At JDR we run LinkedIn ads for a large number of clients across a huge range of different industries. We recently reviewed all of our LinkedIn ads accounts to provide you with an idea of the average results your business can expect from LinkedIn advertising.
What’s the Benefit of LinkedIn Ads?
The major benefit of LinkedIn ads over Google Ads for some businesses is that you can very specifically target just the group of people that you want to target. This is particularly useful for businesses that only serve a very niche target audience. On Google Ads, anybody who does a search can be shown your ads, regardless of whether their job role matches your ideal client persona. On LinkedIn, though, you can target potential customers based on a very specific set of criteria, including job title, company size, industry, and more. This means that your ads are only showing to exactly who you want them to.
How Much Do LinkedIn Ads Cost?
On LinkedIn, the minimum amount you can spend per day is £8. This works out at around £240 per month. The majority of our clients at JDR spend roughly this minimum budget, and get some great results! As with any paid advertising, this is scalable. Once you are achieving a return on investment, you can always increase your budget and this should scale your lead numbers as well.
The more important question to ask, though, is how much can you expect to be paying per lead? Typically, on LinkedIn ads you see a cost per lead of anywhere from £10-£200, with a cost per click between £2-£7. We have had a look at our clients’ results and seen some really interesting results. On average amongst JDR’s clients, we see a typical cost per lead at £24.08 and a typical cost per click at £2.88. This is incredibly low when you consider that these people are hand-picked from your ideal audience.
There are some factors that are likely to affect your cost per lead from LinkedIn ads. The biggest thing that impacts this is the kind of offer you are using. The two main offers are going to be top of the funnel (TOFU) or bottom of the funnel (BOFU). Top of the funnel offers include things like guide downloads. Bottom of the funnel offers are going to include things like demo requests or free consultations. Within our clients, we have found that a top of the funnel lead costs £21.32, whilst a bottom of the funnel lead costs £42.20. BOFU leads, therefore, mean you will have to spend double the amount on LinkedIn ads to get a result. This makes sense, though, because the lead you get from this will be more qualified and closer to making a purchase decision than someone who has downloaded a guide.
When weighing up whether the cost of LinkedIn ads is right for your business, you have to consider how much the lifetime value of your lead is going to be for your business. If your product is high value, and has a high likelihood of repeat purchase, you will likely have to pay more per lead. For instance, we’ve seen that IT support typically has a higher cost per lead than average, but the value of a lead for this industry is also much higher because of their spending potential.
The best way to think about this is to consider how much you would pay to have someone in your target market come to you and hold their hands up to say they are interested in your offering. To most business owners, this should be invaluable. £24.08 for this level of interaction in the greater scheme of things is very cheap!
What About Brand Awareness?
On top of the leads you are generating from LinkedIn, the other major benefit is the increased level of brand awareness that you will see. Again, this is going to be amongst your specific target audience. We have seen that on average it costs £16.29 for 1000 impressions of your ad. This is once again a very, very cheap way of advertising! If you think about the days before digital marketing, you would pay thousands of pounds for an ad in a magazine, or on a billboard. This may be seen by thousands of people, but how many of those would be in your target audience? For just £16.29 you can get 1000 of your ideal customers seeing your brand as they go about their business; that’s incredible value for money!
In our own experience, this brand awareness is incredibly valuable - we regularly have prospects tell us that they are getting in touch because they have been seeing our ads on LinkedIn for a long time. As a business owner, generating this kind of brand awareness amongst your target market means that as soon as they hit the tipping point of needing to purchase your product or service, you will be the first person they think of.
How To Get Started With LinkedIn Ads
Whether you are already running LinkedIn ads and not getting the results you want, or whether you want to start advertising on LinkedIn for the first time, JDR can help. Click here to check out what we offer with regards to managed LinkedIn ads campaigns or click here to book a meeting with our expert.
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