LinkedIn Thought Leadership Ads

LinkedIn introduced a new format called “thought leader ads” to its paid advertising platform.

This new advertising option offers an unprecedented opportunity to increase the reach of high quality content that contains true pearls of wisdom!

Content meticulously curated by the top leadership and the senior management is often loaded with decades of industry experience.

A Thought leader ads place them in front of a carefully selected RIGHT target audience.

In its official announcement, LinkedIn cited the following reasons why marketers should consider using thought leadership ads:

• They build credibility by communicating in a trusted voice.
• They differentiate your brand as an authority in the field.
• They help you build a community around thought leaders.

You can use Thought Leader Ads to promote LinkedIn member’s content that can increase your reach and help you achieve your branding goals. Thought Leaders Ads can help your content stay interesting and relevant by using authentic member experiences.

# Here’s a tip.

To promote a thought leader ad, the supported goal type must be brand awareness or engagement, and the supported ad format must be a single image ad or a video ad.

Create Thought Leaders In Campaign Manager

As an advertiser, you can use Thought Leaders Ad to target and promote content to your company’s LinkedIn members who share valuable insights and is aligned to your firm’s vision, increasing your reach and helping you achieve your brand objectives.

Before creating a thought leader ad, you can create a new campaign or use an existing brand awareness or engagement campaign. You can also create new ads for existing individual image and video ad campaigns by editing a campaign.

Important To Know

To sponsor and promote content as a thought leader ad, the supported goal type of the ad campaign must be brand awareness or engagement, and the supported ad format must be a single image ad or video ad.

To create a thought leader ad:

• Go to the Configure Ads page in Campaign Manager.
  • New Campaign – When you create a new campaign, you will be taken to the Ads Settings page after selecting your campaign settings.
  • Existing Campaign – If you want to add an ad to an existing campaign, you can edit the campaign and go to the Ads Setup page.
• Click the Browse Available Content button. The content library page opens.
• Click on LinkedIn members to find and select sponsored member posts.
• To search for posts, go to the Posts tab and enter the member’s name or post URL.
• Select the member’s desired message and click the Request Verification button to submit your sponsorship request.
• In the Request Confirmation dialog box, click Submit.
• After the sponsorship request is submitted, you can also click View Request and then Copy Link to send the request to the member as a direct message.
• You can use the Requests tab to view submitted requests and filter by Accepted, Rejected, or Pending status.
• The member will receive a confirmation request via email.
• Once approved by the employee, you will receive a notification in Campaign Manager and can sponsor the desired message.
  • Members can accept a single sponsorship request or all pending and subsequent requests.
  • Members may revoke the sponsorship permission later. You will receive a notification and the ad will be turned off immediately. The promotion will continue if there are other promotions; otherwise, the campaign will remain active but will stop working.

If you need support with thought leader Ads please contact us!

Benefits of Thought Leader Ads

Here are a few reasons why thought leadership ads are a good choice.

• Authenticity

The great value of LinkedIn Thought Leader ads is their ability to avoid the typical “sales pitch,” motivational or corporate vibe usually associated with traditional ads. In fact, if the same message were sent to a business page and an individual profile, the personal message would probably get more attention, views, engagement and interest simply because it comes from a human.

• Humanising the brand

Another caveat is that LinkedIn influencer ads humanise your brand. When people get information about your company from real people, for example the CEO, marketing manager or several employees, it creates a different psychological effect. In this way, the audience feels a deeper connection with the people behind the brand.

• Extract subject knowledge

A big advantage of LinkedIn thought leadership ads is their ability to capture and showcase your organisation’s expertise. In line with the demand generation movement, engaging key people in your business and incorporating their knowledge into compelling marketing materials has proven to be highly effective.

A Few Points to Note Before You Start a LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads

• Better work as part of a wider strategy

LinkedIn influencer advertisements should be combined with other ad kinds because of the absence of headlines and call-to-action buttons, implying they are not intended to drive large traffic to landing pages.

As a result, they should be utilised in conjunction with other sorts of LinkedIn advertisements, for instance, LinkedIn Event Ads, LinkedIn Lead Generation Ads, and others with the help of a reputed LinkedIn Ads Agency. They have an experienced team of LinkedIn Marketing consultants who can help you develop a compelling marketing strategy with the right mix of ad formats depending on your specific business requirements and target audience persona.

• Time-limited campaigns

LinkedIn Thought Leader ads are limited to posts from the last six months. Old posts cannot be retroactively promoted, so the most effective messages of all time cannot be used.

• Dependency on profile addition

Another limitation is that thought leader ads are based on an individual associated with the company. If a person leaves the company or leaves the job, the ads become unusable.

 Best Practices for LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads

We’ve tried LinkedIn Thought Leader advertisements in both our own and client campaigns, and we’ve gained significant insights and best practices for increasing the performance of Thought Leader ads.

• Choosing the most influential posts to promote

A good practice is to prioritise posts that have proven their ability to generate inbound leads over the most popular posts based on likes, comments or views.

• Reattribute interactions to retarget audiences

Participation with LinkedIn Thought Leader advertising can be used for audience retargeting as well! All clicks from these interactions are trackable, allowing you to add them to a 30-day or 90-day target audience for increased engagement.

• Using GIFs to draw attention.

Although Thought Leader ads support single image and text messages, they allow the use of GIF files. Combining an enhanced personal message with a GIF can grab attention and increase click-through rates.

Example of LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads

• Interesting Introduction: Design and implement a cold layer, text-only advertising campaign to extend your reach to potential customers unfamiliar with your brand.

• Fascinating Image: For people who have not used LinkedIn Ads, this may not be interesting or attractive, but it can still be a useful introduction to what can be achieved on the platform.

• Behind the Scenes: This ad is a little different because you can give your prospects a behind-the-scenes look at how you got great results with LinkedIn ads.

• Resonates with the target audience: One of the notable features of this ad is its emphasis on personalization. The brand creates an instant connection by calling the target audience “today’s subbie”, a term widely known among contract workers.

• Free Resource: This ad masterfully combines both organic and paid strategies to attract potential customers. This gives potential customers an overview of a valuable resource while encouraging them to sign up for full access.

 Conclusion

Thought Leader Ads on LinkedIn provide an efficient way to use personal profiles for effective advertising. By combining the authenticity and human touch of personal messages with LinkedIn’s outreach and targeting features, companies can enhance their brand image, demonstrate subject matter expertise, and engage with their target audience in a more meaningful way. Impactable helps you incorporate thought leadership advertising into your marketing strategy to achieve incredible results.

If you are looking for assistance with LinkedIn Thought Leaders Ad feel free to Contact Us!