What is LinkedIn sponsored content? Killer Guide Inside

You are here for one of two reasons.  One – You have a page and are looking for ways to grow it and are looking to run ads on Linkedin.  Two – you always see it in your feed so you type “What is LinkedIn sponsored content?” into Google.  Either way, you are in the right place 

Well, the answer is paying your hard-earned cash to LinkedIn.

This way you get more eyeballs on your page’s content beyond your current followers. The five different formats for sponsored content are:

• Video Ads
• Single Image Ads
• Single Job Ads
• Event Ads
• Carousel Ads

I understand that your ultimate goal is to drive revenue through your Linkedin page.

To do this you need to understand each of the five sponsored content types.  Each type is a different weapon in your arsenal that you can deploy. 

Attempting to use a weapon before understanding it is asking for disaster.

Once you understand it’s a matter of selecting the most effective option. 

So let’s dive into each sponsored content type and what’s most effective…

Why your page needs sponsored content

I’m going to assume that you are in a B2B business as you are trying to leverage LinkedIn. 

If you are not in the B2B space it may still be worth considering. 

It boils down to what platform your target audience is using.

Facebook may have 9x more active users, quantity does not equate to quality.  For B2B marketers LinkedIn is the best platform by far.

Here’s why:

• 310 million active users
• LinkedIn is responsible for 80% of all B2B leads generate from social media
• LinkedIn’s visitor-to-lead conversion rate is 2.74%

Your target audience is ready and waiting.  They want your content to captivate them so let’s dive into your sponsored content options.

Different Content Strokes for Different Folks

Single Image Ads

Out of the five sponsored content types, this is one of the more common ones I see in my personal feed. 

While the appearance is simple to the end-user, there are a lot of components that make or break you.  Let’s take a look at an example from our good friends over at AgoraPulse.

I broke the ad into five separate components that the end-user will look at before taking action.  These aren’t numbered in order of what the end-user looks at, I numbered them from top to bottom.

1. Your company

This is where you have the opportunity to start building brand awareness.  The end user sees your logo and company name.   Another piece of information displayed is the number of followers your page has. 

There’s an important concept when it comes to followers.  I always preach quality with quantity instead of going for vanity numbers. 

Most of the time, quality is much more important than quantity. In this case, having a large number of followers establishes credibility.

So you may want to consider a followers campaign.  This would help establish more authority with your prospective audience.

2. Preview line of content

This is your small window of opportunity to have them click on see more or go straight to the learn more button.

Although this is a part of the content, I recommend treating this as the headline.  I don’t need to tell you about the importance of a catchy headline.

If you need to brush up here’s a solid video that will help:

3. The image

I would say that the image is the most important piece out of the five points as this is what the end-user will see first.  It also sets the tone and ties everything together.  In this example, AgoraPulse shows a compelling price difference between the different options.  They don’t say click here as we are the lowest price, the image plants the seed for them.

4. The CTA

This part is where you tell them what you want them to do or the action you want them to take.  In this example, the CTA is to go check out AgoraPulse.

5. The button

This is what we all hope you click on! 🙂

Video Ads

We are all familiar with seeing this one in our feeds.  These videos are anywhere from 3 to 30 seconds long.  You need to make sure the video ratios are one of these 3:

• 1:1 (square)
• 9:16 (vertical)
• 16:9 (landscape)

You may think that all the end-user does is watch the video and then act on the CTA or not.  It’s actually more in-depth.

I broke the ad into 7 separate components that an end-user will look at.  The order is from top to bottom, not in order of what they look at.

1. Your company

This exactly the same as the single image ad.  I will mention again that you may want to consider bumping up your followers to add more credibility.

2. +Follow

I noticed the option to follow the company right in the ad unlike the single image ad from AgoraPulse.  This provides an excellent opportunity to gain followers as a secondary goal.

3. Intro Text

You have up to 150 characters to hook the end-user.  They could be looking at this before the video, a couple of seconds into the video, or at the end of the video.  Most likely they will be reading this before consuming the video.  Make sure you maximize each character to crystalize a concise message.

4. The actual video

This is the most important part as it’s the focal point.  There’s way too much to cover in a single bullet point, so I’ll most likely do a separate post in this in the future. 

In the meantime check out HootSuite’s awesome post Everything You Need to Know About LinkedIn Video

5. The headline and The Button

I combined these as both of them go hand in hand with the goal of having them click on the button.  With the headline, you have up to 70 characters to captivate the end-user.

6. Engagement Count

While this is is something out of your control, it is something that the end-user will notice. This tells them if people are engaging with your content. 

The end-user may not even be aware they are paying attention to this number.  A popular post with a higher count makes it more compelling for them to take action and engage. 

7. Comment Count

This is the same concept as the engagement count.  The comment count will always be lower than the engagement count.  If there is a decent amount of comments, they are more likely to jump in the conversation

LinkedIn video ads are a massive topic in and of itself. Paid Media Pros gives a pretty solid tutorial that is worth checking out to get you up to speed.

Single Job Ads

The reason why you would run this is clear.  Of course, you are trying to drum up candidates for an open role in your company. 

I broke the ad into 5 separate components to dive into.

1. Your Company

This is going to always be the same across all the different sponsored posts.  As we discussed above, bumping increasing your follower count bumps perceived credibility.

2. Intro Text

This is your place to shine.  You have limited characters and a couple of lines to draw them in. 

Most job ads I see contain a forward-looking statement about the company or the industry they are in.  They are missing the mark.

Instead, they should ask a thought-provoking question.   This gets the ideal candidate to think if they are happy in their current role.

3. The Image

This ties everything together as the image does in the single image ad.  This doesn’t have to be of employees at your company pretending to work or experiencing success. 

I recommend starting with the intro text and then finding a perfect image to support it.

4. The Headline

The same universal headline principles apply here.  Scarcity sparks action by imposing a sense of urgency on the end-user.

5. The Button

This is where the rubber meets the road.  When you place all the correct elements together, you should have a lot of end-users click on this.

Event Ads

Last year LinkedIn took a page out of Facebook’s playbook.  They introduced the ability to run ads to promote an event.  This isn’t only for in-person events.  You can also have online events as well.

Despite a lot of scrolling, I couldn’t find an event ad in my feed.  So I found this example from Linkedin

I broke this ad into 5 separate parts to discuss.

1. Your Company

Now there is a slight difference from the other sponsored content types.  It doesn’t show the number of followers.  So I don’t have to mention bumping up your follower count 🙂

2. Headline

Although this is in text format, I’m calling it the headline as that’s what it is.  Again, make this concise and compelling. 

Your ultimate goal is to have them register and attend.  So you want to compel them with curiosity enough to actually visit the event page to learn more.

3. The Image

Now you don’t have the ability to change this.  Whatever image you select for the event cover image will appear here.  I figured it would be a good idea to make you aware of this..

4. Event Details

This is pretty straightforward.  It provides high-level details of your event like the date, time, and name. 

It also shows the registration numbers.  It also shows how many other of their connections are attending as well.  The higher this number is, the more compelling it becomes for them to sign up for the event. 

One other note: you need a catchy name for your event to draw people in.  A solid name will tie everything together.

5. The Button

This is where we want them to click!

Here’s a great video that walks you through getting started with LinkedIn event ads

Carousel Ads

I rarely see these in my personal feed.  This type of sponsored content is a group of images that the end-user can scroll through.  You can add up to 10 images.

There are two schools of thought on the images.  You can have each image have a CTA to go to a different place.  Or you can have all the images build to the final image with the CTA.

While both thoughts have their own merits, having the images build is a better way to go.  The reason is that it tells a story and people love stories.

We don’t need to break down the different components here.  It’s pretty much the same as the other LinkedIn sponsored content types.

I did manage to find a good example of a carousel ad that builds to the final image with the CTA. 

There are a total of 5 images in this ad with the CTA being an ebook download.

Every type of Linkedin sponsored content has different specs and as you get going it will be hard to keep track. Vimeo published an awesome guide that is a complete guide.

Effective types of LinkedIn sponsored content

Now you have a solid understanding of what is LinkedIn sponsored content.  The next thing you will likely try to figure out is what is most effective.

Unfortunately, there is not a universal answer.  It depends on many different factors like:

I’m a big fan of video as I see a lot of end-users engage with video posts.  So I could say that video is the way to go, but that’s not always the case.  If my goal is to have CEOs register to attend an event, it would make better sense to run an event ad.

The important piece is to optimize each aspect of the sponsored content.  You need to maximize your results. 

You don’t have to hit a home run every time.  You can tweak different aspects with future campaigns to yield much better results.

You came here to answer your question of what is LinkedIn sponsored content.  You now have a solid understanding so you can experience explosive growth for your page.

Your LinkedIn journey is only getting started.  Before you drive into the world of paid ads you should take a minute to optimize your page as well as your profile.

How To Make My LinkedIn Profile Stand Out? 7 Simple Steps is worth checking out.  If your profile isn’t optimized you are leaving money on the table.  My post gives you 7 simple steps you can take to maximize every profile view.