How to Create High-Converting LinkedIn Conversation Ads

When it comes to social media platforms, LinkedIn is a bit of an outsider. With other platforms, like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, people are seeking a place to play and decompress. However, LinkedIn is clear about its focus on professional development, so the lines between informal and formal communications are less clear, but that does not mean this platform should be overlooked. 

LinkedIn has over 830 million users around the world (and counting). Having a LinkedIn account not only opens the door to the users but also boosts your credibility with your audience.  As with any platform, the number one question people ask is how you can reach your potential audience. One tool on LinkedIn makes accomplishing that a whole lot easier -- conversation ads. 

Conversation ads provide a unique way to contact your users individually. For many, this can create even more confusion about what tone you should use, but don’t be discouraged. In this article, we will cover what LinkedIn conversation ads are, how you can use them and how to draft effective ads for your business.

Understanding What Sets LinkedIn Conversation Ads Apart

If you’ve used LinkedIn before, chances are you’ve received or interacted with conversation ads already. These ads will show up in your messages with “Sponsored” written above them. If you haven’t interacted with this yourself, it can be helpful to think of LinkedIn conversation ads like a dialogue tree in a video game.

As the recipient of your message clicks through their responses to your advertisement, the advertisement will respond with your copywriting. This allows your user to have an individualized experience that can be tailored to their needs and interests as they relate to your company. 

Metadata.io compared LinkedIn conversation ads to a Choose Your Own Adventure book for your customer. Each choice the recipient of your ad makes leads to a new opportunity and prepared response. 

Some potential uses for conversation ads can be:

• Signing up people for your newsletter
• Encouraging users to purchase your services
• Inviting users to an upcoming webinar or event

Your job as the creator of the advertisement is to select which responses to offer your customer, provide clear, enticing responses to keep them interested and invite them to take further action. 

Here are a few options  that make your LinkedIn conversation ads unique:

• Personalization: Unlike most ads that are heavily edited to have the widest audience appeal, your conversation ads can react to the level of interest of your audience.
• Guaranteed Audience: One of the most stressful moments for any social media marketer is the moment after an advertisement goes live. After all the work spent to create the most appealing advertisement, people still have to choose to engage with the ad. Conversation ads make their way into people’s DMs and do not have to be time-sensitive. So, if someone decides to respond to your advertisement a week after it goes live, you can still receive a conversion from the original advertisement.
• Interactivity: To capture the attention of your audience, especially on social media, you must give them a reason to be interested. Because LinkedIn conversation ads are interactive, they can hold the interest of your audience for longer.

Components of Effective Conversation Ads

Now that you understand what makes conversation ads such a dazzling option for social media marketing, let’s dive into how you can set up your own ads. 

Before you pull out your trusty keyboard to type out your winning first message, you will need to determine the audience for your ads. LinkedIn offers a variety of demographics for homing in on the best audience for your ads. These include industry, job title, company size, years of experience, gender, etc. 

While demographics can be helpful, you will want to take the refining of your audience further. One method of doing this is to target members of a relevant LinkedIn group. Once you have a stronger sense of who your audience is, you will be able to tailor your messages and response options to ones that reflect the tone that members of your audience would use.

It might be helpful to follow and engage with a  relevant LinkedIn group to get a feel for the style and tone of similar users. This will help you emulate this tone in your messages and help you create a post that is interesting to your target audience.

Once you have a better understanding of who makes up your audience, you can select the “sender” for your LinkedIn conversation ads. The sender is the person whose image the recipient will see when they open your message. 

Ask yourself whom your audience is more likely to recognize and whom they are more likely to connect with. Even though your audience will know this is sponsored content, knowing the brand or person they are interacting with will go a long way toward initially grabbing their attention.

Creating Engaging Copywriting for Your Conversation Ads

Now that you’ve determined whom you are reaching out to and what tone you intend to use, you can begin to put together the script for your conversations with your customer. 

Here are a few best practices to keep in mind:

• Be Conversational: Remember that this is arriving in their inbox. If you come off as overly formal or pretentious, you will lose your audience the second they read that first sentence of your message.
• Ask Questions: No good conversation has only one person speaking. Ask questions to encourage a dialogue with the recipients of your LinkedIn conversation ads.
• Personalize the Introduction: One study from Instapage showed that including the recipient’s job title in their message increased open rates by 48 percent.

Just like with any text, it is critical to capture your reader’s attention with that first sentence, but it is even more important in the context of conversation ads because the message your audience receives will use the first sentence as the subject line. Make sure that your first sentence captures the theme of your message and gives your audience a reason to keep reading.

As an aside, it is also important to make sure that the first message does not include an option for your prospects to opt out of the conversation. Give them at least one further message to show them why they should be interested in your product or service. 

Be Willing to Experiment with Your LinkedIn Conversation Ads

Generally, there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to social media marketing. As you create your first conversation ads, we encourage you to create multiple versions of the same ads. Some details you might choose to modulate between ads are:

• Sender: You would be surprised by how the open rates differ depending on who “sends” the original message. Send some messages from your business and others from one of your users; see which performs better.
• Word Choice: Modulating your diction, especially with your calls to action can affect how your audience chooses to interact. While most audiences will prefer informal prompts that emulate how you would talk to a friend, some audiences might appreciate a more formal approach. 
• Budget: Because users can only receive advertisements once a month, there is a high bidding rate for customers. Find a budget that works for you and monitor how your daily budget fits within your goals. 

As with any new tool, the best way to become proficient is to get started using it. Find out what captures your audience and get started connecting with new customers on LinkedIn.