Why LinkedIn? 3 examples of B2B advertising

LinkedIn is the business social media platform that no B2B brand can do without. Yet, it is still used as an advertising platform by relatively few brands, while we believe that is precisely where the real opportunities lie. But, why LinkedIn? In this article, we answer that question using three practical examples. We share (anonymized) three client cases including results, each with a different goal.

In our campaign evaluations, we primarily rely on the Merkelijkheid LinkedIn Benchmark. The anonymized results of all campaigns we have run for our clients over the past years are included in it. It is an important tool to estimate how a campaign performs and to adjust in time. In this article, we share three client cases:

• Apex Dynamics: Building brand awareness via LinkedIn
• Why LinkedIn is indispensable 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, with a strong focus on online marketing and a high willingness to try new things. The various LinkedIn campaigns we have developed for Apex over the years are a good example of this. The goal: to increase brand awareness of Apex Dynamics BV among technicians involved in mechatronics and robotics. In these campaigns, we explicitly target people with certain interests and skills, rather than the companies they work for or the roles they perform.

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

With these campaigns, we distribute various videos that highlight the personal and service-oriented nature of Apex. The videos focus on products, knowledge, and people; think of a technical expert from Apex explaining 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 with a series of videos in which director Thom van Oss visits former team members of Team Rembrandts, which Apex has enthusiastically sponsored for years. These videos emphasize the experience of these young technicians with the team and how they now apply it in their work at various Dutch technical companies.

We share some characteristics and results of these campaigns:

• An average of 5,000 to 10,000 impressions per month
• Average Cost Per Mille between €8 and €15
• An average view rate of 35.11% to 46.65% based on all impressions
• An average completion rate of 2.46% to 3.6% based on all impressions

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

Why LinkedIn is indispensable to support your trade show visit

In very different campaigns, we combine brand awareness with sales support, namely campaigns specifically around trade shows. How often do you visit or exhibit at trade shows? Our B2B clients generally attend several trade shows a year. However, the results of these trade shows and all related efforts are often questionable or simply not very transparent. To increase the impact of trade show visits and investments, we support these with campaigns on LinkedIn.

One example is the Achema trade show where one of our clients was an exhibitor in 2022. The target audience consists of companies that will be present at the trade show, both existing and potential new contacts. Prior to the trade show, these contacts were approached by phone to arrange meetings at the show; the LinkedIn campaign supported these conversations and increased visibility of our client in the run-up to the trade show. The ad simply reads “Meet us at Achema 2022 in Frankfurt” and links to an article in which the company’s management discusses the topics they hope to address at the trade show.

What does it yield?

• Over 4,000 impressions, among over 600 people (very specific target group)
• 50% of the target audience reached during the summer holiday
• Over 50 clicks to the website

Besides visibility, the most important result is the increase in qualitative conversations during the trade show. An extra 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: start advertising earlier when your trade show takes place during or immediately after the summer holiday.

Why LinkedIn is the social media platform for lead generation

LinkedIn is by far the most used platform by our clients for lead generation, and the platform is excellently suited for this. The targeted B2B audience you can assemble on LinkedIn, of course, you don’t just want to show ads to and drive to your website; you want to connect with them! LinkedIn offers multiple options for this, our favorite is lead generation through a LinkedIn form: contact details in exchange for, for example, a whitepaper, factsheet, or brochure.

For a training agency in personal development and personal leadership, we have run multiple lead campaigns over the past years. These lead campaigns are part of and the end goal of a larger campaign that also includes phases focusing on brand awareness and website traffic. We share some results from one of these lead campaigns:

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

The same target audience and campaign yielded over 10,000 impressions and 10 leads a few months later, this time at a Cost Per Mille of €18.44 and a Cost per Lead of €18.18. This campaign is therefore 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 countless campaigns across very diverse industries as a highly suitable platform for lead generation. Of course, results vary greatly per industry, but as far as we are concerned, advertising on LinkedIn, including lead generation campaigns, should not be missing from any B2B online marketing plan.

Curious why LinkedIn is also the right B2B platform for your brand and how we can use it for more visibility, brand awareness, website traffic, and leads? We would love to talk with you and show you, based on even more examples and data, that LinkedIn is indispensable in your online marketing strategy. Want to read more? On our page about LinkedIn advertising, we collect all our information.