LinkedIn videos ads have arrived, and B2B marketers can finally start taking advantage of the powerful new format.
A Long-Anticipated Launch
While the business networking platform certainly took its time adding video content to its list of capabilities, LinkedIn recently announced that its now going “all-in on B2B video”.
The new ads will display in businesses news feeds as sponsored posts and will auto-play on mute, similar to platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. All of LinkedIn’s current targeting options will also be available to advertisers. This includes categories like job titles, company sizes, industries, skills, and customer lists, which is great news for brands who are both wanting to boost brand awareness and drive more LinkedIn traffic to their landing pages.
Advertisers will also be able to view detailed insights on what videos users are watching and converting on. By using LinkedIn’s conversion tracking tool, lead information such as sign ups, website visits and other actions can also be determined.
Native Videos
In addition to its sponsored video ads, LinkedIn also announced that brands can now include native videos on their Company Pages. While these native videos were in the testing phase, the company found that they were five times more likely to spark a discussion among members than the rest of the current features on a Company Page.
Additional Findings
Since October of 2017, LinkedIn has been testing video format content with over 700 advertisers and brands. During this period, the company learned that people spent nearly triple the amount of time engaging with video ads over regular ad formats.
A recent LinkedIn study also revealed that nearly 50% of B2B advertisers found that finding the ideal environment for videos was among one of their top challenges when running video campaigns.
“We have seen a lot of demand from people looking to use video as a tool to drive results for their businesses,” Abhishek Shrivastava, director of product for LinkedIn Marketing Solutions said in a recent statement.
Show, Don’t Tell
For publishers and advertisers who are more focused on driving B2B leads, this new feature is sure to drive additional and quite likely more qualified traffic. And while it may have been a long time coming, when it comes to B2B marketing, it’s most definitely a “better late than never” mindset.