The world’s biggest professional networking site offers video ads as one of its Sponsored Content formats. LinkedIn’s sponsored content lets brands deliver content to its more than 500 million users. Since Sponsored Content can be specifically targeted to an identified audience, Video Ads are an excellent tool for branding.

Why create Video Ads on LinkedIn?

Here are some compelling reasons why Video Ads should be part of a company’s marketing strategy:

• You create awareness for your brand with people that matter.
  When you create Video Ads, you get to share your branding message with LinkedIn’s professional network. With video ads, you will be able to directly reach the decision makers of companies.
• Target the best, qualified leads in order to convert them into clients.
  You will be able to get accurate leads along with their complete information with pre-filled forms. It is possible to also convert these prospects on your website.
• Acquire metrics needed to get information on the impact of video campaigns.
  Analyzing how your videos are performing and identifying the kinds of professionals who are responding to your content will help you understand the impact that your campaigns are creating for your targeted customers.

How can you use Video Ads?

You will be able to attract the right people to your brand by using your video ads to:

• Show the uniqueness of your company and what it has to offer.
• Tell a great story that highlights your brand.
• Bring your products to life by showing how they are used by real customers.
• Showcase your company’s culture and what sets it apart.
• Share your customer’s achievements and success stories.
• Establish your company as a thought leader.
• Generate demand for the business.
• Show a quick demonstration.
• Show a sneak peek of a webinar or event and convince your audience to take action.

What are the different features of LinkedIn Video Ads?

1. They will be stand-alone posts which will appear with other LinkedIn content.
2. In order to distinguish it from other posts, viewers will see the word “Promoted”.
3. It has targeting options, pulling data from member profiles including company size, job title, and viewer location.
4. It will furnish advertisers with metrics such as view count, comments, and views by the rate of completion.
5. The ads will auto-play minus the sound. In recently-concluded studies, this has proven to be a profitable source of revenue.
6. Companies will be able to upload content through “Campaign Manager”, via the official company page or other showcase pages.

In creating Video Ads, just as in any other LinkedIn Ads, advertisers have the challenging task of captivating and engaging their targeted audience.

How do you get started with your video ads?

1. Select the campaign objective for your video ad.

The first thing you need to do is to identify the main objective of your video ad campaign. This is important because it will give focus to the content and help you determine the metrics for identifying how to measure success and marketing goals.

Since you have various marketing goals, you would need different content that fit your goals and supports the needs of your business.

Running video ads will propel your company to grow at every stage of the sales cycle. Each campaign should have the following goals: build brand awareness, tell people why you’re the best, create demand, generate leads, and to drive relevant traffic.

2. Measure success and get video return-of-investment.

When you are done identifying your objectives, you will have detailed information on how to analyze the video ad campaign. These engagement metrics are detailed and knowing them will help you map out your goals. They are also important because they help you understand your audience and what they respond to. Here are the metrics that support video ad targets: completion rates, conversion rates, view rates, cost per conversion, and leads generation.

3. Plan the content of your video ad based on the identified objectives.

When you plan your content, remember that it has to be concise and visually engaging. It should focus solely on storytelling in order to drive the point home to the viewers.

Remember that viewer attention drops after the first 2-5 seconds, so make sure you capture and engage your audience immediately. You can do this with compelling visual storytelling. It is good to consider the fact that many LinkedIn ad viewers will watch your video without sound, so think like a silent film director. It is also recommended that you add subtitles.

4. Create the actual video ad

When you log-in to Campaign Manager, you will be able to create your video ad campaign. First, select Sponsored Content and then choose your main objective. Is it to have more website visitors, have video views, or to collect leads? There are video ads available for all mentioned objectives.

Once your campaign is created you can now sponsor videos uploaded to your business’s LinkedIn page or upload videos directly from your social media channels – such as YouTube.
There are three bid methods available, and you need to make sure that the method that you use for bidding is aligned with the marketing objectives that you have already set.

For objectives pertaining to website visits, bid by cost per impressions. For objectives related to lead generation, bid by cost per click (CPC), and finally, to get video views, bid by cost per view.

5. Test and optimize your videos.
It is highly recommended that you test tactics that work best for your video ad campaigns. Here are some of the things that you can do:

• Test the same content but with various lengths.
• Test the introductory text. You can either call out your audience or remove it altogether.
• Test different content. Test for social proof and landing experience.

How do you view and download metrics for Video Ads?

If you want to view your video performance metrics, you need to sign in to Campaign Manager and click the account name that has your video ad campaign. Click on the video ad and scroll down to the Ads table. Click the tab that says Video in order to view performance metrics. You can download the performance data by clicking on the Export button. It will be exported into a CSV file.

Now that you know how to create and serve LinkedIn Video Ads, you have what you need to improve your brand reach and help attract new clients.