How does it work?  
In the previous post, I have briefly talked about LinkedIn direct ads and what it does. Since then, few have asked me how to set up and run the ads. Below, I have created step-by-step guide to create your first LinkedIn direct ads which will take you less than 10 minutes to create. However, it takes up to one business day since LinkedIn reviews the content.

 
 

 
 
What did we do?  
So during our thought leadership campaign, we have decided to place couple banner ads on LinkedIn to generate leads. Since there wasn’t LinkedIn best practices nor white paper, we decided to keep the marketing budget at the minimum (LinkedIn requires you to deposit at least $50)
After we witnessed a miserable outcome with the first ad, which I had discussed in the previous post, we decided to create three different banner ads to see which one works the best. All three ads had similar message and the same destination.
 
 
Who did we target?

Targeted to anyone who works for a company with number of employees from 1001 – 10001+
Jon Function : Creative – Marketing
Seniority: Vice President, Director, Chief X Officer, Manager

 
 
What is the result?  

 

#3 even with the disappointing low CTR, it was a clear winner in this study.
Looks like pirate is always a good choice.

Out of 24 visitors, none of them have filled the contact form, which where we consider the conversion happens.

Out of 24 visitors, only 5 people decided to navigate the website. Bounce rate was at 79%.

What does this all mean?  
I still believe the conversion is the most important metric we are measuring. Number of clicks does not mean much if no conversion happen. In the B2B industry like we are in, it only takes one conversion to make up for the entire campaign. Before I start tweaking the ads and worry about the placement of the ad, I believe we should spend more time tweaking the landing page and our website and see if we are ready to convert a visitor to a qualified lead.
 
 
LinkedIn Direct Ads – CPC is at $2 minimum and CPM is at $3 minimum. What does this mean? With quick calculation, it tells us that you should not go with the CPM model unless your banner can constantly achieve CTR at 0.15%.
Let’s say you spend $12 on CPM model and achieved CTR at 0.15%. This means that your ad was shown 4000 times and generated 6 clicks.
This is equal to 6 clicks with CPC at $2 = $12. Pretty simple huh?
Of course, this study disregard the value of impression and the sole focus of the study was based on the number of clicks the ads generated.