Keep your LinkedIn advertising strategy focused in 2020

Contributor and SMX speaker, AJ Wilcox, explains in this video how a simple message and focused audience works best when advertising on LinkedIn.

Below is the video transcript:

All right advertisers. Here’s the strategic approach you need to have for LinkedIn ads in 2020.

Use the A-M-O strategy

I like to use the acronym AMO, A-M-O for understanding how to attack any sort of social advertising, but especially LinkedIn. So “A” is your audience. It’s who you’re targeting. “M” is the message. So how your prospects see the message. And then “O” is your offer. This is really what is in it for the user, and what you’re asking them to.

Choosing your LinkedIn audience

So your audience on LinkedIn, keep it tight. There’s no reason to target more people than who you’re really going after just because you’re trying to chase some arbitrary audience size.

I like to keep my audiences between about 20,000 and 80,000 but certainly, there’s no reason to make that broader if they’re not a good fit. So just go with whatever size audience and don’t listen to anyone who recommends otherwise.

Ad format and copy

The message really is what the user sees. So there’s the ad format, the image or video, and the ad copy.

For the ad copy, make sure your messaging is short, sweet and to the point. People on LinkedIn are busy.

For the imagery, make sure it’s bright and contrasts against LinkedIn’s blues, grays and whites color palette. Go heavy on the oranges, greens and reds.

Make your offer valuable

Always start with sponsored content if you can, bidding just cost per click. It’s the simplest, easiest to troubleshoot kind of ad formats and simplest to make. It’s really easy to predict. and so there’s a problem, you’ll be able to see it very quickly.

Bid cost per click because that’s by far the most efficient way, at least when you’re starting out.

The offer, “O” in AMO, is by far the most important part of LinkedIn Ads. No one wants to hop on the phone with your sales rep before they’ve ever heard about your company. So quit trying to push people right to a demo request. Instead, go for gated content first that truly is valuable. We’re talking a free checklist or cheat sheet or guide, ebook, webinar or free in-person event. Those are the types of things that do well here.

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author

AJ Wilcox

AJ Wilcox is a long-time digital marketer who fell in love with the LinkedIn Ads platform back in 2011. Since then, he’s scaled and managed among the world’s most sophisticated accounts worldwide. In 2014, he founded B2Linked.com which specializes in LinkedIn Ads training, consulting, and account management, and recently became a Certified LinkedIn Ads Partner. He’s a ginger, triathlete, and his company car is a gokart. He lives in Utah with his wife and 4 kids.