It’s no secret that advertising on LinkedIn can (and will) be costly. Many articles have been written about it and many more will in the future. This isn’t just because LinkedIn arbitrarily decided to be pricey - there are 2 main reasons for that: Ultra-specific targeting options and decision-making B2B oriented audiences.
If you can segment your advertising by job title or company size, to businesses that sell to other businesses, it's no wonder these ads are valuable. However, we can agree that you would care less about the ad cost if conversion rates and closed-won deals were high.
What are the benchmarks for successful paid social media campaigns?
We take a look at Metadata’s actual campaign data from 2021 to look for some answers. They examined 50,000 LinkedIn advertisements and almost $30 Million in ad spends so you can make better choices in future campaigns.
Which LinkedIn CTAs are most popular?
You can choose from a handful of CTA options when you place display ads on LinkedIn, including image ads, text ads, and carousel ads. LinkedIn's top four call-to-actions are:
- Download
- Learn More
- Sign Up
- Register
It is more common for users to give more weight to CTAs aimed at lead generation via content (“Download”) and demo requests via sales pages (“Learn More”). Over 80% of advertisers used these two CTAs. Most likely, the other two options, Sign Up and Register, will point to specific events, webinars, or demos.
What are the most effective CTAs on LinkedIn?
As veteran marketers we will say it depends. There is no guarantee that the highest CTR will result in the lowest CPC, so you have to consider your own budget as well. Have a look at this chart from Metadata’s report:
That being said, “Download” button has both the highest CTR and the lowest CPL. It might be time to experiment with solid gated content in your LinkedIn. “Learn more” and “Register” have similar CTRs and CPCs, though the latter has a lower CPL. Experiment both with demo and event CTAs to see what works best for your audience. “Sign up” has the lowest CTR and highest CPC and CPL.
What is an optimal CTR for LinkedIn ads?
There are two distinct camps of LinkedIn experiments: lead generation and brand awareness. A brand awareness ad is optimized for clicks, while a lead generation ad can be tracked through to closed sales. The average CTR on LinkedIn in 2021 was 0.67% for both types of campaigns.
In spite of that, LinkedIn advertisers experienced a fairly wide range in CTRs: 0.32% on the low end to 4.40% on the high end. This is exactly why we recommend using these benchmarks as a starting point, then setting your own benchmarks as you invest in LinkedIn ads. To start, a 0.67% CTR on LinkedIn is a good KPI, but your success metrics will depend on your offer, your creative, and your audience.
What’s the average CPC for LinkedIn ads?
CPC isn't the end-all-be-all of LinkedIn advertising KPIs, but it's a good leading indicator. If visitors aren't converting further down the funnel, you don't want to overpay for clicks. Last year, LinkedIn advertisers saw an average CPC of $11.03 for all campaign and offer types.
The most important thing is how this flows through the rest of the funnel: those clicks led to an average $163 CPL and $6,016 per triggered opportunity. In both cases, the costs are lower than those on Facebook.
There were also CPCs as low as $5, so the best CPC depends entirely on your budget, your audience, and your context.
On LinkedIn, we do not typically look at CPM since experimentation allows advertisers to be more granular. CPC works as a much more effective metric to consistently track. However, based on nearly $30M in spend and nearly 400k impressions, we saw a roughly $70 CPM on LinkedIn.
What is the average conversion rate on LinkedIn?
If you don't track your conversions, CTR and CPC don't mean much. Your ROI only comes from customers who buy your product or service.
Our tracking of LinkedIn ads included both initial clicks and closed-won revenue, so there isn't just one conversion rate. Instead, take a look at these average conversion rates:
- Click-to-lead conversion rate: 9.23%
- Lead-to-opportunity conversion rate: 2.63%
- Opportunity-to-closed-won conversion rate: 12.71%
There is no doubt that turning visitors into leads is easier than turning leads into qualified opportunities. Because of this, LinkedIn tends to work best with smaller audience sizes, where targeting is better and conversations are more relevant.
This article can help you leverage the data you already have in your business. Only you know the DNA of your audiences, so creating good benchmarks for conversion is totally customizable.
If you feel like an additional input could be useful for your marketing and sales teams, touch base with us at IV-LEAD and let’s figure it out together.