Finding ROI for B2B LinkedIn Marketing

It’s practically axiomatic that LinkedIn offers the highest ROI for B2B marketers. When decision-makers visit LinkedIn, they’re in a solution-focused mindset. No matter what criteria you use to judge marketing value – cost per acquisition, purchase value, lifetime value, and the rest – it’s important to start with a clear, repeatable approach for making content visible to the right leads. This holds true for LinkedIn marketing.

Without that cornerstone of your LinkedIn strategy, it may take months for you to have enough data to truly understand the network’s impact on your bottom line. When you target precisely, you get greater engagement from more qualified leads … and thus, clearer data faster.

The key is LinkedIn targeting.

How LinkedIn Marketing Can Drive Faster ROI for B2B Businesses

With access to extensive and accurate profile data from millions of professionals, LinkedIn grants an unprecedented ability to micro-target the audiences most receptive to your message.

Given so many different parameters to work with, it’s tempting to combine three, four, or five in pursuit of the ultimate audience. The problem? This means there are too many factors in play to identify those that make the winning difference in connecting with your leads.

Selecting pairs of parameters allows you to take a truly scientific and ROI-focused approach.

linkedin marketingBy using different combinations across comparable periods of time, you have the chance to make an “apples to apples” comparison of performance and yield real results in as little as one month.

This lets you quickly discard ineffective combinations and zero in on winners for your business.

Maximizing ROI in LinkedIn Marketing Through Pair-Based Strategies

When defining the audience for your LinkedIn campaign, consider these proven pairs:

Job Title & Company Industry

Businesses selling B2B solutions such as CRM or IT tools can use this combination to zoom in on the most influential decision-makers within a functional area. Tailoring your ads or sponsored content to specific job titles tends to increase clickthrough rate, too.

Seniority & Skills

This combination helps you uncover members of a buying committee whose authority isn’t reflected in their job title. In particular, you’ll gain visibility among individual contributors who may not be able to approve a purchase, but can easily block one in their area of expertise.

Location & Job Function

Localized content is ideal for SMBs who, themselves, cater to a defined geography. Just as you would when speaking across cultures, you can tailor verbiage to audience expectations. Plus, you can more easily develop and frame content focused on pertinent challenges in the local market.

LinkedIn is far from new, but best practices are still emerging. The highest ROI will be achieved by companies that build targeted, responsive campaigns around clearly-defined professional audiences. Targeting is the most vital on-platform tool in that process.