How to Use LinkedIn Text Ads: The Budget-Friendly Option

Are you ready to start running LinkedIn advertisements but don’t know where to begin? Are you concerned that the costs are too high?

In this post, you’ll discover how to set up LinkedIn text advertisements, which are the most cost-effective ad kind on the platform. You’ll get advice on targeting, cost per click (CPC) bidding, and more.

What are the benefits of LinkedIn Text Ads?

When LinkedIn advertisements first launched in late 2007, there was only one ad format: text ads. These ads were inconspicuous and unmistakably advertisements. A headline on LinkedIn can be up to 25 characters long, and a description can be up to 75 characters long. A 50 × 50 pixel graphic was the only feature that distinguished text ads from Google ads (which were popular at the time).

#1: Create a LinkedIn campaign and target audience.

To make a LinkedIn text ad, go to linkedin.com/campaignmanager and log in to your LinkedIn Ads dashboard. Click Create Campaign after you’ve chosen your ad account and campaign group.

Let’s pick Website Visits as the LinkedIn campaign target because that’s what you’ll use the most with text advertisements.

The next step is to determine who your target audience is. Let’s pretend you’re trying to reach out to a group of social media marketers who would be interested in attending Social Media Marketing World.

We’ll begin by focusing on specific skills. Choose Job Experience > Member Skills from the Who Is Your Target Audience? column.

Then, in the search box, write “social media marketing.” You’ll find both a Social Media Marketing skill and a Paid Social Media Advertising skill in the search results. Both of these options are perfect for your needs.

Click Narrow Audience Further and add some other targeted variables to narrow this down a little more.

Let’s start with some assumptions. Perhaps a corporation won’t send an employee to a conference unless it has at least 50 employees. So go to Company > Company Size and select everything between 51 and 500 employees. This reduces the target audience to 4.1 million, which is a better number.

Then, in the search box, write “social media marketing.” You’ll find both a Social Media Marketing skill and a Paid Social Media Advertising skill in the search results. Both of these options are perfect for your needs.

Click Narrow Audience Further and add some other targeted variables to narrow this down a little more.

Let’s start with some assumptions. Perhaps a corporation won’t send an employee to a conference unless it has at least 50 employees. So go to Company > Company Size and select everything between 51 and 500 employees. This reduces the target audience to 4.1 million, which is a better number.

You’re down to 360,000 people now, so you’re almost there.

Let’s take a look at seniority next. To find persons who are managers, go to Job Experience > Job Seniorities and pick a Manager.

This gives you a target audience of 50,000 people, which is precisely in the middle of what you’re looking for.

Now go down and make sure the box for Enable Audience Expansion is unchecked.

Select Text Ad as the ad format from the drop-down menu.

#2: Decide on a budget and a schedule.

The next step is to determine your LinkedIn campaign’s budget and timeline. Let’s say the daily budget is $50 per day. You’ve been assigned a Maximum CPC Bid, which is ideal; that’s exactly what you want.

LinkedIn text advertisements have always had a $2 minimum bid amount, therefore if you enter $1 for the bid amount, LinkedIn will always respond that your bid must be at least $2.

You want to start at the bottom because if you can spend the entire $50 on the lowest bid amount during the day, you’ve just gotten the lowest cost per click and cost per conversion from LinkedIn. And if you set up $50 per day for ad expenditure but only spend approximately $20, you can always raise your bid every few days until you’re spending the amount you set aside.

Before you leave this screen, I recommend renaming your campaign to something that describes your target audience.

#3: Make a text ad for LinkedIn.

Click Create New Ad on the next page.

To begin, upload the image that will be used in your LinkedIn text ad. The image must have a resolution of 100 x 100 pixels.

Add a headline and a description after that. The headline is limited to 25 characters, while the description is limited to 75. You can lead users to a link on your website as the destination URL, so enter your ad URL precisely as you want it to be clicked, including your UTM parameters.

The headline for your text ad should attract your audience’s attention, so you might use something like “Social Media Marketer?” as an example. Let’s use “Attend the social media megaconference with the best speakers from across the world!” as a description.

On the right, you can see a preview of how your text ad will appear.

You can view how the ad will look like a little top banner, which is what they used to call a one-by-one if you choose Top Banner (Small) from the Display drop-down box.

Click Create when you’re satisfied with the appearance of your ad. The campaign is currently in the planning stages. After that, click Next, and then Launch Campaign.

Your ad dashboard will show you that your campaign is now live. If you have any questions, you may choose to return them to Paused.

Keep in mind that it could take up to 24 hours for your LinkedIn text ad to get authorized once you publish it. So if you debut and don’t get any impressions right away, it’s most likely because of this.

Conclusion

Many marketers are underestimating the value of LinkedIn ads. That is no longer the case. The text ad, LinkedIn’s initial ad style, is the platform’s most cost-effective ad type. It’s a low-risk way to get your feet wet with LinkedIn ads, with prices as low as $2 per click.