Leverage Your LinkedIn Profile with PPC

Smart businesses value the potential of social media marketing. Like other facets of marketing and efforts for lead generation, those most successful in marketing on social media platforms develop a plan based on well-defined goals and strategies. Creating a large advertising budget and developing a traditional outbound marketing effort to flood the market will not generate the intended leads or revenue.

Before creating a social media campaign, a B2B company or B2C needs to apply the SMART goal-setting method: Develop a plan that is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. One of the first specific decisions involves the selection of the social media platforms that will be the primary focus. 

Tapping the Pay-Per-Click Potential of LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a wise and obvious choice. A perfect platform for social media advertising and lead generation, this site offers access to approximately 630 million professionals, most of whom have an important role in driving business decisions in their employment. 

Selecting LinkedIn is the first step but not the end of the process. A firm is not trying to cast a wide outbound marketing net to reach millions who have no interest in its products or services. Instead, they should develop a carefully defined initiative that tailors inbound marketing experiences to a demographic that meets their preferred buyer persona.

Making Pay-Per-Click Tick

PPC advertising is used in both B2B and B2C consumer campaigns. When it comes to B2B campaigns and leveraging social media platforms like LinkedIn, where you are looking to attract target prospects in targeted companies, industries, and geographies, selecting the proper set of keywords becomes even more crucial.

Choosing the right keywords that effectively drive traffic to your business can lead to a seamless and budget-friendly approach to PPC advertising. Given the fierce competition among companies developing these campaigns, conducting thorough research in the initial stages will significantly improve your chances of success as you move forward.

Generating B2B Leads through PPC Advertisements

PPC advertising has been proven to increase the number of motivated buyers a company can reach. By selecting the best platform, having well-defined goals, understanding the best way to build a campaign around tightly-defined keywords, and frequently evaluating your results, you can create a winning strategy to reach prospective clients, partners, and businesses through your PPC paid advertising.

Many businesses rely on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to increase awareness, but this method may take time for the search engines to rank and prioritize the content you market. In contrast, PPC advertising offers a faster way to increase traffic and your firm's conversion rate. 

Develop a Strong PPC Strategy

All too often, firms spend a lot of time developing a campaign. Still, not enough time to monitor it to ensure that they are making the necessary adjustments to advertising algorithms, reaching the best representatives at other companies, and having your sales team receive the expected response from outside inquiries. 

A sound strategy also involves the following steps:

• Use Acronyms: Remember that buyers often know the lingo and have some awareness of your products. Incorporate industry-standard acronyms in your B2B PPC initiatives that target those already familiar with the industry.

• Remember the Value of Negative Words: This does not mean "bad" language but delineates those areas of your professional focus. Suppose your business offers supplies that will benefit the auto industry but not the clothing industry. In that case, you want prospective businesses to know that so your time and their resources are not wasted. 

• Develop a Sound Strategy: Build brand awareness and increase traffic to your website by crafting clear objectives.

Consider LinkedIn for a Successful PPC Campaign

Each platform has benefits as well as limitations. While no single paid advertising platform will meet all of a company's needs, a few stand out as top contenders. Since many companies have limited budgetary resources, they should evaluate the best options and consider their potential.

Search engines are popular choices for PPC advertising. Google Ads certainly ranks as the most popular option, with ranked ads allowing users to click on the top picks on the first page. While Google Ads dominates in many ways, the broad coverage is also a weakness because too many competitors are in the same space. Your company's ad may not be at the top of the page in a tight field on a widely-used search engine with many PPC advertisements.

Microsoft Ads that appear on the Bing search engine are also an option that gets widespread use, but not nearly as much as Google. Although Bing may seem like a better alternative to reach a more focused portion of the audience, many more people use Chrome than Bing while browsing. 

Advertising costs on Google and sites like Facebook are high, and these sites have other challenges, such as the absence of fully implemented negative keywords. Rather than paying more to achieve less, a better solution would be to use LinkedIn for your B2B advertising needs. 

Focus on LinkedIn when Leveraging PPC

LinkedIn's benefits are obvious. As a site that connects professionals, well-designed pay-per-click campaigns on LinkedIn reach decision-makers. Sixty-five percent of B2B companies have built their customer base through LinkedIn. 

Consider these three important steps while leveraging your LinkedIn profile with PPC:

1. Keep Your Profile Tidy

Resolve to clean up your LinkedIn profile, which will improve inbound marketing results. Despite being the top B2B networking platform, LinkedIn is where many profiles fail to use the site for its full potential. A few simple improvements may go a long way to improving the impact of your profile:

• Ensure all profile and background pictures are professional, clear, and meaningful and are properly sized.

• Align images that represent the company with the current branding initiatives in place.

• Consider the Profile Summary a place to offer visitors a powerful yet concise message.

• Skills should highlight the areas prospective customers or their representatives are interested in matching.

• Endorsements should be considered an essential part of the profile and managed accordingly.
  
  

2. Develop a LinkedIn Advertising Campaign

More B2B content marketers use LinkedIn for unpaid social media marketing initiatives than Twitter or Facebook. Putting together a successful PPC advertising campaign on LinkedIn is a wise investment of time and resources for your firm.

Five essential components of this campaign should be considered:

1. Choose the Best Objective: With LinkedIn ads, you can select if your primary focus is to increase awareness, improve consideration of your products by engaging with others already familiar with them, or convert their interest into sales. 

2. Select the Ad Type and Design It: Whether you prefer to focus on creating Text Ads, Sponsored Messaging, Sponsored Content, or Dynamic Ads, choose the option and design it in a way that will have the greatest impact.

3. Define the Intended Audience: Become familiar with the targeted group you wish to reach, starting with general job titles and functions. Select an audience size that includes those most likely to be interested.

4. Establish the Budget: Although the cost per click on LinkedIn is higher than most other sites, the returns may be much better with a carefully designed campaign. 

5. Conduct Testing to Assure Ads Have Impact: Develop test ads with changed variables to determine their effectiveness. This allows you to determine audience reach and similar analytics.
   
   

3. Evaluate Your Efforts

Never set up a campaign and expect it to succeed on its own. Regular review and evaluation are necessary to determine how well your LinkedIn paid advertising initiative meets your goals. Consider the key metrics, the conversion rate, and success at generating leads regularly. 

PPC advertising is an excellent method to boost your LinkedIn profile, enabling you to connect with customers in a scaled manner. That being said, your marketing efforts don't end with PPC. Instead, it’s beneficial to run an inbound marketing campaign in the background. Your PCC efforts can work hand-in-hand with your inbound marketing, allowing you to generate leads in more ways than one.

Looking to improve your social media branding efforts? Use our free checklist!