Nonprofit Guide to Advertising on LinkedIn

nonprofit guide to linkedin advertising

Nonprofit Guide to Advertising on LinkedIn

When it comes to social media advertising, most nonprofits immediately think of using Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube ads to reach their target audience. This is not surprising to our team at Cause Inspired, as those are all highly effective channels for nonprofits to achieve their goals when managed properly. But it is important to consider that Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube are not the only beneficial options available to nonprofit organizations. 

LinkedIn Ads are a powerful marketing tool that can help your organization reach a professional audience. In addition to sharper targeting options, LinkedIn allows advertisers to run campaigns based on clearly defined goals, including brand awareness, lead generation, and engagement. 

For nonprofits that receive revenue from for-profit companies and other nonprofits, LinkedIn Ads are also a great way to target specific job titles, company sizes, industries, and much more. For example, you can target upper-level management or leaders at large companies to appeal for donations or support. You can choose the companies you want to see your ad, or you can target an industry broadly such as the marketing industry, technology industry, or even the nonprofit sector.

There are many different types of ads on LinkedIn. Each offers unique features and benefits that can’t necessarily be achieved with other social media platforms. 

Sponsored Content

a linkedin sponsored content ad example from linkedin blog
Click to view this Sponsored Content ad example from Linkedin full size.

Sponsored Content is a newsfeed update that’s first posted on an organization’s LinkedIn Page, then promoted in an ad campaign to appear in the feed of LinkedIn members within the targeting audience. This ad format is along the same lines of a Boosted post on Facebook, but with more control over your reach and audience. 

These native ads can help your nonprofit reach a highly engaged audience in a professional news feed across desktop and mobile devices in order to drive leads, donations, build brand awareness, and nurture key relationships. Sponsored Content can be in the form of a simple image ad, a video ad, or a carousel ad. These ads allow you to target the specific professionals you want to be involved with your organization. You can even use these ads to build your organization’s ideal audience using LinkedIn profile data in addition to your own audience. 

You can use this well-qualified audience to your advantage by showcasing your organization’s culture and mission through videos, testimonials, posts, and more. Additionally, you can share authentic stories about how your nonprofit is making a change, and entice your audience to explore ways to get involved. 

Sponsored InMail Ads

a linkedin inmail message ad example from linkedin blog
Click to view this InMail ad example from Linkedin full size.

Sponsored InMail Ads allow you to send direct messages to your prospects in order to spark immediate action. These ads typically drive stronger engagement and have a higher response rate than traditional email campaigns. Delivering a highly targeted message with a meaningful Call To Action (CTA) can help your organization attract the attention of the target market. Messages are also delivered in an uncluttered environment so that your brand stands out. In fact, according to LinkedIn, over 50% of prospects actually open a Sponsored InMail ad.

LinkedIn also allows you how to measure the impact of your Sponsored InMail ads through their helpful and detailed reporting tools. You can see the specific roles of employees at specific companies or organizations that are taking action on your Sponsored InMail ads, along with demographic reporting. You can also track conversions from people who viewed and clicked on your InMail ad with LinkedIn Conversion Tracking. 

Text Ads

text ad example from linkedin blog
Click to view this Text Ad example from Linkedin full size.

Linkedin Text Ads are intuitive, self-service ad formats that enable you to create, manage, and optimize customized campaigns with relative ease. Even if you have a limited budget, you can use LinkedIn Text Ads to attract donors and other supporters to your organization with LinkedIn’s pay per click (PPC) advertising platform. Text Ads will help increase the visibility of your organization and showcase the impact of your mission to the audiences who matter most, and direct them to your website or landing pages.

With Text Ads, you can target a premium professional audience and drive high-quality leads to your organization—all on a budget that works for you. LinkedIn’s PPC platform allows you to set your own budget and control costs with pay per click (PPC) or cost per impression (CPM) pricing options. Within your budget, you can also fine-tune your target audience based on their location, demographics, skills, interests, and more to achieve the right mix of volume and precision.

Marketers can gain meaningful insights into their campaign and creative performance with powerful audience segmentation analytics and social engagement measurement tools. These enable you to intelligently optimize your budgets, bids, and creatives to achieve your branding and donor/supporter acquisition objectives.

Dynamic Ads

a linkedin dynamic ad example from linkedin blog
Click to view this Dynamic Ad from Linkedin full size.

Dynamic Ads are right-rail ads that are automatically personalized for each individual based on the information in the user’s profile. This can include their profile photo, company name, job title, and more. Dynamic Ads are emerging as a powerful tool for engagement and conversions, allowing marketers to personalize ads at scale by making the viewer part of the creative. 

Because of this and so much more, these ads in the right column are especially effective when it comes to building brand awareness, driving meaningful traffic, and converting your prospects. You can even measure and optimize your results directly in their Campaign Manager.

To make it easy for nonprofits, LinkedIn provides pre-built templates for Dynamic Ads that you can use to build your creatives. Because each ad automatically populates with each individual’s profile data, you can scale your campaigns relatively quickly.

When it comes to advertising on LinkedIn, nonprofits have a variety of options at their disposal. Regardless of your budget, and with proper management, you can create effective campaigns through LinkedIn to showcase the impact of your important mission, and achieve your marketing goals. 

If your nonprofit is interested in learning more about advertising on LinkedIn or having Cause Inspired manage your LinkedIn Ads, contact us today!