In B2B marketing, LinkedIn Ads provide a unique opportunity to reach decision-makers, and social proof—especially video testimonials—plays a crucial role in building trust.
In this recorded discussion with LinkedIn Ads experts Anthony Blatner and Tanner Stolte, we dig into essential strategies to help B2B marketers maximize LinkedIn’s impact.
From leveraging video testimonials to cutting costs, these insights offer actionable steps to elevate LinkedIn as a core component of your marketing strategy.
Exclusive resources:
- Free Testimonial Request Guide – easily engage and capture more social proof and video testimonials to use in ads
- Social Media Executive Brief – what’s working and missed opportunities with paid media plan
- Step-by-step guide to thought leader ads – level up your ads with this new format
Here are 9 takeaways and tips from the recorded live conversation:
Optimizing Targeting to Cut Costs
- What it is: LinkedIn Ads typically have higher CPMs and CPCs than other channels, making precise targeting essential to reach decision-makers without wasting budget. Proper targeting not only improves ad efficiency but also increases the quality of leads.
- Actionable Tip: Focus targeting on broader job functions instead of specific job titles, which may be too narrow for LinkedIn’s scale. Use LinkedIn’s demographic insights or upload past buyer lists to validate and refine your audience, ensuring alignment with key decision-makers.
Leveraging Video Testimonials for Trust and Authenticity
- What it is: Video testimonials create a human connection, allowing potential customers to hear directly from others in similar situations. This authenticity accelerates trust-building, helping prospects quickly understand how your solution has delivered measurable outcomes for real customers.
- Actionable Tip: Choose short, impactful video testimonials to use in retargeting campaigns, especially those that highlight specific, quantifiable outcomes. Place these testimonials in bottom-of-funnel ads to support decision-making, showing your product’s impact through the words of satisfied customers.
Maximizing Retargeting for High-Intent Leads
- What it is: Retargeting allows you to keep your brand visible to leads who have already engaged with your content, maintaining top-of-mind awareness while they consider solutions. By serving tailored ads to engaged visitors, retargeting reinforces interest and encourages conversion.
- Actionable Tip: Use LinkedIn’s Pixel to capture website visitors and retarget them with content that aligns with their position in the funnel. For example, use video testimonials in mid-funnel retargeting ads, as they add credibility and reinforce trust, making your brand stand out when leads are evaluating options.
Harnessing Intent-Based and Predictive Targeting
- What it is: LinkedIn’s intent-based and predictive audience targeting helps you reach people who are actively interested in relevant topics, which is especially valuable for B2B. Predictive targeting combines historical data with current engagement trends to identify prospects with high likelihood of conversion.
- Actionable Tip: Incorporate LinkedIn’s predictive audience tools into broader campaigns, but pair them with core ideal customer profile (ICP) criteria to fine-tune targeting and capture the highest-intent audiences. Test these predictive segments alongside traditional audiences to compare results.
Using Social Proof Ads to Complement the Buyer’s Journey
- What it is: Social proof, especially video testimonials, has become a cornerstone of successful LinkedIn campaigns, building trust at every stage of the buyer’s journey. Video testimonials, in particular, provide genuine customer experiences that prospects find relatable and trustworthy.
- Actionable Tip: Incorporate video testimonials in both top-of-funnel and retargeting campaigns to consistently reinforce credibility. For a comprehensive approach, run a series of testimonial ads as layered touchpoints to increase familiarity and comfort with your brand as prospects progress down the funnel.
Using Video Testimonials to Identify Intent
- What it is: Video testimonials can also serve as strong indicators of intent. By tracking how long prospects engage with these videos, you can identify those with high interest and tailor follow-up actions accordingly.
- Actionable Tip: Launch video view campaigns specifically for testimonials, retargeting those who watch a significant portion (e.g., 50% or more). Use follow-up ads that nudge these viewers closer to conversion with content that speaks directly to the benefits or outcomes they engaged with initially.
Strategic Use of Engagement Ads for Testing
- What it is: Engagement ads provide a cost-effective way to test various creative elements, including messaging, visuals, and CTAs, before launching conversion-focused campaigns. This is particularly valuable for B2B brands looking to optimize ad spend.
- Actionable Tip: Run engagement ads to test key ad components such as headlines, imagery, or testimonial snippets, refining based on performance. Prioritize testing the elements that have the biggest impact, like CTA wording and visuals, to gain insights into what resonates best with your audience
Combining Document Ads with Targeted Campaigns
- What it is: Document ads are an interactive format, ideal for sharing in-depth content like case studies or product features within the ad itself, keeping users engaged for longer and enabling more detailed storytelling.
- Actionable Tip: Use document ads to present complex content such as multi-page case studies or swipe-through customer stories. Track user interactions with each page to identify the most engaging content and tailor follow-up ads accordingly. Retarget users who engaged deeply with additional content or testimonials
Preparing for LinkedIn’s Up-and-Coming Attribution Tools
- What it is: LinkedIn plans to release advanced attribution tools, allowing B2B marketers to measure the influence of LinkedIn campaigns on pipeline and revenue growth. This tool will help marketers connect campaign performance directly to sales, making it easier to justify LinkedIn investments.
- Actionable Tip: Stay updated on LinkedIn’s attribution tool release and be prepared to integrate these insights into campaign analysis. As the tool rolls out, experiment with tracking specific campaigns or ad formats, like video testimonials, to measure their contribution to closed deals and refine strategies based on these insights
