Opinion

Three ways LinkedIn can win over advertisers

Unless the platform can provide marketers with a functionality to generate positive ROI on ad spend, advertisers will continue to stay away from LinkedIn, says Alex Cleanthous.

LinkedIn just announced it is now allowing advertisers to track conversions on their advertising spend. That’s good news but it doesn’t solve the real issue that LinkedIn has – that its ad platform doesn’t provide the level of sophistication that a marketer needs to generate a positive ROI from their ad spend.

Alex Cleanthous

We test a lot of different ad platforms at Web Profits, looking constantly for new channels to help our clients grow, and we’ve tried time and time again to make LinkedIn a profitable source of new business for our clients, without much luck.

Sure, we get the occasional success from a LinkedIn campaign but we don’t get the consistent flow of new business that we do from Google or Facebook’s ad platforms. That’s where LinkedIn fails.

LinkedIn has one of the most under-utilised ad platforms on the web today, with an audience that plenty of companies want to target. If LinkedIn can get it right, its ad platform will generate serious revenue. And if it can, that’s when I’ll buy shares in LinkedIn.

So, how can LinkedIn improve its ad platform? Here’s a start…LinkedIn mobile phone app news screen

Get rid of minimum bids and have a pure auction system.

One of the biggest issues with LinkedIn is its minimum CPC bids are too high, and it’s always more profitable to advertise on Facebook or Google. By removing minimum bids and using a pure auction system, the market will figure out what each impression is worth based on the value they generate from their ads.

Launch custom and remarketing audiences

Targeting people by interest or demographics is usually the lowest performing targeting option when it comes to ROI. One of the reasons that Facebook is generating so much revenue from its ad platform is because it allows advertisers to target people based on advertisers’ databases (i.e. emails and phone numbers), as well as people who visit the advertiser’s website (i.e. remarketing audiences).

If LinkedIn launches similar targeting options on its platform it will allow advertisers to be a lot more targeted with their ads, generate a better ROI, and spend more on the platform.LinkedIn social media mobile phone app

Develop a power editor

Google has the Adwords Editor, Facebook has the Power Editor, Bing now has the Bing Ads Editor. For an ad platform to flourish it needs to cater to the power users who manage millions of dollars of ad budget.

Working within the LinkedIn Ads platform is slow and clunky, especially if you want to really get granular with targeting (which you need to maximise profit).

If LinkedIn creates its own Power Editor, it will make it a lot easier for advertisers to figure out which targeting options are most profitable.

LinkedIn logo

There are a lot more things LinkedIn can do to improve its ad platform, but in my experience, just the above three updates will impact the performance of its ad platform massively for advertisers and, in turn, LinkedIn’s revenues.

We love LinkedIn but we’re very frustrated with its platform, knowing its true potential.

As soon as it gets this right (and it will) there will be another big player in the ad platform game, along with Google and Facebook.

We’re here, LinkedIn, and we’re ready to spend millions of dollars with you, so please get this right. And soon.

Alex Cleanthous is chief innovation officer at online marketing agency Web Profits

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