LinkedIn is the top-of-mind platform when it comes to professional social media. When businesses plan to advertise to other companies, the same applies. The Microsoft-owned platform celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2023, and during these two decades, it has established its reputation as the preferred platform for business-to-business (B2B) marketing. As per the forecasts,
is expected to surpass 4.5 billion U.S. dollars by 2024.
Ad types and audience
LinkedIn has expanded its advertising portfolio recently by incorporating formats such as Thought Leadership ads that align with its professional audience. In 2023, over 174 million of the half-billion users on the platform were
utilizing the upgraded premium account tier. Thought Leadership ads – made by professionals and inside-company individuals, not brands and businesses – found a great niche in this context. The format, released in 2023, not only creates a more human-to-human connection and a feeling of expertise but also solidifies LinkedIn as the go-to expert medium. Looking more closely at the platform’s content, research data, product and service information, and industry news lead the game. For half of the
technical audience on LinkedIn, industry polls were sometimes appealing to them as of early 2023.
Marketers’ insights
For B2B marketers LinkedIn pops up way ahead of its social media counterparts - with
84 percent of B2B content marketers stating that it delivers the best value for their purposes. Alongside the thought leadership content, marketers were planning to invest in videos in the B2B sphere, also a category supported by LinkedIn. However, there is still room for improvement, for example, on the ad scheduling side. The platform runs on Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) , which does not always encompass the entire working day for United States East Coast users. Still, as of 2022, LinkedIn was deemed effective for
60 percent of professionals.
A peek into what’s next…
As the fifth
social media platform by return on investment (ROI) rate, LinkedIn has introduced generative artificial intelligence (AI) formats and received a surge in its premium ad campaigns due to X’s (formerly Twitter) boycott. With the changing mediascape, LinkedIn’s ad costs for premium campaigns are expected to rise, but so are their ROI rates. Perhaps the online professional network will solidify itself not just as the most effective platform for B2B professionals but also as a thought leadership hub.
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