Did you know you can use Bing Ads audiences to target leads via LinkedIn? This nifty little trick is called LinkedIn Profiling Targeting and it can be extremely lucrative for digital marketers looking to build an audience of profitable, conversion-ready leads – and this article shows you how to do just that.
How LinkedIn Profile Targeting Works
Those new to Microsoft Ads (formerly known as Bing Ads) can utilise the B2B powerhouse better known as LinkedIn into their online marketing strategy by creating targeting ad campaigns that are aimed at LinkedIn members who use/have used the Bing search engine. These can be newly-created campaigns or pre-existing ones, and the targeting of your campaign/s can be geared towards three areas of LinkedIn data: Industry, job function, and company.
Industry
LinkedIn currently allows you to target a whopping 147 industries, which range from vast, dense industries to small, niche ones, which can allow for your targeting to be more broad than that of targeting exclusively via company or job role, and can also be really useful for retargeting campaigns.
Some of the industries you can target include:
- Hospitality
- Automotive
- Retail
- Law
- Accounting
- SaaS
Job Function
With targeting on LinkedIn via job function, advertisers can identify and reach specific targets in specific roles. At present, LinkedIn lists 26 job functions, which allows for targeting a wide range of professionals.
Some of the job functions you can target include:
- Education
- Arts & Design
- Legal
- Research
- Quality Assurance
- Media & Communications
Company
As of 2022, LinkedIn currently boasts over 80,000 companies representing themselves on the platform, which leverages a high level of granularity. Advertisers can build company targeting lists from anything from billion-dollar household brands to SMEs and independent sole traders and freelancers.
Some of the companies you can target include:
- Amazon
- TED Conferences
- Starbucks
- Adobe
- Disney
Why You Should Be Using LinkedIn Profile Targeting
Ideal for B2B Marketing
B2B marketing can be a saturated, competitive game. But with LinkedIn profile targeting, you can be specific about who you’re targeting (and why) because you can focus exclusively on industries, job functions, and companies.
Exclusivity
The feature of targeting via LinkedIn is unique and exclusive only to Microsoft Advertising (and LinkedIn itself, of course), which digital marketers (particularly of the B2B sector) could definitely benefit from including in their digital marketing strategy for targeted campaigns.
Precise Targeting
Marketers who wish to home in on pinpointed audience segments can do so with LinkedIn profile targeting. This can mean a heightened level of conversions from the ‘hottest’ leads/audiences built by you.
Setting Up LinkedIn Profile Targeting For Your Campaign
A step-by-step guide:
- Log into/set up your Microsoft Advertising account, create a campaign and head to ‘Ad Group, Audiences, & Targets’ (step four in the setup process).
- Choose the target categories you require. Be mindful that by default ‘Location’ , “Age” and “Gender” are the set categories.
- Click on the blue Title of each categories you want to edit
- Search for the companies, job functions, and/or industries you wish to target.
Companies
You can add 1000 (maximum) companies per campaign.
Please note: companies are not listed, so you will need to enter them in manually and click ‘Enter’, allowing you to select the company that appears. If a company isn’t listed, it will suggest alternatives instead.
Job Function
Select from a list of 27 job functions and click ‘Done’ and set your bid adjustments once you’re finished.
Industry
Select the industries you wish to target and click ‘Target’. Once you’ve built your list, click ‘Done’ and set your bid adjustments.
LinkedIn Profile Targeting: Top Tips
Use Your Prospect List to Influence Your Targeting
If you have a set list of potential leads from organisations, you can create a LinkedIn profile targeting campaign that targets them. This could be certain businesses based in a certain location, and you should also increase your bids by 100 – 200% to outbid your competitors, so that your campaign reaches your prospects instead of your rivals’ campaigns.
Seek High-Conversion Prospects
If you’ve yet to establish a list of company targets, do some research into companies that have high-conversion rates of their own and consider aiming your marketing content at them. You can collect data on their web traffic to help you with this list.
Exclude Your Rivals
The last thing you want to do is spend money on allowing your competitors to click on your campaign! You can avoid this by excluding their companies from your ‘Company’ targeting list. Simply search for them on the LinkedIn list and decrease your bid by up to 90% for them.
Don’t Rule Out Industry Targeting
Start by focusing on broad industry targeting and selecting the sub-industries from high-level industries. You can then focus on a select few sub-categories and increase your bids for the ones that are the most profitable.
Target Job Function Decision-Makers
These are the LinkedIn members most likely to convert because they are able to greenlight investments in products or services. Because the list of job functions is still relatively small in comparison to the other two categories, you can combine it with companies or industries to create a highly-focussed list of good prospects.
Use Profiling For Recruitment
LinkedIn is arguably the most fruitful platform for recruitment, and you can use LinkedIn profile targeting to find future candidates for your company by advertising available positions. As with other campaign types, you can adjust/increase your bids to target via job function and/or industry.
Don’t Rule Out LinkedIn If Your Brand is B2C
While the platform is particularly profitable for B2B marketers, B2C brands can also utilise the channel for a successful marketing outcome. Again, you can use LinkedIn to create a profile targeting campaign and combine various job roles and industries to define your ideal customer and work at finding them through the campaign list-building process.
Things to Consider With LinkedIn Profile Targeting
Traffic
There is a fine line between good and bad granularity. If your targets are on the ‘too granular’ scale, this may be extremely limiting insofar as the traffic volume may be so small that it is a waste of your time. This can be the case when targeting via company, or through industry – if the industry is particularly niche. This is because the keywords you bid on may be ‘low volume’.
Bulk Uploading is a No-No
Don’t be lulled into thinking that the 80k plus companies listed on the platform allows for bulk uploading – or at least there isn’t currently a feature to enable this. However, you can do this if you have a Microsoft Ads Editor subscription. If not, you’ll have to build your company list manually by adding one at a time.
Size Toggles & Filters are Also a No-No
This means you will have to add companies manually instead of filtering via boundaries or via the Microsoft interface.
Conclusion
At present, Microsoft is the only online marketing solution that allows advertisers to use their platform to target LinkedIn members, which can be extremely beneficial for creating a highly-targeted list of prospects for your ad campaigns.
Building your list takes a little time and patience, as well as some research, but once you’ve done that, you can expect profitable results from your campaign, and ultimately, a handsome return-on-investment.
If you’d like to learn more about how we help B2B SaaS and Tech companies grow their MRR through Bing ads, contact us online or send us an email today at info@getuplead.com to speak with someone on our team.
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