Phil HanLinkedIn,Associate ProductMarketing Manager,Sponsored Updates

Chris BolmanPercolate,Director ofIntegrated Marketing

Sophisticated Guide to Sponsored Updates

Agenda

• What are Sponsored Updates?

• Creating great content to engage the LinkedIn audience

• Turning your content into compelling Sponsored Updates

• Test, learn and optimize

• Success Story: Percolate

• Conclusion

What are Sponsored Updates?

Sponsored Updates are…

• Native advertising in the world’s onlyprofessional news feed

• Reach members with rich contenton any device

• Drive leads, build brand, increaseengagement with your content

Sponsored Updates are…

• Native advertising in the world’s onlyprofessional news feed

• Reach members with rich contenton any device

• Drive leads, build brand, increaseengagement with your content

Three things that setSponsored Updates apart

Accurate profile-based targeting

Professional mindset that createsa favorable content marketingenvironment for brands

Premium audience

Create Great Content

Content Matters:

It creates conversation that leadsto customer relationships

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74%

90%

Number of pieces of content buyers engage with to research their purchase.-Source: Google, Zero Moment of Truth Study

Of B2B buyers choose a vendor that’s first to help them withuseful content.-Source: Inside Sales

Amount of purchase process that buyers complete before making contact with vendor.-Source: Forrester

Keys to Great Thought-Leading Content

The Bloom Group’s eight criteria for thought-leading content:

• Relevance

• Novelty

• Depth

• Validity

• Practicality

• Rigor

• Clarity

• Coherence

Track Metrics that Matter

For brand awareness orcontent engagement

• Engagement with your content

• Site traffic and time per visit

• Brand life or purchase intent

• Executive-level follow-up

• Quality of audience you’re engaging

For Lead Generation:

• Volume of qualified leads

• Cost per Lead (CPL)

• Marketing-influenced ormarketing-sourced bookings

• Lead velocity

On LinkedIn, Speak to the Professional Mindset

On LinkedIn, Speak to the Professional Mindset

-Source: The Mindset Divide: Revealing the Emotional Differences Between Personal and Professional Networks

A 6-Step Strategy for Creating Content for LinkedIn’s Most Engaged Members

While themes of great content vary by audience, industry, and marketer

objectives, there are some guidelines you can follow to appeal to the professional mindset.

On LinkedIn, Speak to the Professional Mindset

DO’s and DON’Ts for Crafting Compelling LinkedIn Content

DO: DON’T:• Think like a journalist

• Be helpful by providing answers to your audience’s most pressing questions and challenges

• Find your authentic voice that’s authoritative but friendly and trustworthy.

• Connect content to a commercial insight or benefit

• Enrich and amplify your content by enlisting influencers, trusted industry experts, or your executives to contribute

• Deliver a sales pitch

• Be overly broad in your content themes. You want to be recognized as an expert in only one or two areas.

• Create content that people can’t easily consume on phones/tablets

• Go it alone!

Turn Your Ideas into “Big Rock” Content

Big Rock Content…

• Delivers value to your audience

• Includes eBooks, webinars, research reports,instructive guides, and other “meaty” content assets

• Serves as evergreen content you can re-purpose

• Can be released about once per quarter

Use Tools that Make it Easier to Create or Source Great Content

Content doesn’t have to be difficult. Scale your content efforts withLinkedIn’s Certified Content Partners.

Turn Your Content intoCompelling Sponsored Updates

Pick the Right Tool for the Job

• Sponsor directly from your LinkedIn Company Page

• Try LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager

• Work with a LinkedIn CertifiedAds Partner

• LinkedIn Marketing SolutionsManaged Advertising Account

Campaign automation, bulk editing, A/B testing, day-parting, posting content across social channels, and more!

Get Visual

Include a thumbnail image in your updates

• Upload rich media like infographics

• Use crisp images, bright colors

• Have SlideShare presentations, videos

*Get up to 2x engagement rate by addingimages to your updates

Think Like a Journalist

• Write brief, compelling headlines.

• Use numbered lists, surprisingstatistics and figures, or stake astrong position on an issue.

• Share posts or words of wisdomfrom your executives or notablethought leaders within your company

• Call out your audience in your postand headline

• What’s in it for the audience if they click on your content?

Target Your Content to the Right Customers

3 tips for effective targeting on LinkedIn:

• Don’t hypertarget: stick to two or threetargeting criteria.

• Start with a broad target and refine over time.

• Ask yourself if the audience is a good fit forthe content you’re publishing.

• Experiment with Audience Expansion

Build a Sturdy Campaign Foundation

• Launch posts in waves and keep the top-performing post from each wave runninginto the next week

• If you’re driving leads or content downloads, start with CPC (cost-per-click) bidding

• If you’re aiming for brand Awareness: CPM

Make Your Pages Mobile Ready

• Explain why the content is valuable-include more on your page than justa lead form

• Keep lead forms short to increaseconversion rates

• Make sure to take advantage of responsive design

*Remember, 75% of Sponsored Updatesengagement comes from mobile

Test, Learn and Optimize

• Add click trackers to your landing pages

• Use analytics on your Company Pageor linkedin.com/ads to measureperformance by post or audience

• Shift Budget away from low-performingcontent or audiences and towardcontent or audiences that areperforming better

• Try Direct Sponsored Content totest at scale

“Always Be Optimizing”

Set a budget and bid that makes sense for your business.

If your goal is lead gen, then your bid should also reflect the value of a lead to your business.

Need more help optimizing your demand gen plan? Check out our eBook for additional resources.

Adjust Budgets, Bids so They Make Sense for Your Business

Success Story:

Percolate Overview

Percolate, which provides software for managing marketing and advertising campaigns, content, and workflows, conducts ongoing marketing campaigns to share valuable insights via webinars and original research to prospective customers.

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Percolate: The Challenges

• The need to tailor messages to different

audiences• Multiple buyer types, including mid-level and senior IT

decision makers

• Driving engagement with thought

leadership• Blog posts, webinars, original research and reports

• Objective: Attract quality leads

 Sponsored Updates

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How We use LinkedIn Marketing Solutions

• Sponsored Updates help

Percolate reach a narrowly

targeted audience

• Testing and refining campaigns

helped improve the editorial

process

• Example: Changing creative

for “How to Design a Marketing

Workflow That Wins

Customers” increased lead

generation by 500%

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Percolate: the Results

• LinkedIn is Percolate’s top generator of leads from downloaded content

• Percolate’s average clickthrough rate is more than 91% above LinkedIn

benchmarks• Top performing campaigns exceed LinkedIn’s benchmarks by more than 4.5X

• Average engagement rate is more than 30% above LinkedIn benchmarks

• More than 3X increase in Company Page followers

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Key Takeaways

• Every element of the creative matters, including copy, image, and link description.

They need to work together to win your target's attention and fulfill the brand

promise around the content.

• Continue to learn from campaign results– use these insights to fine-tune updates

and improve performance

• If an update isn’t performing, don’t be afraid to retool it and put it in front of your

audience again.

Conclusion

Time to Put These Ideas to Work!

• Visit marketing.linkedin.com toget started

• If you’re the admin of your LinkedInCompany Page, you can also sponsoran update at linkedin.com/ads

• Ready to scale your content marketingon LinkedIn? Work with a LinkedInCertified Marketing Partner today

https://lnkd.in/bTg2XPj

Q&A

©2014 LinkedIn Corporation. All Rights Reserved.©2014 LinkedIn Corporation. All Rights Reserved.