In this webinar, we'll discuss best practices for content marketing using LinkedIn Sponsored Updates, which enables you to publish relevant content straight to the LinkedIn feed and reach a targeted audience of professionals beyond your LinkedIn Company Page followers. We'll cover everything you need to know to start a successful Sponsored Updates campaign, such as: - How to determine your campaign goals - Creating great content and insights to share with your target audience - Best practices for turning your content into compelling Sponsored Updates - Testing and learning to optimize your campaign We'll also be joined by customer and partner Percolate, who will share best practices from running multiple LinkedIn Sponsored Updates campaigns. Don't miss out on this opportunity to learn valuable best practices that can make a positive impact on your Sponsored Updates ROI.

2. Phil Han
LinkedIn,
Associate Product
Marketing Manager,
Sponsored Updates
Chris Bolman
Percolate,
Director of
Integrated Marketing
Sophisticated Guide to Sponsored Updates

3. Agenda
• What are Sponsored Updates?
• Creating great content to engage the LinkedIn audience
• Turning your content into compelling Sponsored Updates
• Test, learn and optimize
• Success Story: Percolate
• Conclusion

4. What are Sponsored Updates?

5. Sponsored Updates are…
• Native advertising in the world’s only
professional news feed
• Reach members with rich content
on any device
• Drive leads, build brand, increase
engagement with your content

6. Sponsored Updates are…
• Native advertising in the world’s only
professional news feed
• Reach members with rich content
on any device
• Drive leads, build brand, increase
engagement with your content
Three things that set
Sponsored Updates apart
Accurate profile-based targeting
Professional mindset that creates
a favorable content marketing
environment for brands
Premium audience

7. Create Great Content

8. Content Matters:
It creates conversation that leads
to customer relationships
10
74%
90%
Number of pieces of content
buyers engage with to research
their purchase.
-Source: Google, Zero Moment of Truth Study
Of B2B buyers choose a vendor
that’s first to help them with
useful content.
-Source: Inside Sales
Amount of purchase process that
buyers complete before making
contact with vendor.
-Source: Forrester

9. Keys to Great Thought-Leading Content
The Bloom Group’s eight criteria for thought-leading content:
• Relevance
• Novelty
• Depth
• Validity
• Practicality
• Rigor
• Clarity
• Coherence

10. Track Metrics that Matter
For brand awareness or
content engagement
• Engagement with your content
• Site traffic and time per visit
• Brand life or purchase intent
• Executive-level follow-up
• Quality of audience you’re engaging
For Lead Generation:
• Volume of qualified leads
• Cost per Lead (CPL)
• Marketing-influenced or
marketing-sourced bookings
• Lead velocity

11. On LinkedIn, Speak to the Professional Mindset

12. On LinkedIn, Speak to the Professional Mindset
-Source: The Mindset Divide: Revealing the Emotional Differences
Between Personal and Professional Networks

13. A 6-Step Strategy for Creating Content for LinkedIn’s Most Engaged Members
While themes
of great content
vary by audience,
industry, and
marketer
objectives, there are
some guidelines you
can follow to appeal
to the professional
mindset.
On LinkedIn, Speak to the Professional Mindset

14. DO’s and DON’Ts for Crafting Compelling LinkedIn Content
DO: DON’T:
• Think like a journalist
• Be helpful by providing answers to your
audience’s most pressing questions and
challenges
• Find your authentic voice that’s authoritative but
friendly and trustworthy.
• Connect content to a commercial insight or
benefit
• Enrich and amplify your content by enlisting
influencers, trusted industry experts, or your
executives to contribute
• Deliver a sales pitch
• Be overly broad in your content themes. You
want to be recognized as an expert in only one
or two areas.
• Create content that people can’t easily
consume on phones/tablets
• Go it alone!

15. Turn Your Ideas into “Big Rock” Content
Big Rock Content…
• Delivers value to your audience
• Includes eBooks, webinars, research reports,
instructive guides, and other “meaty” content assets
• Serves as evergreen content you can re-purpose
• Can be released about once per quarter

16. Use Tools that Make it Easier to Create or Source Great Content
Content doesn’t have to be difficult. Scale your content efforts with
LinkedIn’s Certified Content Partners.

17. Turn Your Content into
Compelling Sponsored Updates

18. Pick the Right Tool for the Job
• Sponsor directly from your
LinkedIn Company Page
• Try LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager
• Work with a LinkedIn Certified
Ads Partner
• LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
Managed Advertising Account
Campaign automation, bulk editing, A/B
testing, day-parting, posting content
across social channels, and more!

19. Get Visual
Include a thumbnail image in your updates
• Upload rich media like infographics
• Use crisp images, bright colors
• Have SlideShare presentations, videos
*Get up to 2x engagement rate by adding
images to your updates

20. Think Like a Journalist
• Write brief, compelling headlines.
• Use numbered lists, surprising
statistics and figures, or stake a
strong position on an issue.
• Share posts or words of wisdom
from your executives or notable
thought leaders within your company
• Call out your audience in your post
and headline
• What’s in it for the audience if they
click on your content?

21. Target Your Content to the Right Customers
3 tips for effective targeting on LinkedIn:
• Don’t hypertarget: stick to two or three
targeting criteria.
• Start with a broad target and refine over time.
• Ask yourself if the audience is a good fit for
the content you’re publishing.
• Experiment with Audience Expansion

22. Build a Sturdy Campaign Foundation
• Launch posts in waves and
keep the top-performing post
from each wave running
into the next week
• If you’re driving leads or
content downloads, start with
CPC (cost-per-click) bidding
• If you’re aiming for brand
Awareness: CPM

23. Make Your Pages Mobile Ready
• Explain why the content is valuable-
include more on your page than just
a lead form
• Keep lead forms short to increase
conversion rates
• Make sure to take advantage of
responsive design
*Remember, 75% of Sponsored Updates
engagement comes from mobile

24. Test, Learn and Optimize

25. • Add click trackers to your landing pages
• Use analytics on your Company Page
or linkedin.com/ads to measure
performance by post or audience
• Shift Budget away from low-performing
content or audiences and toward
content or audiences that are
performing better
• Try Direct Sponsored Content to
test at scale
“Always Be Optimizing”

26. Set a budget and bid that makes
sense for your business.
If your goal is lead gen, then
your bid should also reflect the
value of a lead to your business.
Need more help optimizing your
demand gen plan? Check out
our eBook for additional
resources.
Adjust Budgets, Bids so They Make Sense for Your Business

27. Success Story:

28. Percolate Overview
Percolate, which provides software for
managing marketing and advertising
campaigns, content, and workflows,
conducts ongoing marketing campaigns to
share valuable insights via webinars and
original research to prospective
customers.

29. 29
Percolate: The Challenges
• The need to tailor messages to different
audiences
• Multiple buyer types, including mid-level and senior IT
decision makers
• Driving engagement with thought
leadership
• Blog posts, webinars, original research and reports
• Objective: Attract quality leads

30. Sponsored Updates
30
How We use LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
• Sponsored Updates help
Percolate reach a narrowly
targeted audience
• Testing and refining campaigns
helped improve the editorial
process
• Example: Changing creative
for “How to Design a Marketing
Workflow That Wins
Customers” increased lead
generation by 500%

31. 31
Percolate: the Results
• LinkedIn is Percolate’s top generator of leads from downloaded content
• Percolate’s average clickthrough rate is more than 91% above LinkedIn
benchmarks
• Top performing campaigns exceed LinkedIn’s benchmarks by more than 4.5X
• Average engagement rate is more than 30% above LinkedIn benchmarks
• More than 3X increase in Company Page followers

32. 32
Key Takeaways
• Every element of the creative matters, including copy, image, and link description.
They need to work together to win your target's attention and fulfill the brand
promise around the content.
• Continue to learn from campaign results– use these insights to fine-tune updates
and improve performance
• If an update isn’t performing, don’t be afraid to retool it and put it in front of your
audience again.

33. Conclusion

34. Time to Put These Ideas to Work!
• Visit marketing.linkedin.com to
get started
• If you’re the admin of your LinkedIn
Company Page, you can also sponsor
an update at linkedin.com/ads
• Ready to scale your content marketing
on LinkedIn? Work with a LinkedIn
Certified Marketing Partner today
https://lnkd.in/bTg2XPj

35. Q&A

36. ©2014 LinkedIn Corporation. All Rights Reserved.©2014 LinkedIn Corporation. All Rights Reserved.