Why LinkedIn? 3 examples of B2B advertising.

In our evaluation of campaigns, we mainly rely on the Merkelijkheid LinkedIn Benchmark. It includes anonymized results from all the campaigns we have run for our clients over the past years. It is an important tool for assessing campaign performance and making timely adjustments. In this article, we share three client cases:

• Apex Dynamics: Building Brand Awareness via LinkedIn
• Why LinkedIn is Essential to Support Your Trade Show Visit
• Why LinkedIn is the Social Media Platform for Lead Generation

Apex Dynamics: Building Brand Awareness via LinkedIn

Apex Dynamics BV is a supplier of gearboxes, pinions, and racks. It is also our longest-running partnership, characterized by a strong focus on online marketing and a willingness to try new things. The various LinkedIn campaigns we have been running for Apex for several years are a good example of this. The goal: to increase brand awareness for Apex Dynamics BV among technicians specializing in mechatronics and robotics. In these campaigns, we explicitly target individuals with specific interests and skills, rather than the companies they work for or the roles they hold.

“With our LinkedIn ads, we are fishing outside our own pond, but with the right bait and the right fish (our target audience).” – Thom van Oss, Director of Apex Dynamics BV

In these LinkedIn advertising campaigns, we share various videos that highlight the personal and service-oriented nature of Apex. The videos focus on products, knowledge, and people, such as a technical expert from Apex discussing the quality class of racks, a brief explanation of the Apex design tool, or the features of a specific line of gearboxes. Additionally, we advertise a series of videos in which Apex’s director, Thom van Oss, visits former team members of Team Rembrandts, a team that Apex has been sponsoring enthusiastically for years. These videos emphasize the experiences of these young technicians during their time with the team and how they apply those experiences in their work at various Dutch technical companies.

Here are some key features and results of these campaigns:

– An average of 5,000 to 10,000 views per month.
– An average Cost Per Mille (CPM) ranging from €8 to €15.
– An average view rate of 35.11% to 46.65% based on all views.
– An average completion rate of 2.46% to 3.6% based on all views.

LinkedIn is the platform of choice where you can achieve visibility and brand awareness among your B2B target audience at relatively low costs.

Why LinkedIn is Essential to Support Your Trade Show Visit

In entirely different campaigns, we combine brand awareness with sales support, specifically campaigns centered around trade shows. How often do you visit or exhibit at trade shows as a B2B brand? In general, our B2B clients attend various trade shows several times a year. However, the results of these trade shows and all the associated efforts are often uncertain or simply lack visibility. To enhance the impact of trade show visits and investments, we support them with campaigns on LinkedIn.

An example is the Achema trade show in which one of our clients participated as an exhibitor in 2022. The target audience consists of companies that will be present at the trade show, both existing and potential new relationships. Before the trade show, these relationships were contacted by phone to schedule appointments at the event. The LinkedIn campaign served to support these conversations and increase the visibility of our client leading up to the trade show. The ad simply states, “Meet us at Achema 2022 in Frankfurt,” and leads to an article in which the company’s management discusses the topics they hope to cover at the trade show.

What did this achieve?

– Over 4,000 impressions, reaching over 600 highly specific target individuals.
– 50% of the target audience was reached during the summer vacation period.
– Over 50 clicks to the website.

In addition to visibility, the most important outcome was the increase in quality conversations during the trade show. An additional challenge in this specific campaign was the summer period when people work less and are therefore less active on LinkedIn. Our main lesson from this campaign is to start advertising earlier, especially if your trade show takes place during or immediately after the summer vacation period.

Why LinkedIn is the Social Media Platform for Lead Generation

LinkedIn is by far the most commonly used platform for lead generation among our clients, and it is well-suited for this purpose. The targeted B2B audience that you can assemble on LinkedIn is one you ideally don’t want to just show ads to and direct to your website; you want to engage with them! LinkedIn offers several options for this, and our favorite is lead generation through a form on LinkedIn: contact information in exchange for, for example, a whitepaper, fact sheet, or brochure.

For a training organization specializing in personal development and leadership, we have conducted multiple lead campaigns over the years. These lead campaigns are part of, and the ultimate goal of, a larger campaign that also includes phases focused on brand awareness and website traffic. Here are some results from one of these lead campaigns:

– Over 11,000 impressions, reaching over 8,000 individuals.
– The CPM is €22.50, and it costs €30.48 to reach 1,000 unique individuals.
– 3.19% Click Through Rate.
– 20 leads, with a Cost per Lead of €12.50.

The same target audience and campaign delivered over 10,000 impressions and 10 leads a few months later, this time with a Cost Per Mille of €18.44 and a Cost per Lead of €18.18. This campaign is a good example of the success of repetition: repeating your message in different types of campaigns leads to more leads.

In recent years, LinkedIn has proven itself in numerous campaigns for a wide range of industries as a very suitable platform for lead generation. Of course, results vary significantly by industry, but in our view, advertising on LinkedIn, including lead generation campaigns, should be an integral part of any B2B online marketing plan.

Curious why LinkedIn is also the right B2B platform for your brand and how we can use it to increase visibility, brand awareness, website traffic, and leads? We would be happy to have a conversation with you and show you more examples and data that prove LinkedIn is indispensable in your online marketing strategy. Want to learn more? Check out our LinkedIn advertising page where we gather all our information.

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