If you want to get the most out of your LinkedIn Advertising campaigns, you need to understand all of the LinkedIn Ads targeting options. You need to get your advertisements in front of the right people. However, it can be a challenge to understand all of the different audiences you can target. You have endless options like locations, companies, demographics, education, job experience, interest targeting, and more. That’s why we put together this LinkedIn Advertising targeting guide.
Important Note: Your ad targeting cannot discriminate based on protected personal characteristics. LinkedIn prioritizes fairness, and any discriminatory ads will be promptly taken down.
LinkedIn Ads Targeting Video
LinkedIn Ads Targeting
1. Start with Location Targeting
What areas does your business serve? Do you serve a specific geographic area? Location targeting is a fundamental part of LinkedIn Ads. You can either choose to reach people based specifically on where they live (Permanent location) or where they live and travel to (Recent or permanent location). You can exclude locations as well. All you need to do is type in the locations you want to target, select it, and you are ready to move on to Language Targeting.
2. Choose Your Language Targeting
You can target people based on their LinkedIn profile language as well. As I’m writing this blog article, there are over 15 languages available. You want to choose the language that your customers speak in this section.
3. Narrow LinkedIn Audience
When you choose to narrow your audience, you can choose between the different audience targeting and audience attributes.
4. LinkedIn Matched Audiences
With matched audiences in LinkedIn Ads, you can upload and target company or contact lists. In addition, you can retarget people who have interacted with your brand, like visiting your website or engaging with your ad. It also lets you include contacts from other systems and create lookalike audiences, finding new people similar to your current audience or customers.
5. List Upload – Company List or Contact List
Your two options are Company Lists and Contact Lists. You can see the picture below for more information:
If you have collected leads for your brand, you can upload their name and email to target the leads if they use LinkedIn. You need a minimum of 300 matched members to target a list. For example, if you have a newsletter with 10,000 subscribers, you can upload your list and target them directly with your LinkedIn Ads campaign.
6. LinkedIn Lookalike Audiences
You need a matched audience group of at least 300 people to create a lookalike audience, and you can’t use it with audience expansion. LinkedIn lookalike audiences essentially help you find more people like people in your matched audiences. For example, if you upload a contact list, you can target a group of people that have very similar characteristics to your matched contact list.
7. LinkedIn Retargeting Audiences
Retargeting is an effective way to re-engage those who have visited your website, engaged with your single image ad, viewed your video ad, or opened your Lead Gen Form. It even allows you to reach out to individuals who have interacted with your company page or RSVP’d for your LinkedIn Event.
8. LinkedIn Company Targeting
Some of the options include Company Category, Company Connections, Company Follower of, Company Growth Rate, Company Industries, Company Names, Company Revenue, and Company Size.
You can reach people who are associated with specific companies, including employees, decision-makers, or those who follow the company on LinkedIn. This can be particularly beneficial for B2B marketers who want to reach people at specific companies. By focusing on specific companies, industries, or categories, you can create more successful campaigns.
9. Demographics Targeting
LinkedIn Ads Demographics Targeting allows you to target your ads based on age and gender. You can ensure your ads are seen by the most relevant audience. For example, if you are trying to reach recent female college graduates then you can incorporate the female targeting and the ages 18-24 and 25-34 categories.
Demographic targeting allows you to pinpoint an audience based on age and gender, providing a clearer focus for your marketing campaign.
10. Education Targeting
Education Targeting in LinkedIn Ads enables you to target users based on their educational background, including fields of study, degrees, and schools. It’s a useful tool for companies looking to reach professionals with specific educational qualifications. This is especially helpful when you want to target professionals in a certain field, or graduates from specific institutions.
11. Job Experience Targeting
LinkedIn’s Job Experience Targeting helps you reach professionals based on their work history, including their job functions, titles, and years of experience. This can be helpful for companies looking to reach individuals within certain industries or job roles. It can also assist in recruiting efforts, targeting professionals with the specific experience necessary for a job opening.
12. Interests and Traits Targeting
This targeting option lets you reach LinkedIn users based on their personal interests and characteristics. Whether it’s their skills, group memberships, or personal interests, this feature allows you to personalize your ad targeting to resonate with your desired audience. By understanding and targeting these interests and traits, your ads can be more engaging and relevant, leading to higher conversion rates.
7 LinkedIn Ads Targeting Best Practices
- Define Your Audience Clearly Based on What You Are Advertising
Before you begin, have a clear understanding of who you’re trying to reach. This includes knowing their job titles, industries, company sizes, and even their interests. The more accurately you define your audience, the more effective your LinkedIn Ads will be.
- Test & Utilize Multiple Targeting Options
LinkedIn provides several ad targeting options such as company targeting, demographic targeting, job experience targeting, etc. Make the most of these options to refine your audience and reach the right people.
Don’t be afraid to experiment with different targeting strategies. For example, you might try targeting by job title for one campaign and by industry for another to see which yields better results.
- Use Matched Audiences to Drive Conversions
With LinkedIn’s Matched Audiences, you can re-engage people who have already shown interest in your business. This feature allows you to target website visitors, accounts, and contacts from your customer databases and CRM.
- Create Lookalike Audiences to Engage New Customers
LinkedIn’s lookalike audiences feature helps you reach new people who are similar to your existing audience. This can be a powerful way to expand your reach while still targeting relevant professionals.
- Don’t Limit Your Audience Too Much – Avoid Over-Targeting
While LinkedIn’s targeting options are very precise, over-targeting can limit the reach of your campaign and may result in higher costs. It’s a balancing act between precision and scale.
- Test, Monitor, and Optimize Your LinkedIn Ads Targeting
Lastly, always monitor the performance of your LinkedIn Ads and be ready to adjust your targeting strategy based on the results. Use LinkedIn’s analytics tools to understand who is engaging with your ads and why, and use that information to refine your approach. You should optimize your LinkedIn Ads targeting by focusing on the audiences that convert.
Conclusion
LinkedIn Ads Targeting provides plenty of options to ensure your ads reach the people most likely to engage with your brand. By understanding and utilizing these tools effectively, you’ll be on your way to crafting highly successful and targeted ad campaigns. Don’t miss out on the power of LinkedIn Ads Targeting – it could be the game-changer your digital marketing strategy needs.
