How to Increase Conversions Using LinkedIn Retargeting Ads

Author: Kacey Waleski Category: B2B, Digital & Social Media Date: March 24, 2020

Have you ever browsed a website for a specific item—a pair of shoes, a coffee maker or even a car, for example—only to be later magically greeted with an ad for that product while browsing your favorite social media site? This is not the universe reading your mind or sending you subliminal messages to make that purchase; it’s an advertising tactic called retargeting.

A whopping 96 percent of visitors to your website¹ aren’t ready to buy—which means you’ll need to nurture them through the buyer’s journey. That’s where retargeting comes in.

What is website retargeting?

Retargeting is a cookie-based technology that follows users across the web so businesses can target lost customers by reminding them of their brand and offerings. This rather new form of social advertising is highly effective, boasting a 10x higher click-through rate than a standard display ad, and a 70 percent higher likelihood of conversion.²

While retargeting can be employed across multiple social media channels, the type of business and target audience will dictate which is the most appropriate platform. In the B2B world, or for industries that target business professionals, LinkedIn retargeting is the way to go.

Why LinkedIn advertising is so powerful

LinkedIn offers advanced capabilities that let you target influencers, decision-makers and executives in a professional setting. Because LinkedIn is where people go to enhance their professional lives, they’re already in a business-focused mindset when perusing the platform. That makes them more susceptible to business-related content. It stands to reason that businesses that are targeting other business professionals would find a higher concentration of their target market on LinkedIn.

Consider this:

• 4 out of 5 LinkedIn members drive business decisions
• LinkedIn members have 2x greater buying power than your average web audience³
• LinkedIn delivers conversion rates up to 3x higher than other social networks⁴

With numbers like those, it’s no wonder LinkedIn ad targeting has become so popular within the LinkedIn B2B community.

LinkedIn ad campaign options

LinkedIn lets you create ads based on your target audience. You can either define your audience based on traits, such as job title, company name or industry, or you can use what LinkedIn refers to as a “matched audiences” approach. This includes account targeting, contact targeting and, what we’re talking about today, website targeting—also known as LinkedIn retargeting.

LinkedIn retargeting ads work by letting you define target audiences based on the pages they visited on your site—or even those who have engaged with your brand on LinkedIn—so that you can deliver a customized message that’s relevant to that audience segment. To enable this functionality on your website, all you would need to do is add the LinkedIn Insight Tag. This easy-to-install, lightweight JavaScript code works behind the scenes to track your site visitors so that you can later serve them relevant, targeted ads.

Let’s say, for example, your company sells shared workspaces. A self-employed, gig-economy professional comes to your site to browse around, see what’s out there and get some ideas. This person isn’t ready to make a purchase and leaves your site without taking action. But because you’ve got the LinkedIn Insight Tag installed, you can reengage with that visitor with an ad on LinkedIn so you can stay top-of-mind until he or she is ready to make a move.

How to set up LinkedIn retargeting ads

Setting up your LinkedIn retargeting ad is simple to do. After your LinkedIn Insight Tag is installed, all that’s left is to set up the LinkedIn ad campaign in the platform itself, then monitor. Here’s how you do it:

1. Go to Campaign Manager in LinkedIn, click on the Account Assets dropdown and choose Insight Tag. Your site should be listed as verified, assuming you installed your LinkedIn Insight Tag
2. Go to the audience creation page to create your LinkedIn retargeting
3. At this point, your audience will begin to grow as LinkedIn members visit your site. Once you hit 300, you can start delivering ads to that audience.
4. Tailor the right message to each audience segment.
5. Use LinkedIn’s reporting and analytics features to assess how your LinkedIn ad campaign is performing.

Don’t let go of the 96% of website visitors who at one time showed interest in your product or service. Use LinkedIn retargeting ads to stay relevant, keep them engaged with your brand and ultimately bring them further into your funnel to convert. Contact Paradigm Marketing and Design today to learn more about how to integrate LinkedIn Advertising into your marketing strategy.

1 https://instapage.com/blog/retargeting-landing-pages

2 https://www.business2community.com/marketing/17-retargeting-ad-statistics-will-make-retarget-right-now-2-infographics-01464774#ist7SrEbzBRu7MZ0.97

3 https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/ad-targeting

4 https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/30030/LinkedIn-277-More-Effective-for-Lead-Generation-Than-Facebook-Twitter-New-Data.aspx