For newcomers to the advertising world, the selection of services, platforms, and mediums on offer can be overwhelming. Which is why we put together informative posts like this one to help business leaders make the most of their time and their advertising budget.

We’ve written about the two biggest digital advertising platforms in the past (Google ads and Facebook ads). Today, we’re taking a look at a less popular but still entirely viable advertising platform you may not have considered before: LinkedIn ads.

Is LinkedIn Advertising Worth It?

The short answer: it depends.

Advertising, much like every other aspect of business, ultimately boils down to cost-effectiveness and return on investment. After all, businesses need cash flow in much the same way humans require blood flow. But business decisions are rarely as simple as choosing between two identical services with differing price points.

Such is the case with LinkedIn advertising. If you were to look at the numbers alone, you would see that LinkedIn is considerably more expensive on average than similar platforms. Facebook advertising and Google advertising cost-per-click (CPC) both average in the $1-2 range, while LinkedIn advertising’s average CPC is over $5.

But the reality is that while LinkedIn may be similar to other platforms, it is by no means the same. It’s fair to say that LinkedIn advertising costs more than its competitors, but it may be an untapped treasure trove from which your organization can draw.

Is LinkedIn Advertising Right For Your Business?

Generally, LinkedIn ads are a good idea for organizations that focus on B2B clients and/or professional-minded customers and products/services tailored towards their needs. Consumer-facing businesses could find a lot of success marketing on LinkedIn with products or services that target business professionals like HR execs who frequent LinkedIn.

Advertising on LinkedIn is a fairly straightforward process that is similar to the experiences had on other advertising platforms. But one way in which LinkedIn stands out from the pack is in the ability to target audiences based on extremely granular and specific criteria. Every platform offers ad targeting based on all kinds of metrics, but LinkedIn goes quite a bit deeper than the rest.

Because LinkedIn is a career-focused platform, it has specific user data that you just don’t find on any other platform. Linked in offers customer targeting based on things like how big the company they work for is, their specific job title, the type of industry they work in, and their geographic location.

With LinkedIn ads, you could target your ad material solely at back-end web programmers working in the Pacific Northwest for companies with 28 or fewer employees if you wanted to. The possibilities for granular targeting are pretty incredible on LinkedIn, which can make it a good place to run test ads and even get feedback through LinkedIn’s auto-populated lead generation forms.

But the strength of LinkedIn’s targeting is held back by LinkedIn’s limitations as a social media platform. Most of LinkedIn’s users (about 60%) visit the site on a monthly basis. Furthermore, site visit duration is abysmal as users average roughly 17 minutes of LinkedIn activity per month.

The most active LinkedIn users are people actively seeking a job or those who are in the hiring department for their organizations. Generally speaking, the most active LinkedIn users come from a fairly narrow demographic that may not be your organization’s target audience.

Final Thoughts

LinkedIn advertising is a good option for B2B organizations and companies that provide products or services geared towards people currently on the hunt for a job. Outside of those areas, LinkedIn is likely to be more hassle and expense than its worth when compared to the other ad platforms available to you. But you may be able to leverage LinkedIn’s unique demographic targeting to make it worth the effort.

At Cardinal, we believe every organization deserves to find its audience. Get in touch with us to learn more about how we can help your business grow.