Connecting With B2B Customers Through Paid LinkedIn Message Ads

You know how your serotonin spikes every time you see you have a new message on social media? Well, LinkedIn is taking advantage of that. 

LinkedIn Message Ads allow you to send ads to people you may or not be connected with your company. Except unlike with other social media feed or story ads, message ads don’t just disappear with a glance or a scroll. These ads are sent right to their LinkedIn direct mail. And it stays there with a bright red notification until you click on it.

Banner blindness? Ignored ads? Not with this tool. (Unfortunately, mailbox puppies are not included.)

How to Create Your Message Ads Strategy

LinkedIn Marketing Solutions offers advertisers data about its users, categorized by demographics, interests, and professional persona. This is incredibly helpful for creating a targeted campaign for your prospects—grab someone’s attention with more than just an image that you send out to the jungle of social media. Message ads allow you to create highly personalized messages that appeal to your target audience on the platform.

Here are some paid Message Ads best practices: 

📥 Use a casual tone - Don’t mistake Message Ads with your standard corporate email. Keep it concise and friendly. Your message recipient should like this communication is speaking directly to them. Avoid jargon or overly formal language. 

📥 Always have a CTA - Without a call to action, the recipient may go through your ad, even like your product, but have no idea what to do next. That’s pretty much an ad gone to waste. Always include a short line that will compel your target audience to take action. Since there’s not room for a lot of copy (and who likes a long CTA anyway?) use actionable words such as ‘download now’, ‘learn more’, and ‘book a call’. 

📥 Do A/B testing - You can always improve the ad that you created for LinkedIn through A/B testing on message ads. We love trying out a few different angles, subject lines, and body copy in our ads because it offers you an opportunity to learn more about what really clicks with your target audience. 

📥 Optimize for Mobile - Message ads are technically optimized for mobile, but there are ways you can better stick to the format. Make sure your copy is no more than a thousand characters. If you’re including links or a click-through make sure the page it leads to is also optimized for mobile devices. 

📥 Choose the right account. Be smart about the account you’re sending the message from, instead of sending it from the account of just anyone in your organization. Will a message from the Marketing Director be as impactful as a message from the Founder/CEO? Think about the person who would make the most impression. 

📥 Don’t be boring. Don’t just copy and paste the same ad you’ve been using everywhere else on social media in your Message Ads. Get more personal and get creative. Think about how you are going to build a relationship with a potential customer. Do you want them to reply? Should they feel excited? Should they have questions? Use these messages as an opportunity to kick off that relationship. 

The Takeaways for LinkedIn Message Ads

LinkedIn Message Ads are a great way to get your products out there and make sure that your brand is visible. Message ads are best suited to B2B marketing where you are directly speaking to the decision-makers who will be the ones to purchase your product. 

The great thing about LinkedIn is that it offers more than one way you can advertise on the platform. LinkedIn also offers tools such as Conversion Tracking to help you monitor the volume of sign-ups. This lets marketers improve their existing campaigns and gather valuable insight on how their target market behaves after they receive LinkedIn Message Ads.

If you’re looking to test a new B2B advertising campaign, trying out Message Ads rather than cold email could get you into the inboxes of the people who matter.