LinkedIn launched Conversational Ads in early 2020 and it has fast become one of the best marketing tools out there. LinkedIn offers an immense B2B demographic since it is a professional platform. Additionally, it gives you the ability to target users based on a variety of factors, such as their job titles, company, industry, etc. You can easily boost your lead generation and conversion by leveraging them.
What are LinkedIn Conversational Ads?
This “choose your own path” experience can help you gain a better understanding of your audience base and boost engagement. These ads are a type of sponsored ads that show up in the DM box (user's inbox). Though the message has the “Sponsored” tag, it shows up as an organic message similar to LinkedIn InMail (a feature for premium LinkedIn subscribers). The difference between InMail and LinkedIn Conversational Ads is that the latter is entirely automated. The list of possibilities of what you can achieve is limitless. Read More: 11 Must Read B2B Marketing Books For Every Digital Marketer
Here are 5 LinkedIn Conversational Ads Tips to Improve Your Success Rate:
1. Understand your customer's journey
It is imperative to understand a customer journey on any marketing platform. Why? Because it helps when you plan a strategic approach to your content. You need to create content based on where your customer is in the sales funnel. Therefore, you must understand the funnel and the steps it takes to get there. Hence, you need to know a customer’s journey before they make a purchase from you.
Knowing your customers' journey enables you to create content that will connect with them and convert them. Additionally, try to give them all the information so they can make quick decisions. Moreover, your LinkedIn Conversational Ads should be conversational. Since you can automate the entire process, you need to predict your audience's questions. Plus, you can roleplay out the conversation with another person to identify areas of improvement. Read More: 10 Astonishing Examples of Marketing Storytelling Done Right
2. Structure your campaigns around your customer journey
The true question is: how do you structure your campaign around your customer journey? LinkedIn Conversational Ads is a marketing tool. Therefore, you treat it as such. So, your first step will be to define your target audiences. And the second is to state an objective. The objective will help you structure your ad around your customer in their customer journey. On LinkedIn, you can create sales funnels in Conversational Ads. This allows you to structure your ads with multiple CTA, sign-ups for newsletters and webinars, etc.
LinkedIn offers several response options so you can increase your engagement. It is also worth noting that you cannot run Conversational Ads alongside other ads in a campaign, therefore, structure your campaigns separately, and run multiple campaigns. Read More: 5 Simple Steps: Create Content Strategy Plan From Your Buyer’s Journey
3. Build your LinkedIn Conversational Ads
You start the process by opening “Campaign Manager” and creating a new LinkedIn campaign. Choose between three objective options when you create an ad:
Awareness (brand awareness, etc.)
Consideration (traffic, engagement, views, etc.)
Conversion (lead generation, website conversions, etc.)
You can only use LinkedIn Conversational Ads for Website Visits and Lead Generation currently. These options represent the stage of the sales funnel your customer is in. Your objective option will determine your content, demographic, and ad. After this, you can select your location and other attributes such as age, title, industry, etc. Select “conversation ad” as your format. You can create your ad by entering basic ad information, such as duration, ad bids, and attribution. Define how you want to track the ad and you can move on to create the actual ad.
As always, write a catchy hook, attention-grabbing content, and end with a CTA. Here are a few elements you should include in your LinkedIn Conversational Ads:
Do not make it too formal. Remember, it is a conversation, even if it is an automated process
Ask questions to start the flow of information
Lead generation forms
4. Add a CTA to guide your audience
With LinkedIn Conversational Ads, you have several features that you can use to convert your customers. A few include:
Dynamically insert name and company
Select a “sender” to appeal to different demographics
Custom footer
Reports on engagement and interaction to boost understanding of the customer
Adding multiple CTAs
It is very important to add CTAs to your ads. The call-to-action button prompts your audience to take action from your ad. It acts as a guide, allowing you to influence your customers to take a certain action. The CTA you use will depend on your campaign objective.
Here are a few numbers to get you to add CTA in your ads:
5. Analyze your LinkedIn Conversational Ads metrics.
Many elements in Conversational Ads can affect the performance of the ad. Hence, record and examine your metrics to gain an undertaking of:
What drives your customer?
Customer behavior
Elements that perform well
How to optimize your ads to boost leads
Analyzing your metrics helps you better understand the performance of your ads and how they are achieved. With this understanding, you can create better ads in the future. Past data is crucial for developing marketing strategies.
Conclusion
The Conversational Ad acts like a chatbot, wherein you can map out the flow of a conversation and provide information depending on the customer's inquiry. It is crucial to build your conversation flow carefully, with logic, to get the desired action. It is dynamic and interactive, making it a great marketing tool.