LinkedIn Targeting: Find your audience with LinkedIn Advertising

Date published

August 15, 2022

With over 700 million members, LinkedIn is the #1 social media platform for B2B and a powerful tool for companies to connect with their target audience. If you post content on LinkedIn that’s relevant to your target audience, they’ll see you as a trustworthy source of information. So, here’s how to target your prospects effectively and leads with LinkedIn ads.

To make sure your ad stands out and resonates with your audience, follow these steps:

First, remember that when you're marketing to everyone, you're marketing to no one. Define your target audience. Identify their interests, behaviors, and industry. Suppose your company account already has a LinkedIn network that matches your target audience criteria. In that case, we suggest testing how your content performs organically before deploying targeted ads on LinkedIn. This is a cost-effective way to refine your messaging before investing in your LinkedIn marketing budget.

Use LinkedIn's targeting tool to reach the right people using the five options below. If you struggle to describe your ideal customer and audience using these attributes, you might need to go back to step 1, conduct online research, and speak to others in your industry to define who you want to reach.

Company—connections, followers, industry, and company name and size
Demographics—age and gender
Education—degrees, fields of study, and specific schools
Job Experience—job functions, job seniority, job titles, member skills, and years of experience
Interests and Traits—member interests and groups

Pick a format. There are three advertising formats on LinkedIn:

Sponsored content appears directly in the LinkedIn feed on both desktop and mobile. Sponsored content can be a single image, a carousel, or a video.
Text ads are pay-per-click or cost-per-impression ads on the desktop's right-hand side of the LinkedIn home page. You can make the text ad square, tall, horizontal, or long.
Message ads, or InMail, let you deliver your content through LinkedIn Messenger on both desktop and mobile. You only pay for each message that gets delivered. At DYST, we don't deploy LinkedIn message ads and prefer to use LinkedIn ad messaging organically.
Dynamic ads capture a specific LinkedIn member's attention by including their profile data, such as their photo, company name, and job title. They can only be distributed by speaking to a LinkedIn representative.

Make your ad copy compelling and clear, highlighting the benefits of your product or service. Use eye-catching visuals to grab your audience's attention and talk directly to them. Include a call to action.

Finally, track your ad's performance and adjust your targeting and messaging as needed. LinkedIn provides detailed analytics to help you optimize your ad's success.