LinkedIn Ads & Branded Search

I recently re-launched some LinkedIn ads for a client in the beginning of August, and we’ve been seeing some interesting results. Therefore, I thought it was worth putting together this bite-sized case study to highlight the impact that a channel like LinkedIn can have outside the ad platform.

The Campaign

The actual campaign setup itself was fairly basic. We launched a handful of thought leader ads with the campaign objective set to engagement. These ads were posted from the founder, and members of the sales team. The thinking here was that each of these team members was either already fairly active on LinkedIn, or sat in a customer facing role.

The content of the ads ranged from describing who the company is, to some examples of their product/service, and call outs for their upcoming peak season. We created a few different cold audiences using firmographic filters that aligned with an analysis of the best customers from the client’s CRM.

Lastly, there were no CTAs in these ads. We didn’t include any links to the site, or written CTAs within the copy. The intention was that this content should all be consumed in-feed.

The Results

When looking at in-platform performance, nothing was particularly surprising. The ads saw strong engagement in terms of CTR when comparing performance against other traditional sponsored content ads, and these ads generated an astounding 0 conversions.

Yes, in-platform conversion tracking is set up, but as I mentioned previously there weren’t any CTAs on these ads. The goal wasn’t to drive direct-response leads. Attempting to do this against a cold audience might be misguided anyway.

What we did see was:

• A 67% increase in branded search volume in August compared to the monthly average during April - July

  • In comparison, branded search volume in August 2023 only increased by 17% compared to the monthly average from April - July 2023

• A 26% increase in organic search leads in August compared to the monthly average during April - July

  • We don’t have solid CRM data from this far back in 2023 for an appropriate YoY comparison here

*Quick callout; this client’s business varies a lot with seasonality QoQ. By comparing August performance against April through July I could see the impact of LinkedIn on brand interest against all of Q2 and the first month of Q3.

While the increases in branded search volume and organic search leads (many of which come from branded search) may not be directly caused by the launch of these LinkedIn efforts, there is certainly a correlation.

Many other marketing efforts remained fairly consistent during August, which indicates that it is more likely that the LinkedIn campaigns had a positive impact on branded search volume.

The Learnings

For many B2B businesses, paid social channels like LinkedIn aren’t suited to drive quality leads from a cold audience. Based on my analysis and research, it takes multiple brand interactions for a potential buyer to actually raise their hand and become a lead.

The real value in LinkedIn campaigns is being able to narrowly define a B2B audience using firmographic data, and introduce that audience to a brand.

That’s exactly what we did here, and it’s likely that we saw some positive downstream results. I believe it’s important to monitor performance outside of the platform to understand how paid social campaigns are having an impact on a marketing program as a whole. Looking at metrics like branded search, total site traffic, lead sources, etc.. can help to paint a clearer picture.

Have questions, considerations, or critiques? I’d love to hear them! If you’re reading this via email, just hit respond. Otherwise, you can find me on LinkedIn.