You are here: Influencer Marketing Hub » Social Media » How to Use LinkedIn Message Ads to Get Into People’s InboxesIs LinkedIn an important part of your overall marketing plan? If not, it should be. LinkedIn is the best channel for B2B brands to target top decision makers. Using LinkedIn, marketers can reach people in their niche who hold the power to make critical purchase decisions.That’s one of the reasons why LinkedIn is a top grosser for organic marketing. However, LinkedIn also offers paid advertising options that are equally successful. Source: contentmarketinginstitute.comSurprisingly, LinkedIn advertising is undervalued as a marketing strategy.If you are unfamiliar with the pros of paid advertising on LinkedIn, check out these compelling facts:Source: Brandwatch.comSource: cdn2.hubspot.netImage via LinkedInIn other words, you can generate leads and reach out to prospects using LinkedIn advertising. Plus, you won’t have to break the bank for advertising on this great platform.To make an informed decision about LinkedIn advertising, you need to know more about its pricing and efficacy. In this post, we will elaborate on one of the most sought-after tools in LinkedIn advertising, Message Ads.Let’s get started. LinkedIn offers many types of paid ads including:Source: .gurukafa.netSource: .gurukafa.netSource: .gurukafa.netFor the purpose of this post, we will only be talking about message ads on LinkedIn.LinkedIn message ads are a great marketing tool since they allow you to reach peoples’ inboxes without having to procure email lists. There are other benefits of using message ads, including:Targeted messaging: You can micro-target prospects by tailoring the ad copy and call-to-action (CTA) based on their profiles.Lead generation: You can include Lead Gen forms in your ads and gather leads directly from your inbox.High open rates: One in two people open their Sponsored InMails, according to LinkedIn’s estimates. Measurable returns: Apart from regular advertising analytics, you can use demographic reporting to see which recipients are taking action on your ad. Conversion Tracking lets you spy on the conversations of people who clicked on your ad. Using these insights, you can send appropriate follow-up messages and convert prospects faster.Value for money: Unlike PPC and CPM ads, message ads are based on the cost-per-send (CPS) model, which requires you to pay only for ads that are sent successfully.Let’s take a closer look at LinkedIn message ad pricing and technical specs.Your message ads should adhere to the following technical specs:All LinkedIn ads are sold by auction. Essentially, there are three steps involved in the costing of message ads:1. Decide your target audience and bid for targeting them. You will compete with other advertisers who are trying to reach the same audience.2. Choose your pricing, which is CPS for message ads3. Control your costs by setting a budget (total or daily) and maximum limit per bid. As with all forms of contextual advertising, the cost varies with the size of your target demographics and bid volume. LinkedIn message ads are a great way to send targeted messages to people’s inboxes where they spend a lot of time. The best thing is that your InMails catch people when they are in a professional mindset, looking for opportunities to buy, sell, connect, or collaborate.To create engaging LinkedIn message ads, you need to follow these steps:1. Create your account in the LinkedIn Campaign Manager2. Click on the “Create Campaign” button in the top-right corner.3. Specify your ad’s objective. For message ads, select “Website visits” or “Lead generation.” Your ad objective will determine the content to include in your ad and the key metrics to measure your campaign’s performance. For this demo, we have selected “Website visits.”4. The next step is to build your audience or select a saved audience group, if you have one.As you select the attributes of your target audience, the forecast pane on the right shows the estimated cost of your campaign, based on your current selections.Click on “Audience attributes” to specify targeting criteria, such as company, demographics, education, job experience, and interests and traits.To add more targeting criteria, click on “Narrow audience further (AND).” You can also specify the accounts to exclude from the current selection. If you plan to reuse this audience for future campaigns, click on “Save as template” at the bottom of this section.Click on “Matched audiences” to use your data to retarget website visitors. Data sources include Lead gen forms, contact lists, and third-party sources.5. Once you have selected your target groups, you reach the “Ad format” section. Select “Message ad” from the given options.6. Then, you come to the “Budget & Schedule” section, where you can specify the bid amount, schedule, and total/daily budget. While specifying these parameters, keep an eye on the forecast pane so that you know when to cap your bids. 7. The last step is to enable/disable “Conversion Tracking.” We recommend that you turn this on so that you can track how many website visits are attributed to your message ads. This will help you evaluate if your campaign is a success or not.It’s a good idea to select the radio option for “Use my site-wide Insight Tag” since it automatically tracks conversions originating from your campaign, without you adding any event-specific pixels.8. After creating your conversion tracker, click on “Save and exit.9. Next, click on “Create new ad.” 10. You will have to create your ad now. Specify your ad name and sender. If you’ve approved any senders before, their names will appear on this page. You can select a sender from here or add a new sender.A point to note is that the senders you add should be your first-degree connections on LinkedIn. When you click on “Add sender”, a pop-up appears, where you can search for the sender. When you click the “Send request” button, an approval request is sent to their LinkedIn inbox.11. The next step is to add the text that will appear in your message ad’s body. You can personalize the message by adding macros (for example: %FIRSTNAME%). Keep the message short and crisp. Use bullets and paragraph breaks so that your ad is easy on the eye.12. You can add a footer and CTA to your ad. But be sure to add a banner image because if you leave the image slot open, another company’s banner can show up there. Banners are prime real estate since they help create top of mind effect on audiences.13. Once your ad creative is ready, you are all set to launch your campaign. Don’t forget to track your ad performance using LinkedIn analytics.Advertising on LinkedIn has many perks. Message ads are an affordable tool to reach the right audience with the right message. Use this post as a guide to building engaging and restful message ads for your brand. Master LinkedIn marketing with our guide. Learn strategies to boost engagement build… Find the best LinkedIn marketing companies in NYC that drive B2B growth with targeted ads… Boost your LinkedIn presence with top LinkedIn marketing companies in Chicago. Drive… source