LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network announced today two major updates that allow users to use sight, sound and motion to tell more visually compelling stories: video for Sponsored Content and Company Pages.
While video has been proven as a popular tactic for marketers to tell richer stories about their brand and as a better way to engage with audiences, the challenge is to find the right environment to reach them. According to an internal LinkedIn study, over 46% of B2B advertisers surveyed said this was a top challenge when running video campaigns. The new video for Sponsored Content ads allows users to engage with business decision-makers throughout the buyer’s journey on LinkedIn. Unlike pre- or post-roll video ads, video for Sponsored Content ads live directly on the news feed as standalone posts.
With the new video for Sponsored Content update, marketers will be able to achieve their objectives across the funnel by:
Building brand awareness by telling rich, visual stories in the premium context of LinkedIn
Driving traffic to desktop or mobile websites, and
Collecting high-quality leads with a persistent “call to action” button or through our integrated Lead Gen Forms product.
With the introduction of Sponsored Content, LinkedIn has a suite of targeting capabilities available for video. Marketers will be able to find audiences by traits like job title, seniority, company name, industry, skills, and more. The integration with LinkedIn’s Matched Audiences solution ensures marketers can target sales team’s highest-priority accounts with account-based marketing (ABM) campaigns. It is also possible to measure the video success with insights and detailed breakdowns through an integrated tool Conversion Tracking.
“Video marketing helps to deliver messages more effectively in a shorter amount of time and helps marketers to deepen engagement with brands. Single launching the private beta in October, globally over 700 advertisers have tested video for Sponsored Content to highlight not only products and services, but also company missions, customer success stories, and thought leadership content. We’re excited to be rolling this out across the MENA region and look forward to seeing what brands and marketers can achieve using the Sponsored Content tool and what companies can do for their Employer Brand with the new Company Page Video” said Ziad Rahhal, Head of LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, Middle East North Africa.
With Company Page video, organizations can now share first-hand looks into their culture, products, news, and events to attract talent, and drive engagement and conversation with professional audiences right from their Company Page on LinkedIn. Company Page video is 5 times more likely than other types of content to start a conversation among members, based on results in our beta program. For more information, go to linkedin.com/videoads. To learn more about best practices we’ve compiled from the more than 300 million video impressions and 7,500 ad campaigns, visit our video ad tips page.
Video for Sponsored Content and Company Pages is rolling out and will be available to all businesses in the next few weeks.
As a part of Video for Sponsored Content, LinkedIn has also signed an agreement with measurement company MOAT to offer third-party video measurement and viewability, and intend to make these services available to customers later this year.
