15 Jan LinkedIn’s New Ads API Offers Powerful Tools for Marketers
LinkedIn has become a very powerful social network for connecting business professionals, and an incredibly useful platform for B2B marketing. LinkedIn introduced its new Ads API to select businesses in November 2012, giving advertisers new ways to create custom tools and solutions to get more out of LinkedIn Ads. The new Ads API offers many features that allow you to promote your business to a carefully targeted audience of potential leads and clients.
In this article we will explore the new features provided in LinkedIn’s new Ads API. For the moment, the new Ads API is available only to select LinkedIn Partners, but we expect to see it available to the public soon. Sign up here to request an advertising partnership with LinkedIn to get in on the new Ads API before it is released to the public.
Why Advertise on LinkedIn?
If you somehow haven’t already joined LinkedIn, it is the world’s largest professional social network, with over 187 million members and 3 billion page views each month. The social networking site makes it easy to connect with industry professionals, and makes it possible to find business services and generate strong marketing leads.
LinkedIn’s new API allows you to:
- Filter professionals in your own and related industries, which makes it an incredibly powerful tool for B2B marketing.
- Make the most of LinkedIn’s community and target your advertising to a carefully selected niche demographic.
- Design and customize your marketing campaign in new ways that can make it much more powerful, targeted, and effective.
Until now, advertisers have had to manage their LinkedIn advertisements on LinkedIn’s limited self-serve interface. With this new API, LinkedIn is undoubtedly looking to expand the site’s potential for advertising revenue by adding features that make advertising on the site considerably more effective.
Build Customized Marketing Tools
LinkedIn’s new API gives advertisers the ability to finally build their own customized marketing tools and apps on the site. Now, advertisements can be designed to be more engaging to users and can provide a much more in-depth advertising experience.
These new customized marketing tools give advertisers more options to create a powerful and effective marketing campaign. Now that LinkedIn has developed such a strong network of professionals, it’s about time that the site provides an improved way to reach them.
A/B Test Ad Variations
With the new features in the API, you can run A/B test variations on your advertisements – making it easier to try out new advertising ideas and compare the effectiveness of different designs. This allows you to fine tune the ads you are paying for and determine the best way to reach your target demographic.
Target Advertisements to Reach Niche Demographics
The new API makes it possible to target your advertising views based on users’ industry, geography, job title, seniority, and more. This feature makes it possible to hone in your advertising efforts to a very specific niche from LinkedIn’s immense user base. When it comes to B2B marketing, you really couldn’t ask for a better way to connect with targeted new leads and contacts. Advertisers will be able to send less clutter and only pay for advertisements that reach the people their businesses need to reach.
Virally Distribute Marketing Content
With LinkedIn’s vast community of business professionals, the new capabilities to virally distribute your marketing content can help you reach an even wider audience than ever before. The ability to share marketing content allows businesses and individuals to spread the word about a business to others who could use the services provided. Advertisers who use the new LinkedIn API should keep the viral capabilities in mind and create content that encourages sharing on the site.
Measure ROI of LinkedIn Advertising Campaigns
The ability to measure ROI on advertising campaigns is an incredibly useful new feature of LinkedIn’s new Ads API. When it comes to paid advertising, it is critical to understand the conversions and earnings generated by campaigns. The new Ads API’s abilities to measure these metrics will show advertisers exactly how effective their campaigns are. Whether or not a campaign is a success, it is important to have a clear understanding of these figures to determine if a campaign is worth its cost.
How Much Difference Does LinkedIn’s New Ads API Make?
According to Bizo, a business audience marketing platform and LinkedIn advertising partner who has been able to test run ads with the new API for a few months now, clients have been seeing “great results.” Budgets typically range from $5,000 to $10,000 per month, and the cost per lead falls between $50 and $150, depending on the industry and target market. For well-targeted B2B marketing, this could be a significant reduction in cost per new lead.
Considering Facebook’s success since it officially launched its ads API in 2011, it stands to reason that the new API on LinkedIn – with the site’s robust network of professionals – could be a hugely successful approach to social marketing. If your business relies heavily on B2B sales and traffic, LinkedIn’s new Ads API might be one of the most effective tools available right now.
