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LinkedIn Marketing Solutions

LinkedIn Marketing Solutions

Overview

What is LinkedIn Marketing Solutions?

LinkedIn Marketing Solutions is a recently (2015) expanded marketing platform for reaching audiences through the popular Linkedin work-oriented social network that includes modules like the Lead Accelerator (supporting segmentation features to improve conversion), Sponsored Updates, LinkedIn Onsite Display, LinkedIn Network…

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- Detailed Targeting Options: Users appreciate the extensive targeting options available on LinkedIn, including company and industry …
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What is LinkedIn Marketing Solutions?

LinkedIn Marketing Solutions is a recently (2015) expanded marketing platform for reaching audiences through the popular Linkedin work-oriented social network that includes modules like the Lead Accelerator (supporting segmentation features to improve conversion), Sponsored Updates, LinkedIn Onsite…

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Product Details

What is LinkedIn Marketing Solutions?

LinkedIn Marketing Solutions Technical Details

Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

LinkedIn Marketing Solutions is a recently (2015) expanded marketing platform for reaching audiences through the popular Linkedin work-oriented social network that includes modules like the Lead Accelerator (supporting segmentation features to improve conversion), Sponsored Updates, LinkedIn Onsite Display, LinkedIn Network Display, and Sponsored InMail. While still at its core a social marketing engine, Linkedin Marketing Solutions now presents a more comprehensive B2B advertising platform. The Linkedin Text Ads module supports both pay per click (PPC) and cost per impression (CPM) pricing models. The platform is used by many well-known companies, including Adobe, Citi, General Electric, HP, and many others. It integrates technology from Bizo, a company and platform acquired by LinkedIn in mid-2014.

Reviewers rate Support Rating highest, with a score of 8.6.

The most common users of LinkedIn Marketing Solutions are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Reviews and Ratings

(223)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

Users recommend the following when using LinkedIn Marketing Solutions: Use original content for LinkedIn ads and have a clear understanding of customer personas before launching an ad campaign. It is advised to have a solid plan and budget in place. Connect with a LinkedIn Marketing Consultant for tips and tricks. Consider the cost and benefits of using LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, especially for B2B marketing. Try synchronizing it with Salesforce for better results. Define the target market and utilize LinkedIn's promoting instruments to generate qualified leads at a B2B organization. Don't rely solely on LinkedIn for demographic questions and consider other options. Start by promoting a post on the LinkedIn page and play with targeting options. Overall, users find LinkedIn Marketing Solutions to be a useful tool for B2B marketing, especially in reaching their target audience.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 46)
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Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions was a great tool for our company to allow us to promote content to specific audiences. The platform is great when it comes down to targeting based on specific demographics such as job title, seniority, education, etc. Our campaign results had great conversion and were effective, however, advertising on this platform can be expensive.
  • Audience Targeting/Demographic Selection
  • Campaign Management/Reporting
  • B2B Targeting
  • Explanation of each field when setting up a campaign
  • Costly advertising platform
  • Filtering/Report Breakdown Options
We really enjoyed using LinkedIn to create targeted advertising campaigns whether it was to promote our brand, increase web traffic, or highlight new positions within our company to attract to talent to our team. LinkedIn Marketing Solutions allows you to create specific campaigns to reach the desired campaign goals I just listed. Once you understand how to use the platform to its fullest, you will reap good results.
Phil Parrish | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our team at PrograMetrix managed paid advertising campaigns on behalf of our clients using LinkedIn Marketing Solutions. We also utilize LinkedIn Marketing Solutions for our own internal advertising campaigns. LinkedIn Marketing Solutions helps us generate leads, drive website traffic, and build brand awareness for our clients and for our own brand. LinkedIn is our go-to platform for B2B advertising campaigns.
  • B2B advertising
  • Lead generation
  • Brand awareness
  • Reaching and engaging business professionals
  • Campaign Manager simplifies campaign management
  • Conversion tracking
  • Lowering cost per click
  • Better customer support
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions is a great platform for business-to-business (B2B) marketers. With over 750 million business professionals on LinkedIn, LinkedIn Marketing Solutions is the #1 B2B and lead generation advertising platform in the industry. According to LinkedIn, 4 out of 5 of its members are actually involved in making business decisions. LinkedIn Marketing Solutions is not an ideal fit for direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands.
John Tarr | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use LinkedIn ads to generate leads and awareness for my B2B clients.
  • Company targeting.
  • Job Function targeting.
  • Job seniority targeting.
  • Campaign structure; follow campaigns, ad group, and ad structure used by other networks.
  • Duplication features to more quickly set up A/B tests.
  • Billing and invoicing clarity.
LinkedIn ads are perfectly suited for b2b companies looking to generate leads or raise awareness. The targeting options for LinkedIn ads are not suitable for B2B or eCommerce.
Henri Favier | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Linkedin Marketing solutions [are] used in our organization through our lead generation strategy. The communication made through this tool is to develop our software product in the french and international market. We are targeting C-level from big companies, all sectors.
  • Precision of the audience targeting
  • Remarketing audience
  • User experience
  • Linkedin messages ads functionality does not perform
Linkedin solutions [are] well suited for our point of view to implement two kinds of campaigns. Notoriety campaign to improve the brand image on the specific market for a specific target. Lead generation campaign, through specific campaign thanks to the capacity of targeting specific personas.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are using LinkedIn Marketing Solutions to run advertising on LinkedIn targeting wholesale clients (the B2B side of our business). It is used by the paid marketing department with the purpose of building awareness on the market. This tool allows us to be specific in our industry targeting and stay precise with our ad spend.
  • Very specific audience targeting.
  • Easy setup and management.
  • Great native B2B targeting that looks professional.
  • Setup can be more complex for more sophisticated advertising campaigns and retargeting.
  • Not aware of connectivity to CMS.
  • Not very deep reporting and insights on the campaigns.
This tool is great if your audience is on LinkedIn and you would like to target your B2B clients. It is easy to use but also because it is simple. Not much training is required to be able to run your own campaigns. Therefore, it is great for smaller businesses with smaller budgets.
Manuela Murillo Jaramillo | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use LinkedIn Marketing Solutions to promote our content through different audiences. Depending on the strategy and the type of content, we use different types of ads, the one that we use the most is lead generation, since it has shown to be the most effective for us. We also sponsor our company page's posts, and have a lot of dynamic, follower, and text ads.
  • Ad targeting
  • Lead generation
  • Data reporting
  • Matched list creation (time)
  • Support is bad, slow, and basically non-existant
  • Slow platform
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions is well suited for B2B marketing and advertisement. It has the best targeting criteria based on jobs and companies. The platform shows a lot of data, which is great because you can better understand the results of your campaigns.

One thing that is not the best is the price of leads/clicks. It's the most expensive platform to advertise on. This could be weighted out if you manage to convert any leads into costumers.
September 15, 2021

Get in their Inbox!

Emily Hammell | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions was used by our management team and marketing team. It allowed our team and salespeople a different avenue to reach potential clients instead of the traditional in-person visit, emails, or phone calls we were accustomed to. I think this solution worked a lot better for younger potential clients, as LinkedIn notified them in a variety of ways.
  • Targeting
  • Transparency
  • Reporting
  • Specific targeting
  • Analytics
  • Tutorials
Although it offered great features, we didn't really see a lot of traffic or results from the ads we placed. Working in hospitality, we had to strategically time and place our ads around holiday seasons and it can be difficult to predict a marketing campaign. Depending on your market, LinkedIn may not be the best avenue to advertise with.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions is primarily used by the marketing team, but directly impacts the sales team. The problem we look to address is finding professionals with the capability of purchasing our solutions and involvement in the right industry objectives/organizations. We typically use the tool to identify potential prospects utilizing the marketing solutions title and organizational filters.
  • Segmenting the audience - the filters can be fairly comprehensive
  • Offering engaging, yet not overwhelming options for prospects
  • Ability to drive awareness as well as demand generation
  • Reporting can be improved to be able to overlay information and potentially connect back to Salesforce.
  • A similar title function - would be great to offer something where you can see similar titles to include in the filtering. So many titles aren't standardized so it could increase the audience size if you could do this.
  • Sponsored posts would be a great addition. They may offer this now, but the last time we leveraged the solution it was limited in terms of the functionality and what it would look like on the prospect's feed.
Based on experience, if you have a target audience that is active on LinkedIn, then the marketing solutions can offer a great way to engage the audience, provide messaging, and get in front of key decision makers. It can also be used to drive awareness of learning events such as webinars, conferences, whitepapers, etc.
Adanne Chinmaobi | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Professionals are a core part of our day to day customer target and thus LinkedIn has been a reliable platform for the marketing department in my organization, to prospect for new customers and also put our services in the face of prospective customers.

We make use of LinkedIn marketing tools such as Sales Navigator and most importantly LinkedIn Ads. While LinkedIn Sales Navigator makes social selling across the LinkedIn network easier, LinkedIn Ads. allows us to target specific demographics of the LinkedIn social network.
  • Targeted ads - LinkedIn targeted ads. Enable us at the marketing department of my organization to place interesting advertorial content in the faces of LinkedIn users, who fall into the category of our targeted audience and are thus likely to be interested in using our services.
  • Sales Navigator - LinkedIn sales navigator allows myself and colleagues to tap into the population of professionals present on the network and increase our sales pipeline.
  • Linkedin Company pages - This marketing tool has allowed LinkedIn users to independently discover my company, and by extension discover our fantastic products and services.
  • LinkedIn Marketing Solutions ,although effective are way too expensive and can be more competitively priced.
  • Geographical targeting in the case of LinkedIn ads can be improved. As an example, LinkedIn currently allows us target cities and countries with our ads.
  • There is no way to target specific towns and districts.
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions are fantastic for targeting professionals across most industries. There is no social networking platform which boasts as many professionals as LinkedIn, thereby making LinkedIn Marketing Solutions the best way to take advantage of the broad LinkedIn professional population.
Adam Lumley | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions are used as a lead acquisition tool and an engagement tool for our audience. It offers more precise targeting than other platforms we use on a regular basis. Multiple departments use features relevant to their roles in the company. However, most of our usage comes from the marketing department.
  • Targeting - they have done a great job of allowing you speak to ideal audiences
  • Support - dedicated customer service and account advising is always accessible and very responsive
  • Curation of professional audiences - one of the biggest advantages to the platform is that its users are for the most part are professional
  • Ad management is cumbersome - a bulk editor would be great. Uploading/editing one ad at a time can be very time consuming.
  • User Interface - although they have come a long way over the past few years, the UI is still more difficult to navigate when compared to other platforms.
  • Budgeting - campaigns can potentially spend up to 20% over your submitted budget so it may be necessary for some marketers to adjust their budget down in the platform. It's a small change that would take the burden off the marketer to allow them to simply set a spending cap.
  • Reporting - their reporting features are very limited and performance charts only allow single metric views.
  • Competition - there are no insights provided around how your ads are doing vs your competition aside from your costs fluctuating. Even something as simple as "share of voice" would be nice to see.
LinkedIn has a much higher CPC than most commonly used platforms resulting in a much higher CPL/CPA. For businesses that don't have big CPC budgets, it would be difficult to be able to run tests without breaking the bank. Unless they get it right out of the gate, they may not find success with their efforts.

On the opposite side of that, if a business can afford higher acquisition costs, this platform is likely worth exploring. They offer precise targeting with audiences full of professionals so often the leads are really high quality if you get it right.
Tegan Jenner | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use LinkedIn Marketing Solutions on my team of data analysts and media buyers. We have a combination of consumer and B2B brands that we recommend and execute digital advertising strategies for. We use Linkedin and a strong option for brands looking to make B2B communications. Our media buyers set up and run marketing plans on LinkedIn, occasionally with the help of our LI agency rep. I specifically spend most of my time pulling reporting and performance information from the platform.
  • Excellent targeting capabilities.
  • LinkedIn reps have been very responsive when we reach out for help.
  • LinkedIn has generated some of our best ROAS for B2B campaigns.
  • The UI is still a bit clunky, especially compared to other social platforms.
  • Organic reporting could definitely improve. Exporting organic data is a huge hassle.
  • Reporting customization is fairly limited.
When you're looking for a professionally-facing advertising option, LinkedIn is definitely top of mind. Their user base stands alone compared to other social platforms because users are in a professional mindset and more receptive to B2B messaging. This in turn has generated strong ROAS for our clients. The drawback of LI is the advertising expense is much higher than other social platforms. However, it's still significantly cheaper than going to third-party professional associations and partnering with them directly.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Over the past few years, we've used LinkedIn Marketing Solutions on two of our clients. While the platform allowed us to target new audience groups different from Facebook and Twitter, the cost to reach those targets was quite a bit more expensive than either Facebook or Twitter. While the platform was easy to set up, as we tried to do simple things like tracking visitors from our ads and measuring ROI, we faced many difficulties, as LinkedIn prefers to use tags instead of tracking cookies or pixels (like Facebook).
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions shines in its ability to allow our business clients to target other businesses and decision makers, allowing our clients to promote their products to the right people with ease.
  • Running B2B ads.
  • Targeting decision makers.
  • When we first started we got a sales rep from LinkedIn who walked us through the process.
  • Our clients reported that inMail got them some good sales leads.
  • As a marketer who loves to crunch numbers and find hidden gems of info in data, I feel LinkedIn is still behind other advertising platforms, especially Facebook & Twitter.
  • Weak sales tracking across sites compared to Facebook Pixel.
While we service many clients at our agency, we only felt that LinkedIn Marketing Solutions fit with two out of them, mainly due to their target audience and the type of product they sell. However, LinkedIn proved to be quite powerful and delivered well both in building the online image of those clients and in generating sales leads.
Bailey Witt, MBA | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
As a marketing agency, we often recommend LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, specifically LinkedIn Advertising, to our clients that sell B2B. It solves the problem of being able to target prospects for our clients at various industries, companies, and with specific job titles. There is no other widely used business networking platform as widely used as LinkedIn, so we know we're using very accurate and exhaustive data. We can build awareness for our clients by showing ads to their ideal customers.
  • The variety of Advertising campaign goals and mediums is great. You can use LinkedIn ads for building brand awareness with a broad reach, or get very narrow with InMail messages to a targeted list. Ads can be videos, images, personal messages, or just a text ad, all with varying pros and cons, so our clients lean on us for advice.
  • Setting up campaigns is very easy. Choose a goal, create an audience, add your content, and off you go. You can preview your ad to see exactly how it will look too.
  • The reporting is very expansive, too. You can view traditional metrics like impressions and clicks, but also set up custom goals to track as conversions, see the reach and frequency of ads, video views, clicks or engagement with your LinkedIn company profile, and a lot more.
  • Cost per click has tended to be fairly expensive, especially compared to a search ad campaign with Google or Bing, so it's not necessarily to be used in every situation. Our clients typically see a $10-$15 cost per click, and for smaller companies with limited marketing budgets, sometimes that can only get them 1-2 leads per month.
  • Audience expansion is one thing that doesn't always play to your advantage. It's supposed to find more people like the people you target in your audience, but it tends to go outside of some very important criteria, such as industry or job title. It makes it hard to make sure you're getting the right traffic or leads while still getting a good scale from the audience.
LinkedIn is the perfect solution for a B2B company that wants to grow, and is willing to spend at least a thousand dollars or more per month on LinkedIn. There is no other advertising platform that has as big a scale of professionals' data for targeting. The best way to use it is to create an ideal customer profile or persona, and create an audience based on key attributes like industry, job title, company size, and others, and then create ads that speak to their pain points that your business solves. It's one of the quickest and easiest ways to get in front of your ideal prospects.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions is being used by our Marketing and Sales department. We used it to find new target markets and to increase lead generation. In addition to reaching and building relationships with B2B customers through the platform, LinkedIn Marketing Solutions lets you get campaigns up and running rather quickly.
  • Targeted audience (by industry, job titles, company size, etc.)
  • Versatile ad options including sponsored content, text ads, and more
  • Easy to understand ad dashboard for analytics purposes
  • Sometimes the campaign management page is glitchy.
  • Integrating the insight tag isn't so clear-cut.
  • Pricing. LinkedIn Marketing Solutions is not cost-effective for SMBs who want to use the platform.
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions is well suited when you know the exact target audience you want to go after. For example, if I want to send an InMail campaign to MSPs and target only C-level executives in Western Europe, I can do that with LinkedIn Marketing Solutions. This would be popular with traditional advertising platforms. Also, LinkedIn's built-in lead gen form allows prospects to opt-in in one location rather than have them visit an external site. Marketing Solutions may not suitable if you have a limited budget and are planning to do a brand awareness campaign
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It has helped us on gathering the necessary people that we need for our continuing growth in the market. We have been able to achieve the goals of our clients by getting more people to know us. It is very easy to use and the issue about people not knowing us is gone as we are fairly well known now.
  • Easy.
  • Fast.
  • Reliable.
  • Web interface.
  • Mobile application.
  • Intuitive.
It is well suited for companies with high rotation, as stated, we were not well known and LinkedIn addressed that. For example, we had months in which there were a lot of people missing and because no one had heard about us, people didn't trust us that much. With the help of LinkedIn, it is solved.
September 12, 2020

Great Solution

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is being used in the HR and Sales dept. to market jobs and business opportunities within the company. It addresses reaching a wider variety of people through LinkedIn, more foot traffic.
  • Great customer service
  • Ease of use
  • Customization
  • Honestly nothing, they have anything you could ever need!
Very well suited for getting your company out there and gaining foot traffic. You can analyze your marketing and see how effective it is. They have so many options for any needs you have for different kinds of ads.
Vincent Misiewicz | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We run LinkedIn ads, both text ads and sponsored posts with nearly all of our B2B clients. This is being used mainly by our paid media marketing department. We use these campaigns as one of our primary sources of generating qualified leads. We are able to get more mileage out of content already being created for SEO purposes and can effectively target very specific audiences. These campaigns also help us diversify our media spend and reach audiences who are in the market for a solution, but not necessarily "searching" for them.
  • Robust breakout of targeting options
  • Ease of use & setup
  • Reach pre-qualified audiences that may not by actively searching for your products
  • Cannot use dayparting within interface, would need to use 3rd party software such as adstage, which is additional costs
  • Comparatively higher CPCs than search or alternative channels such as Facebook, not crazy about minimum bids
  • Not aware of any remarketing options or further audience targeting
Great for B2B companies that produce a great deal of informative, targeted content. We've seen great results sponsoring long-form industry research, webinars, and whitepapers that get these very specific audiences in the system. Products/services with longer sales cycles can also benefit from sponsored campaigns, as it is possible to really build strong authority on industry topics, making them a first choice when the need for a solution does arise. In general, targeting consumers is less effective, as the targeting is geared more toward professional criteria.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
LinkedIn marketing solutions is being used internally at my company for a variety of clients to promote their content and assets in a variety of paid media ways. We leverage it for different clients, products and industries alike, and use it to promote on a great b2b paid media platform that has a lot of reach.
  • Various ad options
  • Targeting by geographical locations
  • Targeting by job titles
  • Targeting by past or present information
  • Various extended paid media options
  • Connectivity to marketing platforms
  • Connectivity to CRMs
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions is one of the best marketing and paid media tools that is available to current marketers to date. It helps to quickly broaden your reach and allows you to market in a paid platform in a seamless way. It is one of the best investments for your money as well.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions is being used by our marketing department. We use it to generate business to business marketing leads for our sales team. LinkedIn Marketing has robust targeting capabilities not available on other targeting platforms that are accurate with a lot of different targeting options. It is also a solution for our overall ABM strategy.
  • One of the best B2B targeting capabilities.
  • Lead Gen Forms work particularly well to generate leads.
  • Able to target based on target account lists.
  • Advanced targeting AND/OR statements.
  • Cost per click is higher than other platforms.
  • Reporting capabilities are really lacking.
  • UI is not the best.
If you are in the B2B marketing function then LinkedIn Marketing Solutions is a top-tier advertising platform and in my opinion, a must buy. There's no other platform that has more accurate job and company information than LinkedIn, and that is their key strength. It also offers another ad platform to target companies.
October 15, 2019

LinkedIn Marketing

Austin Voigt | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 4 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are an advertising agency, with many B2B clients looking to do digital advertising. LinkedIn Marketing Solutions is used for many of our clients, due to the robust professional targeting available, as well as the unique ad formats (such as Sponsored InMail). LinkedIn advertising provides options for targeting that are unavailable on other platforms.
  • Great professional-based audience targeting
  • Great ad formats that are unobtrusive and native in appearance
  • Great customer support and feedback for campaign optimization tips & tricks
  • LinkedIn's campaign management platform is not very robust.
  • LinkedIn's campaign management platform is extremely glitchy.
  • LinkedIn's campaign management platform could use more robust targeting options - like more specific geos, more locations, etc.
LinkedIn is GREAT if you have B2B clients, or want to reach audiences that have specific professional traits you can identify them with. We actually have some higher education clients who use it - not because they're targeting professionals, but because sometimes students will have careers or previous education listed in LinkedIn, and they can target them that way. But all in all, LinkedIn is great for professional audience targeting.
Justin Roodman | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions was being used by our organization to post pay-per-click ads to build awareness of our SaaS product and to drive sales. We primarily focused on creating and deploying ads to specific user segments, although we ventured a little into using sponsored content as well. We did not try the sponsored inmail feature.
  • Allowed us to tune our targeting options to reach specific groups of LI users - by title, industry, etc.
  • Set a budget without long term commitment.
  • Allows you to incorporate an (albeit very small) image into your creative copy.
  • When we used LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, the reporting was not the most detailed system. The best way to gauge PPC effectiveness is by analyzing data sets, and LinkedIn didn't give us deep insight, considering it was using very specific criteria.
  • The image size limitation of 50x50 pixels makes it difficult to create/select a compelling image that matches your ad content.
  • Price. It was very expensive to do LinkedIn advertising compared to other options.
If you have a strong budget (i.e. you're working for a medium size or larger company and you've got $1,000+/ month for this channel) then you can effectively use this solution, as long as you've got a planned ROI value. If you're running a small business with a small budget, this is most likely not the best option for you (IMHO). Like all PPC options, you'll need to test and tweak your campaigns. If you want deep data sets to create actionable insights, this also may not be the option for you.
Scott Walker | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our agency uses LinkedIn Marketing Solutions for B2B clients that are having a tough time getting qualified leads through other means. Sometimes, it is hard to get the right leads using Facebook or Google ad networks, and LinkedIn offers a more professional/business-level platform. Though LinkedIn isn't as ubiquitous as FB or Google, it has audience refining features that make it better for B2B clients. We typically don't use LinkedIn unless we're not getting the performance from other sources, but we have also utilized it alongside other ad platforms to generate interested and drive consideration.
  • By company and industry targeting means, you can create detailed campaigns specifically targeting an industry you're looking to break into. This allows you to craft a message that resonates with a specific industry or company, rather than relying on an affinity or interest on other platforms.
  • Job title or seniority level targeting allows you to refine your target demo to the decision makers. If you have a product or service that needs to go to a c-suite customer, you can target just that group or title. Or, if you know exactly the titles you want to hit, such as Facilities Manager or Human Resources Supervisor, you can craft a message and targeting profile that gets your ads in front of them.
  • One of the best ad products I've found is Sponsored InMail. Though it is pricey, it offers a more direct-mail style ad product without the additional hassle of email list rental, mailing service, or similar services. This puts you in the inbox of those you target. Though it is mostly just in the LinkedIn inbox, many people also get a push notification and an email alert from LinkedIn in their email inbox. This is pretty valuable, and the prices aren't exorbitant considering how powerful the targeting can be.
  • The Campaign Manager is not good. It seems like the Campaign Manager (where you create and manage your self-serve ad campaigns) is buggy and doesn't have a good flow. Contrast with FB Ad Manager of the Google AdWords/Ads interface, which has a much more simple process to create and edits campaigns, ad groups, ads, keywords, audiences, budgets, etc. LinkedIn Campaign Manager seems to actively work against you trying to make changes to your campaigns.
  • LinkedIn Campaign Manager offers three options: sponsored content, InMail, and text ads. LinkedIn used to offer other ad services that you couldn't access unless you had a "managed ad account" run by LinkedIn Staff with a dedicated monthly ad spend. It seems most of those "hidden" features have disappeared, though you still have to contract with LinkedIn to offer dynamic ads. It would be better if LinkedIn empowered marketers to create the ads they want. (Perhaps with a dedicated acct. manager like how Google Ads works.)
  • This is silly, but it isn't easy to navigate to Campaign Manager. I have a bookmark for Campaign Manager because if you want to click there through LinkedIn, it takes 2 or 3 different screens to get to Campaign Manager. In my opinion, when you click the "Work" dropdown from the LinkedIn header (by your profile picture) you should have a link to Campaign Manager.
  • LinkedIn, in recent months, has made substantial changes to the Ads platform and Campaign Manager. Though these changes work to address some of the above issues, LinkedIn still has quite a ways to go before their platform is on par with their competition.
I would recommend LinkedIn Marketing Solutions to colleague under certain circumstances. First, I think all companies would benefit from having a company page on LinkedIn. I would set-up the page to cross post from another platform (like Facebook or Twitter) or have it hooked up to your social media manager. That way you still look active on the platform, but since interaction isn't as popular on LI, you won't waste time. If you are a B2B company that is having difficulty reaching your target client, LinkedIn Ads may be a useful tool for you. With better pricing than most direct mail or print alternatives, LinkedIn InMail and sponsored content might be the best way to get some leads in. If you are a B2C company that is only interested in targeting certain professional classes, then maybe LI Ads would be helpful. This is true for talent agencies/headhunters that need to find qualified candidates, a continuing education college looking for professionals to get a higher degree, or a convention for a certain type of profession.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Within the last two years, we have used Linkedin Marketing Solutions in order to promote content for our company, including articles, course releases, and promotions (sales and discounts). We chose to use Linkedin because of the unique audience it provides in regards to people interested in furthering their careers in IT and Networking.
  • It provides a very unique audience that you cannot usually reach with other social marketing platforms. It's especially helpful when you want to reach job seekers or people in specific positions.
  • Creating ads is pretty simple and quick. It's one of the easier platforms to learn if you don't have any prior knowledge of creating ads.
  • The analytics suite is easy to understand and includes some important metrics to determine success.
  • Setting up tracking is particularly difficult, as many sites don't easily integrate the insight tag (unlike how easy it is to install a Facebook pixel on many sites).
  • Because of the tracking issues we were never able to get a clear look at conversions and ROI. I wish there was a metric for Website Conversion Value like on Facebook /Google.
  • Support can be hard to find, even if you're willing to spend a significant amount on the platform. It mostly consists of help forums, with very little access to actual people to talk to.
If you need exact (and accurate) ROI reporting I would not suggest Linkedin's Marketing Solutions, as there are many other solutions that do this much better. Though, if you want to access a very unique audience that you can't find anywhere else it may be worth the lack of reporting to reach these people!
Jarad Matula, MBA | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
As an agency, LinkedIn Marketing Solutions are being used both to deploy campaigns both across the majority of our clients, as well as for internal campaigns. Usage falls mostly to use by the Media department, particularly by myself, with some occasional assistance from either the internal marketing team, others in media or those on the analytics team using it to pull reporting for clients. The business problems it addresses is being able to do paid social media campaigns that B2B companies find valuable. The ability to target by job title, etc allows the accuracy B2B companies demand in their campaigns that other social platforms struggle to compete with.
  • Targets the exact right audience for your B2B messaging: you don't have to guess based on likes or any other periphery data to determine whether you're reaching the right audience - you can hit by job title, years of experience, job function, seniority, and other great ways to ensure precision delivery to the correct audience.
  • Offers a helpful variety of ad units that are great for different types of campaigns to make sure you're reaching your audience in the right format for the ask.
  • Self-service platform now for all ad units, enabling you to take control of your LInkedIn marketing with a hands-on approach.
  • New GUI is convoluted and a step backward. In July, the LinkedIn Marketing platform got a facelift. While it looks nicer, cleaner, the functionality is much more confusing. Hiding charts within hover menus, as well as creating new tabs for some things, but not others. Or times when new tabs aren't created and you hit backward, it takes you out of the account altogether, so then you have several clicks to get back to where you were. There's just not a good flow between menus and it makes for a frustrating experience.
  • No frame of reference/benchmarks for your reporting: If you're using the self-serve platform, good luck trying to determine what the benchmarks are for your the campaigns you're running. Unless you have a rep that can provide that data, you're up a creek. Maybe you have individual past performance benchmarks, but platform wise they're really nervous about giving those out, and there's not a lot written about it. If you have an account with reps, then they will provide this if asked. This should be built into the platform so you have something to measure against and not just numbers in a vacuum.
  • Big budget dependent - I've ran many different sizes of campaigns with a wide range of budgets, and without question, the ones with large budgets with high daily spends do better. If you have a very small budget or need to severely decrease your daily spend, expect much weaker numbers. I've confirmed with reps that yes, decrease in performance for some ad units is completely caused by a decrease in spend or a limited daily budget. Something to consider when deciding whether to market here.
  • ABM/List match capabilities limited. While it's great that LinkedIn has a list match capability for target, it is limited. You can target by company or if you have email addresses, you can do that too. but if you have business email accounts, you're out of luck b/c as I'm sure you know, LinkedIn accounts are typically tied to personal email address. This makes B2B ABM targeting campaigns difficult. There's also no visibility into who in your list matched or not, so that you can target appropriately those that did not match, or know who you need to do more progressive profiling on.
  • Generally, the capabilities here are about 2-5 years behind the capabilities and offerings you can find at those sites that offer programmatic/display campaigns. Lead gen and lists only happened in the past couple of years. Video happened this year. They're running to catch up with modern ad tech. Just keep this in mind--this is a networking first platform--the ad tech is secondary and slow to add new features.
If you want to do awareness campaigns for a brand or product, LinkedIn can be very helpful. Most of the ad units work well for this type of campaign. So using campaigns for thought leadership is great.

I've yet to see LinkedIn Marketing Solutions being very good for lead gen, despite being a big part of the platform's offering. I've done it for several clients and it just hasn't produced good results. I also think that while InMail looks and sounds great on paper and in theory, there too have I ever seen much success. It's not surprising since I rarely look at them when they're sent to me personally. The really odd thing is that they seems to know this, because reps have typically steered me away from any type of ad unit other than sponsored content.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use LinkedIn in order to promote our new business offerings, including products and solutions as well as company news and events. It is used by the internal marketing department.
  • Ability to customize audience size
  • Clean easy to use interface
  • Helpful support team
  • More detailed analytics reporting
  • Ability to clone/replicate certain campaigns
  • Utilize suggestions from other users for improvement
It is great for promotional content and/or announcements related to your business or organization that you'd like to reach a broad audience. It is useful for companies that like to include targeted messaging to specific contacts or roles within organizations and is probably less appropriate for smaller organizations that do not need to reach a broad audience.
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