Enhance Your Brand’s Reach on LinkedIn: Exploring Top Ad Formats in 2024
LinkedIn continues to be the social media platform of choice among B2B marketers and for good reason. The platform consistently rolls out fresh, dynamic advertising formats that have the potential to expand reach and drive results.
In the first half of 2024, LinkedIn introduced many updates to its ad offerings, including new formats, channels, and creator tools, that impact how brands should structure their ads on the platform. Here are the top three updates that should be incorporated into every B2B marketing strategy in 2024:
Connected TV Ads
Best For Amplifying Video Content
Apart from the LinkedIn Display Network, LinkedIn advertising has historically remained on-platform. That changed earlier this year when they rolled out LinkedIn CTV ads, allowing advertisers to promote video ads to a network of publishers including Paramount, Roku, and Samsung.
With around 90% of US households using Connected TV, this ad format represents a significant new channel to engage decision-makers and amplify the reach of an awareness campaign.
Why Consider CTV Ads: CTV is growing in prevalence but can be intimidating to advertise on. LinkedIn’s integration provides a lower barrier to entry for marketers to test this channel as part of their overall marketing strategy.
How To Get Started: When creating an Awareness campaign within Campaign Manager, a new option called “Connected TV Only Campaign” will appear. This will give you access to LinkedIn’s publisher network. You’ll need to ensure your video meets LinkedIn’s CTV specifications. Note: Targeting is currently limited to the US and Canada.
Thought Leader Ads
Best For Promoting Customer Testimonials
Thought leadership continues to be an essential part of B2B marketing strategy, with 90% of decision-makers saying they are more receptive to outreach from a company that consistently produces high-quality thought leadership content.
Starting in March, marketers can now leverage thought leadership content on LinkedIn from experts outside of their company within their campaigns. With the release of this ad format, businesses can request permission to promote posts from any LinkedIn member about topics they want to expose their audience to. Previously, businesses could only promote posts that were shared on the company page or authored by a current employee.
Once shared, these ads will display the thought leader’s name with Partnership with [Company Name] next to the normal Promoted text. Because the ads come from individual creators, rather than a company page, they look more like native in-feed LinkedIn content and have the potential to receive higher engagement.
Why Consider Thought Leader Ads: This new ad format gives advertisers a way to expose their target audience to meaningful content, like industry news or customer testimonials, in a way that appears more genuine than sponsored company content. This also allows businesses to increase collaboration with industry experts and showcase diverse voices.
How To Get Started: When creating a campaign with the Awareness objective, advertisers will be given the choice of creating a new ad or browsing existing content. After selecting Browse Existing Content, there will be an option to search for posts from LinkedIn Members. Advertisers will be required to request approval from the member before promoting their posts.
Sponsored Newsletters & Articles
Best For Boosting Lead Generation
LinkedIn reported a record 1.5 million content interactions per minute in June of 2024. Part of their success in increasing engagement was due to the launch of LinkedIn newsletters, which have surpassed 184,000 publications on the platform.
Starting this month, advertisers can now sponsor these newsletters, as well as company articles, to boost brand awareness and generate leads.
When developing ads in Campaign Manager, sponsored newsletters and articles will be available to choose from as part of the company’s existing content library. Similar to the Thought Leader ad format, advertisers can promote either articles shared by their company or collaborate with thought leaders to share outside content.
Why Consider Sponsored Newsletters & Articles: Since its launch, LinkedIn has seen a 47% increase in engagement with newsletters. Sponsored newsletters help promote members to subscribe to a company page, and sponsored articles allow for more direct lead generation by gating content.
How To Get Started: Both sponsored newsletters and articles can now be selected within the Content Library in Campaign Manager. Sponsored articles can be added to campaigns with a brand awareness, engagement, or lead generation objective, whereas sponsored newsletters can only be promoted for brand awareness or engagement. If your campaign objective is lead generation, you can now select the "Unlock Article" call to action option.
What’s Next?
Looking ahead to Fall 2024, LinkedIn will roll out Accelerate, their full suite of AI advertising tools.
LinkedIn believes this new campaign builder will:
- Cut campaign creation time from 15 hours to 5 minutes.
- Produce 15% more efficiency in campaign creation.
- Drive 52% lower cost per action compared to classic campaigns.
As these AI tools become available, B2B marketers will have even more resources to streamline LinkedIn advertising and maximize ROI.
LinkedIn continues to be one of the most popular B2B advertising platforms. As the site regularly rolls out new functionality and the Accelerate platform, brands must ensure they're taking advantage of the new offerings, as LinkedIn algorithms are likely to change with them.
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