LinkedIn introduce new cost per lead ad format

LinkedIn have been experimenting with their ad product a lot over the past few months and now they’re set to introduce a new ad format that could provide a radically different model for measuring the effectiveness of social advertising : Lead Collection. The ads have been released to a set number of advertisers on the platform, during the testing phase. The ads work by allowing you to target potential leads on the platform, whereby when someone clicks on your ad, they’re taken through to a screen where they can request contact. Upon clicking on this, the advertiser will see the person’s profile within the advertising dashboard, with the ability to contact them directly.

How it works

The new ad option within LinkedIn works outside of the platform itself, to be integrated across your website. While the ads will run within LinkedIn, upon clicking on the ad people will be taken to your website, with the option to be contacted :

Advertisers will have the option to activate Lead Collection for existing and new campaigns, to help get more out of your ad campaign.

Will it work?

Running your LinkedIn ad campaign in this way will require a different strategy. While you may be running your campaign to reach a certain audience, the type of people that you want to initiate individual contact with may be very different. Advertisers will need to consider their targeting options more carefully, to ensure that this ad strategy is streamlined. You could risk putting people off by leading them through to a personal contact option, particularly if you’re selling a type of product that would be lower-value and would typically be a quick purchase online.

For your sales team, this ad option is a benefit. As well as being another chance to initiate personal contact with leads, it’s also a novel way to approach them, allowing you to stand out from the crowd early on. It shows LinkedIn are serious about maximising the amount of data they have on their members, to make it an invaluable b2b product. When everyone is concerned with measuring ROI from social media, this offers a very real way to do that, as lead generation will be clearly attributable to social advertising.

This is currently being rolled out on a test basis. If you have access, you will see the option to enable Lead Collection in your ad account on LinkedIn.