This blog will explore the different types of advertisements available on LinkedIn. There are two different types of advertising platforms which can be used; The self-service advertising platform, and LinkedIn advertising partner solutions (King, K. 2014). Two types of adverts will be discussed from both platforms to help gain an understanding of how they differ, then two adverts based on their merits will be suggested for you to use.
LinkedIn self-service platform:
With this platform you can start to advertise to your targeted audience, to segment the users the following options are available to narrow the audience; Company, Job title, school, age, gender among many others (King, K. 2014).
The first type of AD available under this platform is the ‘copy’ advert, an example is shown below (King, K. 2014):
This type of advert has:
- 25 characters for the headline and 75 characters for a brief description (King, K. 2014)
- Appear on the right-side of the users screen (wordstream, 2014)
- These are typically displayed alongside other ads (King, K. 2014)
The second type of AD available is called the ‘sponsored content’, an example is shown below (King, K. 2014):
This advert has (King, K. 2014):
- Dimensions 720 x 90 pixels
- Appears in the Users new stream
- Appears at the bottom of the screen
LinkedIn advertising solutions
The second type of adverts available are known as premium display, these like the self-service ads have the same abilities to target specific segments. However the sizes and the where the ads can be placed differ.
The first is the medium rectangle, an example is shown below (King, K. 2014):
This advert :
- Has dimensions of 300 x 250 pixels (King, K. 2014)
- Appears on the home, profile, pages (King, K. 2014)
- Appears in the ‘premium’ area (above the fold) (linkedin)
- Can be utilized for content Ads, social Ads and polls (linkedin)
The second is the sky scrapper, an example is shown below (King, K. 2014):
This advert:
- Has dimensions of 160 x 600 pixels (King, K. 2014)
- Appears on user’s inbox and message pages (King, K. 2014)
- This is the most commonly used ad unit (linkedin, 2012)
- Can be utilized for content and social ads (linkedin, 2012)
All adverts are cost per click (CPC) which the average cost is fairly expensive at $3.50 (Twitter average is $1.35, and Facebook average is $0.21) (wordstream, 2014).
From the adverts discussed the two which stand out are the ‘sponsored content’ and the ‘sky scrapper’. Sponsored content was chosen because this type of advert engages the audience in their news stream which has more chance of engaging the audience. Furthermore it appears at the bottom of the users screen, and therefore is possibly the last content the user will digest before leaving the page, which according to Wright, E. et al, (2010) can lead to better retention from the audience. Sky scrapper was chosen even though it is not arguably as personal as the sponsored content advert, it comes up when the users are on the their inbox and message pages. As such people are consuming content from trusted sources, which there evidence suggests a link of trust from the content to the ad (Morgan & Hunt, 1994).
References:
King, K. (2014). A Complete Guide to LinkedIn Ads | Sprout Social. [online] Sprout Social. Available at: http://sproutsocial.com/insights/linkedin-ads-guide. [Accessed 28 Apr. 2015].
Linked In, (2012). LinkedIn Display Ads. [online] Available at: https://business.linkedin.com/content/dam/business/marketing-solutions/global/en_US/site/pdf/product-sheets/LinkedInDisplayAdsProductSheet6-10-13.pdf [Accessed 28 Apr. 2015].
Morgan, R. M., & Hunt, S. D. (1994). The commitment-trust theory of relationship marketing. the journal of marketing, 20-38.
Wordstream.com, (2014). Social Media Advertising: Which Platform is Right for Your Business? | Wordstream. [online] Available at: http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2014/09/24/social-media-advertising [Accessed 24 Apr. 2015]
Wright, E., Khanfar, N. M., Harrington, C., & Kizer, L. E. (2010). The lasting effects of social media trends on advertising. Journal of Business & Economics Research (JBER), 8(11).