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20 Advanced LinkedIn Ads Tips & Best Practices for Legal Marketers

by Noreen Fishman • August 17th, 2021 • Social Media | Blog

linkedin adsAdvertising on LinkedIn can be a very effective way to reach a highly targeted audience. That doesn’t mean it’s easy – the platform can be complex and has a lot of nuances to navigate. If you have been running LinkedIn ads for a while now without seeing the expected results, try following these LinkedIn ads tips to get things right. Make the most of your campaigns with these tips for creating effective ads, targeting the right audience, testing, and optimizing.

1. Don’t target an audience size over 500k

To make the most of your budget, you should try to be as targeted as possible when it comes to your audience. When working with a bigger audience, you won’t get very precise results and won’t be able to make conclusions about how to improve. 

2. Break down bigger budgets into smaller campaigns

Even if you have a big budget, that doesn’t mean you should expand your audience above that 500k number. We recommend A/B testing smaller audiences and following our variety of LinkedIn ads tips to see what works. 

3. Be careful of mixing locations within a campaign

Try testing geographic areas separately. Even if it feels tedious to create different campaigns for specific regions, it will make it easier to analyze results. 

4. Pay attention to company size when segmenting

“Myself Only” means companies that consist of one person, such as freelancers. This is helpful when marketing to individual professionals (such as for tax law, setting up LLCs, etc). 

5. Use “exclude” filters to your advantage

To achieve a more targeted segmentation, you can include and exclude components from the same criteria at the same time. 

6. A/B Test

When testing campaigns, try changing one element at a time. This is the best way to see what’s working and what isn’t. Test things like ad formats, headlines, banners, or segmentation groups. 

7. Add UTM parameters

It’s important to add distinctive parameters to all your campaigns and banners within each campaign. There’s no use A/B testing if you won’t be able to differentiate among results. UTM tracking is also helpful for tracking formats, channels, and creative. You can use a free tool to build the correct urls. 

8. Set up conversion tracking

Do this before you actually launch any campaigns. This is helpful if you want to measure how many people took a valuable action on your site (such as clicking on a certain page). 

9. Double-check your campaign elements before launching

When you create a LinkedIn advertising campaign, you should always double-check Step 1 (Set up Campaign) before moving on to Step 2 (Set up Ads). Things like Objective, Profile Language, Lead Gen form and Ad Format can’t be changed once you launch. 

10. Have a daily and a total budget

When setting the budget for your campaigns, you can choose from 3 options. We do not recommend setting a lifetime or daily budget only, as they can be difficult to control. Having both will ensure that you don’t go over a predetermined total budget. 

11. Be careful setting an end date with a small audience

If your audience is small (say, under 1,000 people), it can take longer than you’d think to reach them because LinkedIn only shows ads to active users. If you set an end date that’s too early, you may not reach all of the audience. 

12. Use manual bidding vs. automated options

If you set your budget to be automated, you might notice that your CPC (cost per click) skyrockets. To have the best control, choose Manual bidding + the option “Enable bid adjustment for high-value clicks”. 

13. Use real performance data to make improvements

You can use LinkedIn’s Performance Chart and Demographics data to analyze your campaigns and improve your segmentation based on actual results. 

14. Use a combination of Sponsored Content and Sponsored Messaging

Run them simultaneously to boost campaign performance. The boost in campaign metrics from using multiple channels is undeniable.

15. Use concise copy

Keep things short and sweet. We suggest keeping descriptive copy at no more than 150 words. Using numbers and statistics is a good way to keep things brief but impactful. 

16. Test ad creative at least once

Before you launch a campaign, make sure you’ve tested it. Include at least 2 or 3 different creative options in campaigns to test which will work best on a larger audience. 

17. Leverage the power of matched audiences

In this way you can re-target your website visitors and your CRM contact lists for better results and bigger impact. For more LinkedIn ads tips on how to use these elements for your best results, check out our past post: LinkedIn Matched Audiences: LinkedIn’s Secret Advertising Weapon.

18. Pause low performing ads

Every few weeks, look at your overall performance and pause the ads that have the worst results. Then replace them with new alternatives, such as ads with new banners or calls-to-action (CTAs).

19. Never forget a CTA

Ensure that all of your creative and every campaign has a CTA included. It’s essential that people know what the next step is once they’ve seen your ad. 

20. Use LinkedIn lead gen forms

You can use the native lead gen forms provided by LinkedIn to collect quality leads using forms that are pre-filled with LinkedIn profile data. These forms are easy and quick to submit without having to fill in a lot of form fields manually. You can then download your leads right from LinkedIn in an excel spreadsheet and add them to your CRM. 

Takeaway

Though LinkedIn’s advertising platform can be confusing for even experienced users, strong performance really comes down to properly understanding your audience and targeting them with the right messages. Whether you’re looking to promote an upcoming webinar, achieve more downloads for your lead magnets, recruit top talent for your law firm, or promote your case studies, LinkedIn ads are the way to go. Follow these LinkedIn ads tips to achieve better results from your campaigns. 

You can also download our free eBook, The Law Firm Guide to LinkedIn Advertising for more detailed advice on how to execute and optimize LinkedIn advertising campaigns that meet your marketing and business objectives.

If you need help building out a LinkedIn advertising strategy or adjusting current initiatives, reach out to us today. We have vast experience helping lawyers and law firms achieve measurable success through LinkedIn advertising.

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