ACROSS THE RETAIL INDUSTRY, there’s a lot of focus on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, but very few jewelry brands are leveraging the targeting capabilities and audience spending power of LinkedIn. LinkedIn is more expensive than other social media platforms, but it pays dividends if campaigns are done correctly.
With more than 199 million users in the U.S. alone, LinkedIn represents a significant audience largely untapped for B2C advertisers. You’ll find less competition than other social networks, along with the ability to target by title, career stage, location, company, and more. LinkedIn users also have twice the buying power of the average online audience with 54% of U.S. users earning above $100,000 per year.
The platform also offers the ability to target different life stages and events and provides better coverage of each generation than other social networks. Millennials make up the biggest section of users at 47%, with Gen X second at 29% and Gen Z at 15%.
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Follow these tips when advertising on LinkedIn:
1. TARGET THE C-SUITE. You can target by job title and put higher priced options in front of VP and C-level executives.
2. TEST NEW AUDIENCE GROUPS. If your community has a handful of large employers or a concentration in one industry, LinkedIn allows you to narrow your audience by company, industry, or both. It’s worth testing, but if your store is rural, LinkedIn campaigns have typically not performed well in small towns without a concentration of corporate workers.
3. FIND YOUR CUSTOMERS ALONG WITH NEW ONES. LinkedIn targeting features include email list upload so you can engage with existing customers who are more active on LinkedIn than other networks. Like Facebook, there is also a Lookalike tool to build a new audience that shares attributes with your current customer database.
4. AVOID TARGETING BY GENDER AND AGE. LinkedIn is guessing at these demographics. Instead, target older or younger audiences based on Years of Experience in Audience Attributes.
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5. USE SINGLE IMAGE ADS TO DRIVE WEBSITE VISITS. There are several ad formats available, but after years of testing, this combination of format and desired outcome performs the best.
6. UNCHECK THE BOX. What’s good for LinkedIn isn’t always good for your campaign. Uncheck “Enable Audience Expansion” and “LinkedIn Audience Network.” By avoiding these, you’re more in control of ad spend, placement, and targeting.
7. UNDERBID. LinkedIn is more expensive than other platforms and their suggested Cost Per Click (CPC) bids reflect this, but you can bid lower, so keep entering bids until the system rejects the dollar amount.
LinkedIn can be costly, so start with small ad budgets and test different messages and audiences. Make sure to add LinkedIn conversion tracking so you can track campaign performance.