Are you overpaying for your LinkedIn Ads? Are you employing the best ad bidding strategy? Were you aware that each Linkedin marketing outcome charges advertisers in a different way?
If you’re trying to run paid marketing campaigns on various platforms, you’ve probably realized that marketing on the LinkedIn ads platform and determining the best bidding strategy is more difficult than it is on Google AdWords.
LinkedIn provides some bidding strategies tailored to specific campaign objectives. Choosing the right strategy and establishing a competitive bid can decide the fate of your campaign.
Let’s take a deep dive into the specifics of bidding on LinkedIn.
What is a LinkedIn Bid Strategy?
A bidding strategy defines how you spend your budget to fulfill your goal – LinkedIn will attempt to obtain the best results for your budget by default.
Establishing a relevant performance goal, on the other hand, will assist algorithms in devising the best strategy to achieve it.
LinkedIn offers three categories of bids namely
- Maximum Delivery
- Target Cost
- Manual Bidding
Let’s explore them one by one.
Maximum Delivery
It is an automated bid option in which the bid is set by LinkedIn’s system. It is effectively used when you need to deliver your entire budget while achieving the most fruitful results possible.
Generally, beginners start with this strategy and then progress to the Target Cost strategic plan or even manual bidding as they gain more experience with running ads on the platform.
Here’s an example of maximum delivery feature: If you choose Website conversions as your optimization goal, LinkedIn will try to get as many conversions as feasible within your budget constraints.
If you choose Landing page clicks, LinkedIn will try and drive as many clicks to your landing pages as possible, and so on.
Target Cost
It is a bid type that is available for CPC, CPM, CPV, and CPL. There is also an automatically generated option in which the bid is set by LinkedIn’s system. It does, however, allow the advertiser to specify their preferred cost per key result.
LinkedIn’s system will try to keep the price as close to the specified amount as possible. This is an excellent option for advertisers seeking cost control, particularly for leads.
For example, if your optimization goal is landing page clicks, it simply means being willing to pay X amount of money for a click. This is your desired price.
In another case, if your optimization goal is Website conversions and you set it to $5, it means that the most you are willing to spend per conversion is $5.
Manual Bidding
Manual bidding is the most preferred, hands-on alternative for advertisers, and also our favorite.
It gives marketers the most influence over their bids. That being said, manual bidding requires you to monitor it regularly to ensure it performs at its best.
Typically, LinkedIn will provide you with a suggested bid amount that is calculated by taking the following factors into account:
Your campaign segmentation – some audiences are remarkably more successful in the market than others, so the average bid will be higher as well.
What other advertisers are bidding – The Campaign Manager will provide you with a range of the minimum and maximum quantity that other advertisers are bidding for features similar to yours.
How do you select what’s right for you?
This all revolves around how you set your goals, dedicate your time towards achieving those goals, and most importantly the needs of your budget.
Let us look at all one by one.
Campaign Goals
Brand awareness campaigns are straightforward impression-based campaigns. These campaigns are excellent for building top-of-funnel brand awareness.
If your goal is to increase visibility so that your ads reach as many people as possible, automated bidding is ideal.
Enhanced CPC might be the best option if you want superior-quality clicks which are more likely to convert. If cost is a top priority, Target Cost would be able to utilize your needs.
Time Constraints
If you have the capacity to track your campaigns on a daily basis, you may need to use manual CPC or enhanced CPC to better control your costs. However, if you don’t have a lot of time to devote to LinkedIn advertising, one of the automated strategies may be the best option for your company.
Your Financial Requirements
If you want to spend your entire budget, Manual CPC or Enhanced CPC might not be able to do so if your bid is too low. Target Cost and Automated Bidding are more likely to guarantee that your budget is spent as efficiently as possible.
How LinkedIn Bidding Works
LinkedIn has a bunch of factors on which your bidding performance depends. These factors decide the fate of your bid ads upon entering the bid auction.
1) Budget: How much money are you prepared to spend?
The larger your budget, the greater it is that you will win the bid and reach your target audience.
2) Target Audience: Who are you trying to reach?
Filter using segment of the population information to ensure that you only reach those who are eager to participate.
3) The goal of the Campaign: What is the campaign’s overarching goal – knowledge and understanding, prospects, website clicks, revenues?
4) Ad quality: How likely is your target audience to interact with the ad?
A quality score is generated by analyzing advertisements, including communication and innovation.
5) Previous campaign performance: How well has the marketing strategy performed in the past?
Shivyaanchi Special:
Final Thoughts
There is no single winning bidding strategy.
It all depends on what you want to accomplish. For the first 1-2 weeks, It is recommended to start with eCPC. This is semi-automatic, but it allows LinkedIn to increase the bid on members they believe will convert.
Your bidding strategy is determined by your company’s goals and how much authority you want over your costs.
Just remember, you won’t be able to figure out the best strategy right at first, so test multiple bid choices and keep on working to determine the most effective strategy to maximize your results.
