6 Targeting Methods To Reach Your Business Audience Via LinkedIn

Most B2B marketers have a list of potential buyers at specific companies that they would like to reach. It can be very difficult to selectively target this audience via PPC Search ads or banner campaigns. Even behavioral targeting has its limitations. Your next move… LinkedIn Ads:  https://www.linkedin.com/ads/ LinkedIn Ads is an offering from the popular […]

Chat with SearchBot

Most B2B marketers have a list of potential buyers at specific companies that they would like to reach. It can be very difficult to selectively target this audience via PPC Search ads or banner campaigns. Even behavioral targeting has its limitations.

Your next move… LinkedIn Ads:  https://www.linkedin.com/ads/

LinkedIn Ads is an offering from the popular professional networking site that provides many targeting options and cost-effective innovative ways to reach your audience.

Campaigns can be created to target a specific message, product, general brand, promote a web conference or anything you want to make sure your audience is aware of.

Here’s a look at how you can use specific targeting options to make your LinkedIn Ads campaign work for you.

LinkedIn Ads Example

Step 1: Create Your Ad

This process is similar to other ad networks we all use to promote brands, products and offerings. Make sure the messaging in line with what you want your audience to do…buy a product, sign up for a conference, add a new service offering or just plain remember your brand. Don’t forget to include your company’s logo. Brand awareness is key and helpful.

As you can see in the image above, ads can be simple text or include an image. The headline allows for 25 characters and the body text can span two lines with a total of 75 characters.

Step 2: Determine Audience Targeting

This is where the real value of LinkedIn Ads is… very granular audience targeting! Here is a summary of the six main ways B2B marketers can target business buyers.

Geo-Targeting

Pick your continent, pick your country, pick your state, region, pick your metro. You can target your audience right down to their exact location. While this is similar to many ad networks just wait and see what else you can do…

Industry Targeting

Targets can be selected based on the industry they serve. You can reach those in agriculture, arts, construction, education, government — to list a few.

There are even more specific categories within those broad industry categories. Be mindful that you can only select up to 10 industries. If you need to reach more industries, I recommend that you create separate campaigns. This approach also allows you to offer more relevant ads.

Company Targeting

You can select your audience based on the company they work for (or have worked). Do you have a list of leads that you want to notify about your latest product offering or conference? Create a campaign and remind them they need to sign up or update their product.

Selecting companies by their size is also available so if you need to reach small business you can opt-out of companies that may be too big for your offering.

Role/Title Targeting

Only need marketing managers? Skip the C Level and go straight to the Marketing department. Know the exact job function you want to reach? Simply enter the specific job titles.

Targeting the right people has never been easier. This feature is great if, for example, you are trying to increase registrations for a conference that would be helpful to Fortune 500 Marketing teams.

Group Targeting

Are you trying to reach a certain group of people not necessarily based on their company or job function, but rather groups they are members of …yeah you can do that too. For instance, B2B marketers may want to reach members of organizations relevant to a certain industry.

One example: targeting a CPA group because your business offers software for financial auditing.

Demographic Targeting

Finally, do you only want to find women or individuals in their 30’s…you can reach them through LinkedIn’s targeting offerings.  All you have to do is opt in.

Step 3:  Optional ReTargeting

You can keep your ads running outside of the LinkedIn platform by opting in to the LinkedIn Network which allows you to follow that Marketing Manager that you are targeting if they visit any site in the Network. This option is similar to PPC search retargeting – across various content/display networks.

Target Your Business Buyer

For B2B Marketers reaching your exact audience has never been easier. Setting-up a LinkedIn Ads campaign is at your fingertips. And remember, this isn’t about driving the biggest click-thru-rate this is about reminding prospects of your business, product, or upcoming conference. This is about awareness.

If I remember anything from my advertising studies at Penn State its frequency, frequency, frequency…and LinkedIn Ads offers this in an affordable, highly-targeted format.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Kate Powell
Contributor
Kate Powell is a PPC Specialist

Get the must-read newsletter for search marketers.