LinkedIn Direct Ads

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ghost.d0wn

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Sep 19, 2007
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Has anyone experimented with Linked In Direct Ads? If so, share some input.

Linked In seems to be skeptical on the conversion rates however there is little date on this service.
 


The traffic is expensive - $2 CPC minimum or $3 CPM. When I tried it for a small business services organization, they only had text ads - Now they allow a 50x50 px image in the ad. Of course these economics are basically going to work for nobody on text ads, even attempting to target well. I haven't even seen Direct Ads lately, and only seen display ads. But then again, their posted rate card http://download.linkedin.com/corporate/advertising/pdf/pdf_ratecard.pdf is ridiculous as well. I highly doubt any large advertiser is paying near the posted rates, though.
 
Some people say that they are a scam, They found No Payments made and Emails Bounced. Better to keep finding out reviews or feedback about them.
 
I spoke to a guy who ran some ads on their not long ago. He threw $150 into it and didn't get any sales on a campaign that was converting very well in the business communication niche which should be around the same target market. I would say the ads are placed bad and the only clicks you are getting are accidental or bot.
 
The thing about LinkedIn is....who ever actually goes to the site? I use it for my "day" job but I never actually visit the site -everything I get is in email.

The vast majority of those are deleted without being read.
 
TFLNetwork said:
Though i have never used it, i could not imagining getting a good ROI on linkedin, solely because of the clientele.
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THIS^^^

Sharksfan said:
The thing about LinkedIn is....who ever actually goes to the site? I use it for my "day" job but I never actually visit the site -everything I get is in email.

The vast majority of those are deleted without being read.
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And THIS ^^^

Come one guys, I may not be up on the whole FaceBook thing because of my age but I sure as hell know LinkedIn traffic. It's nothing but a bunch of "Business Development" professionals with some headhunters sprinkled in.

I've checked it myself (mainly as a target for the headhunters).
I honestly can't think of one network's offer that would work with this traffic. I get spam literally every hour from LinkedIn groups I'm a member of and it's nothing but a clusterfuck of WaFo-easque 'you-can-do-it' posts by someone peddling their employment agency's services.

LinkedIn is like a stadium full of blind Amway reps trying to recruit each other.
 
William Tubold said:
Some people say that they are a scam, They found No Payments made and Emails Bounced. Better to keep finding out reviews or feedback about them.
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WTF? Did you post in the wrong thread?
Sharksfan said:
The thing about LinkedIn is....who ever actually goes to the site?
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Being the #19th most popular website in the US according to Alexa, plenty of people. Your post sounds like the people on TechCrunch who always post on advertising related threads saying "I don't click on ads, who clicks ads anyway?".


LotsOfZeros said:
I honestly can't think of one network's offer that would work with this traffic. I get spam literally every hour from LinkedIn groups I'm a member of and it's nothing but a clusterfuck of WaFo-easque 'you-can-do-it' posts by someone peddling their employment agency's services.
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Not sure what groups you joined, but the ones I get emails from aren't like that - They're pretty much legitimate discussions, and very little self promotion.

In terms of offers that would work with this population, there are quite a few on traditional affiliate networks that could work (GoToMeeting Trial, Small business tax software, WSJ.com, stuff along those lines). For that, you'd really have to target owners/managers of small businesses. The problem is that $2 CPC or $3 CPM on a text ad that blends well into the side of the page won't perform well, and you're going to have to spend a lot to get display ads.

The testing I did was for a non-profit organization in St. Louis that helps connect small business to local resource providers (consulting from local universities, tax advice, business planning, incubators, etc.), trying to get leads/users of their free service, and it didn't do anything compared to what we could get from AdWords targeting people actually searching for those types of business services. $0.50 ultra-targeted CPC on Google, or $2 CPC untargeted (just to business owners/managers) on LinkedIn? I'll take Google.
 
I should clarify: I don't get spam in the literal sense, they're all the daily email digests of the group posts. It's just that once I open them, it seems like I have to wade through so many spammy self-promoting posts to get to anything with any substance.
Makes me feel like I'm on Warrior Forum.
 
LotsOfZeros said:
I should clarify: I don't get spam in the literal sense, they're all the daily email digests of the group posts. It's just that once I open them, it seems like I have to wade through so many spammy self-promoting posts to get to anything with any substance.
Makes me feel like I'm on Warrior Forum.
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That's why you have to choose your groups wisely. I decline 90% of the groups I'm invited to because of crap like that - Find good, focused groups with professionals in it, and you can get some good information / opportunities.
 
Personally, I think they are fucking idiots for their minimum cpm and cpc bids. They are leaving millions of dollars on the table. We looked at them for a very specific offer that we thought would work with their demos and figured that it would be virtually impossible to make money.
 
LotsOfZeros said:
I honestly can't think of one network's offer that would work with this traffic.
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It's a very special demographic group we have here. That is a nice target. You have to think about what would work for those people, what are they usually buying - for themselves or better: for their companies. And of course forget the typical consumer stuff. It's probably a great source for B2B, like

- Jobs
- Software and Hardware
- Mobile Apps, especially for Business/Organizing
- Financial Services, Investing and
- Insurances
- Business-Travel
- Car rental

These people are smart, but they usually have some money to spend.
 
Exactly. LinkedIn is golden if you can negotiate high payout B2B offers directly with companies. The usual ad network campaigns aren't the ones to focus on with traffic like that.

Honestly I can't believe that the travel industry and insurance industry haven't already bought all the inventory directly.
 
At $2 CPC or $3 CPM (now with a 50x50 image, maybe the CTR will be a bit higher than before on CPM), you'll be hard pressed to find a good B2B offer, even a high-paying lead offer, that converts profitably. In the little bit of research I've done, it looks like search or placement targeting on Google Content network can get more qualified traffic, cheaper.
Thumoney said:
It's a very special demographic group we have here. That is a nice target. You have to think about what would work for those people, what are they usually buying - for themselves or better: for their companies. And of course forget the typical consumer stuff. It's probably a great source for B2B, like

- Jobs
- Software and Hardware
- Mobile Apps, especially for Business/Organizing
- Financial Services, Investing and
- Insurances
- Business-Travel
- Car rental

These people are smart, but they usually have some money to spend.
Click to expand...
 
I have used LinkedIn to generate leads for a company that does professional financial education stuff and I haven't been that impressed. I'm targeting an extremely narrow group of people (think investment banking professionals who do high level financial analysis - not your average Edwards Jones/AG Edwards rep who only knows what their company tells them), and the results are definitely not as good as what I'm seeing on Google and Facebook. A typical sale in this market is worth $5-10k (more if it's a group education package for a company), so it's not like I'm working with razor-thin margins, either.

The bottom line - I'm still advertising there because it works out alright in this limited instance, but I can't really see too many other cases where I would use it. The traffic is just too expensive for what it is.
 
I think Thumoney hit it on the head. LinkedIn is a different type of network. People crawl all over Facebook for hours stalking people and playing Farmville (go ahead and act like you haven't played it). LinkedIn has a different purpose.
 
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