your offer is like, the success with any kind of online ads just hinges on what you’re showing people. So anything that you could solve burning questions for your prospects is going to be very, what’s the word, you know, just compelling for people?
AJ:
Exactly. And I’ll add on to that, we get asked like, what’s the best type of offer, like what converts the best on LinkedIn. And what we have found almost without exception is that if you solve that pain point for people, whether it’s a one page checklist, or a 48 page ebook, or a 60 Minute Webinar, they’re all going to have about the same conversion rate.
What that tells you is it’s not necessarily the type of content that people are willing to interact with, it’s, they will interact with whatever type of content they need to solve their problem. So try to make it look, the least amount of friction possible, like a a checklist, or a cheat sheet is probably going to have a slightly higher conversion rate than say something called a white paper.
And a guide is probably going to have a slightly better conversion rate than something you might call an E book. But regardless, it’s the title that sells and it’s the promise of here’s what you’re ready to get out of this, that creates your conversion rate.
Ilana:
You’re speaking my language, I say the same thing with Facebook, where ideally, I think it’s going to solve a problem for someone, even if it’s just one problem, but it’s gonna solve one problem, it’s going to move the needle for them in some respect. And I think ideally, they can consume it in three minutes, as opposed to three hours like a white paper, I don’t know, who’s got time to read a white paper. I don’t.
AJ:
Oh, yeah. I mean, for me, I’m just I’m not a reader. So if you give me something that’s a podcast, or an audio snippet, or a video I can listen to in the background than I’m more likely to, to consume it. But I’m sure there are other people who would prefer to hurried, who, you know, you’ll probably end up it probably won’t be the same exact people converting, but you’ll have about the same conversion rates. But it’s certainly interesting. I mean, that if you can create it if you came out with a report. And it’s just as easy for you to create a one page checklist, and a, you know, a four page guide out of it, try creating both and just see which one performs better for you.
Ilana:
You might find that, as you say, like, you know, you consume audio, or video, and some people like to read, there’s different modes of consumption of content that maybe provide those three different types of the same content, catering for the different ways that people consume content might be interesting as well to experiment with.
AJ:
I think that’s brilliant. And then also, there’s a big wasted piece of real estate that that so many people have, and it is your thank you pages.
Ilana :
Yes, yes.
AJ:
And you know, where I’m going with this. If, if you have like an Ajax pop up that as soon as someone fills out the form, it just says, great, we’ll be getting back to you soon. Not only are you making it harder to troubleshoot your conversion tracking and things because there’s not a separate URL, you got to get a developer involved. But you’re also anytime that you have a thank you page, you can say thanks.
Here’s your piece of content. Oh, by the way, if if this is the problem you’re solving, you can click here to talk to a sales rep right now. Or here’s this other content that you might also be interested in. And it’s just someone has already said Yes, thank you. Keep giving them whatever they’re asking for. Don’t let them cool down.
Ilana:
I couldn’t agree with you more. And I actually do this on my side. I think it’s when they download one of the free pieces of content on the thank you page, I say, you know, here’s a webinar we recently ran just click here and you can watch it. So I call that like a yes, it you know, if somebody is already in the frame of mind of saying Yes, they’re more likely to keep saying yes, I think that’s what it’s called. You may as well give them all your free content, while they’re at it, like why I don’t need to wait there there in the frame of my frame of mind of consuming that content, you may as well keep going and give it giving them what they want.
AJ:
Exactly. And plus, the more of your content that they are that they have had impressed upon them. And they’ve consumed by the time someone reaches out, the more heavily you’re going to be branded. I mean, this is the big problem we see on both Facebook and LinkedIn with with the lead forms, or what LinkedIn calls lead gen forms.
If someone decided to convert after only reading, like 150 characters of text, they’re not as high quality of lead. And so when they come through, sometimes they forget that they even fill out your form. So yeah, the more impression you can get on them of your brand, especially from your other content. your sales team is just going to love you for that title. They
Ilana:
Alrighty, AJ, we have covered so much content. Wow, this has been an educational experience for me. So thank you so much for coming on today’s show. Where can people find find out more information about you and the services that you offer?
AJ:
Well, a huge thank you. To you Ilana, it’s been so much fun having the conversation. It was super fun getting to hang out with you in San Diego a few months ago. Yeah, so for contacting me, it’s really easy. If you go to our website, https://b2linked.com/, the letter B, the number two and then the word “linked.com”. If you fill out that contact form on any of the pages, you will not go to a sales rep and you will not be put into my marketing automation workflow. You come directly to my inbox, and I’m not a sales guy. So feel free to reach out ask any question and I’m more than happy to help
Ilana:
you out. Awesome. Thank you so much, AJ, I know it’s getting late where you are in the world. So we’ll wrap it up here. Thank you again and don’t be a stranger will love to have you back.
AJ:
Wonderful. Invite me back anytime Ilana Wechsler, ladies and gentlemen. (laughs)
