LinkedIn Ads: The Ultimate Guide to the Ad Library

LinkedIn is the professional social network par excellence, with more than 740 million users worldwide. It offers companies and professionals a unique opportunity to build brand awareness, grow their network, generate leads, and retain customers. But how do you get the most out of LinkedIn to meet your marketing goals? The answer lies in the LinkedIn Ads ad library.

The LinkedIn Ads ad library is a free tool, open to everyone, that lets you browse and analyze ads running on LinkedIn from any company page. It gives you valuable insights into ad formats, audiences, budgets, run times, and performance. It helps you create effective ad campaigns tailored to your target audience.

In this article, we'll walk you through how to use the LinkedIn Ads ad library to maximize your effectiveness on this platform. We'll cover how to identify and understand your target audience, how to create high-impact ads, how to use library insights to improve performance, how to run a successful campaign using the library, and how to interpret data for an improvement strategy. We'll also share real-world examples of successful campaigns powered by the ad library.

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Understanding the LinkedIn Ads ad library

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What is the LinkedIn Ads ad library?

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The LinkedIn Ads ad library is a feature launched by LinkedIn as part of its commitment to advertising transparency and ethics. It allows any LinkedIn user, whether they're an advertiser or not, to view ads running on the platform from any company page, regardless of whether they follow that page.

To access the LinkedIn Ads ad library, simply go to the company page you're interested in and click the "Ads" tab in the horizontal menu. You'll see all ads that are active or have been active in the past six months for that company page. You can filter ads by country, by format (text, image, video, carousel, etc.), by date, or by duration.

For each ad, you can view the sponsored content, the accompanying ad copy, the link to the associated website or landing page, the number of impressions, the number of clicks, the cost per click (CPC), the click-through rate (CTR), the cost per thousand impressions (CPM), and the cost per conversion (CPCV). You can also view demographic data about users who saw or clicked on the ad, such as their industry, company size, job title, seniority level, or location.

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The benefits of using the LinkedIn Ads ad library

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Using the LinkedIn Ads ad library offers several advantages for advertisers and marketing professionals. In particular, it lets you:

Benchmark your competitors: by reviewing ads run by your competitors on LinkedIn, you can analyze their advertising strategy, their key messages, their promotional offers, their calls to action, their preferred formats, their budgets, and their results. You can identify their strengths and weaknesses, and draw inspiration from their best practices to shape your own ads.
Get to know your audience: by reviewing ads from company pages that target the same type of audience as you, you can learn about the needs, expectations, interests, and behaviors of your target. You can then adapt your content, tone, design, and targeting to fit your ideal audience.
Optimize your performance: by reviewing ads from your own company page, you can measure the effectiveness of your ad campaigns in terms of visibility, engagement, traffic, and conversions. You can then compare your results against those of your competitors or peers, and identify possible levers for improvement.

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Maximizing your effectiveness with the LinkedIn Ads ad library

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Identifying and understanding your target audience on LinkedIn

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To maximize your effectiveness with the LinkedIn Ads ad library, the first step is to identify and understand your target audience on this platform. LinkedIn is not like other social networks: it's primarily geared toward professionals, who have specific needs, expectations, and behaviors. Knowing your audience is therefore essential to serve them relevant, well-tailored ads.

To identify and understand your target audience on LinkedIn, you can use several approaches:

Use LinkedIn demographic data: LinkedIn provides detailed information about users who visit your company page, follow your page, or interact with your posts. You can access this data by clicking on the "Analytics" tab in the horizontal menu of your company page. This lets you understand the profile of your current audience, including their industry, company size, job title, seniority level, and geographic location.
Use personas: personas are fictional but realistic representations of your ideal customers. They help you define the characteristics, needs, motivations, barriers, goals, and challenges of your target audience. To build your personas, you can draw on real data, such as surveys, interviews, or market research. You can also use online tools like Make My Persona or HubSpot Persona Generator.
Use the LinkedIn Ads ad library: as mentioned above, the LinkedIn Ads ad library lets you view ads run by any company page on the platform. You can use this tool to find company pages that target the same type of audience as you, or that have a similar audience to yours. You'll be able to see which ads perform best with your target, and which messages, offers, and formats drive the most interest.

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Creating high-impact ads with the LinkedIn Ads library

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Once you've identified and understood your target audience on LinkedIn, the second step is to create high-impact ads with the LinkedIn Ads library. Simply running ads on this platform is not enough to get results — your ads also need to be attractive, relevant, and compelling to capture your audience's attention and interest.

To create high-impact ads with the LinkedIn Ads library, there are a few key rules to follow:

Define a clear objective: before creating an ad on LinkedIn, you need to know what goal you want to achieve with it. This could be building brand awareness, driving traffic to your website, collecting qualified leads, retaining customers, or selling your products or services. Your objective should be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. It should also align with your overall marketing strategy and with the needs of your audience.
Choose the right format: LinkedIn offers several ad formats, such as sponsored content, sponsored messaging, text ads, dynamic ads, video ads, and carousel ads. Each format has its pros and cons, depending on your objective, your message, your budget, and your audience. To choose the best format for your campaign, you can refer to the LinkedIn ad formats guide or browse the LinkedIn Ads ad library to see which formats are most commonly used and best performing in your industry.
Write compelling copy: the text accompanying your ad is essential for capturing your audience's attention and interest. It should be short, clear, relevant, and persuasive. It should also include a call to action that prompts the user to click on your ad. To write compelling copy, use language suited to your audience, highlight the benefits of your offer, create a sense of urgency or scarcity, and incorporate relevant keywords.
Create an eye-catching visual: the visual accompanying your ad is equally important for drawing attention and evoking emotion. It should be high quality, consistent with your visual identity, and aligned with your message and offer. It should also comply with LinkedIn's technical specifications, such as size, format, and resolution. To create an eye-catching visual, you can use images, videos, infographics, logos, or icons that illustrate your point and reinforce your credibility.

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Using library insights to improve your ad performance

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The third step to maximizing your effectiveness with the LinkedIn Ads ad library is to use the library's insights to improve your ad performance. The library doesn't just show you ads running on the platform — it also provides valuable data on those ads' performance, in terms of impressions, clicks, conversions, and costs.

To use the insights from the LinkedIn Ads ad library to improve your ad performance, follow these steps:

Compare your results against your competitors': by using the LinkedIn Ads ad library, you can benchmark your ad performance against your competitors' or peers'. You'll be able to see whether you're above or below market, and identify the strengths and weaknesses of your campaigns. You can also spot opportunities to seize or threats to watch out for.
Identify the key success factors: by analyzing the data provided by the LinkedIn Ads ad library, you can identify the key success factors that influence your ad performance. These might include format choice, copy, visuals, targeting, budget, or duration. You'll be able to pinpoint what resonates most with your audience, and what needs to be improved or adjusted.
Test and optimize your ads: by using the LinkedIn Ads ad library, you can test and optimize your ads based on the insights you've gathered. For example, you can create variants of your ads by changing one or more elements and serve them to a portion of your audience. You'll then be able to measure the impact of those changes on your ad performance, and go with the most effective version.

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Running a successful campaign with the LinkedIn Ads ad library

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Choosing the right format from the library

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The fourth step to running a successful campaign with the LinkedIn Ads ad library is choosing the right format. Your ad format plays a decisive role in reaching your objective and connecting with your audience. It should be suited to your message, your offer, your budget, and your target's preferences.

To choose the right format from the LinkedIn Ads ad library, you need to consider several factors:

Your campaign objective: depending on whether you want to grow brand awareness, drive traffic, collect leads, retain customers, or sell your products or services, you won't use the same ad format. For example, if you want to boost your visibility, you can go with sponsored content or video ads, which are attention-grabbing formats that drive engagement. If you want to generate leads, you can opt for sponsored messaging or LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms, which make it easy to collect contact information from users interested in your offer.
Your campaign message: depending on whether you want to inform, educate, entertain, or persuade your audience, you won't use the same ad format. For example, if you want to inform your audience about a current topic or a trend in your industry, you can go with sponsored content or carousel ads, which let you share informative, relevant content. If you want to persuade your audience to buy your product or service, you can opt for text ads or dynamic ads, which let you highlight the benefits and features of your offer.
Your campaign offer: depending on whether you're promoting a product, a service, an event, a white paper, a webinar, or something else, you won't use the same ad format. For example, if you're promoting a product, you can go with video ads or carousel ads, which let you showcase the product from multiple angles and demonstrate how it works. If you're promoting an event, you can opt for sponsored messaging or LinkedIn Event Ads, which let you directly invite users to register and send them reminders about the date and time.
Your campaign budget: depending on whether you have a large or limited budget, you won't use the same ad format. For example, if you have a large budget, you can go with video ads or carousel ads, which require more resources and time to produce but offer better visibility and a higher return on investment. If you have a limited budget, you can opt for text ads or dynamic ads, which require fewer resources and less time to create, though they offer less visibility and a lower return on investment.
Your audience's preferences: depending on whether your audience responds better to visual or text formats, interactive or static formats, long or short formats, you won't use the same ad format. For example, if your audience responds better to visual formats, you can go with video ads or carousel ads, which stimulate emotion and improve recall. If your audience responds better to text formats, you can opt for sponsored content or text ads, which deliver a clear, precise message.

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Using the advanced targeting settings in the LinkedIn Ads library

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The fifth step to running a successful campaign with the LinkedIn Ads ad library is to use the library's advanced targeting settings. Targeting is crucial for reaching your ideal audience and making the most of your budget. It lets you serve your ad only to users who are likely to be interested in your offer and act on it.

To use the advanced targeting settings in the LinkedIn Ads library, follow these steps:

Define your target audience: using the LinkedIn Ads ad library, you can define your target audience based on several criteria, such as industry, company size, job title, seniority level, geographic location, skills, interests, groups, or education. You can also use custom criteria, such as contact lists, strategic accounts, or lookalike audiences. This lets you create a specific, qualified audience for your campaign.
Refine your targeting: using the LinkedIn Ads ad library, you can adjust your targeting based on your campaign performance. For example, you can broaden or narrow your audience by adding or removing targeting criteria. You can also use advanced options, such as keyword targeting, audience network targeting, or engaged audience targeting. This lets you fine-tune your targeting and reach the users most relevant to your offer.
Control your budget: using the LinkedIn Ads ad library, you can manage your budget based on your campaign's cost and return on investment. For example, you can choose the bidding method that suits you best, whether that's cost per click (CPC), cost per thousand impressions (CPM), or cost per conversion (CPCV). You can also set a total or daily budget for your campaign, as well as start and end dates. This lets you keep spending in check while maximizing your results.

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Interpreting data for an improvement strategy

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Analyzing ad performance through the LinkedIn Ads library

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The sixth step to running a successful campaign with the LinkedIn Ads ad library is to analyze ad performance through the LinkedIn Ads library. Analyzing performance is essential to measuring your campaign's effectiveness and identifying areas for improvement. It lets you assess whether you've hit your goal and achieved a solid return on investment.

To analyze ad performance through the LinkedIn Ads library, follow these steps:

Choose your key performance indicators (KPIs): KPIs are the metrics that let you evaluate your campaign results. They should be tied to the objective you defined upfront. For example, if your objective is to grow brand awareness, you might use impressions, click-through rate, or engagement rate as your KPIs. If your objective is to generate leads, you might use number of conversions, cost per conversion, or conversion rate as your KPIs.
Collect the data: to collect performance data on your ads, you can use the LinkedIn Ads ad library, which provides detailed information on impressions, clicks, conversions, and costs for your ads. You can also use other tools, such as Google Analytics, to track the behavior of users who land on your website or landing page after clicking on your ad.
Interpret the data: to interpret your ad performance data, compare the results you achieved against the goals you set and against average market benchmarks. You'll be able to tell whether your campaign was a success, and identify the factors that influenced your performance. You can also spot opportunities to capitalize on or problems to fix.

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Optimizing your future ad campaigns using LinkedIn Ads library feedback

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The final step to running a successful campaign with the LinkedIn Ads ad library is to optimize your future ad campaigns using the feedback from the LinkedIn Ads library. This feedback is a valuable source of information and guidance for improving your practices and results. It lets you draw lessons from your experience and implement corrective or preventive actions.

To optimize your future ad campaigns using LinkedIn Ads library feedback, follow these steps:

Identify best practices: using the LinkedIn Ads library feedback, you can identify the best practices that contributed to your campaign's success. These might include format choice, copy, visuals, targeting, budget, or duration. You can then replicate these best practices in your future ad campaigns and adapt them to your context and objectives.
Identify areas for improvement: using the LinkedIn Ads library feedback, you can identify the areas for improvement that limited your campaign's effectiveness. These might include a poor format choice, weak copy, ineffective visuals, off-target targeting, a misaligned budget, or an ill-timed duration. You can then correct these mistakes in your future campaigns and avoid them by following the library's recommendations.
Test and innovate: using the LinkedIn Ads library feedback, you can test and innovate in your future ad campaigns. For example, you might try new formats, new messages, new visuals, new targeting criteria, or new bidding methods. This lets you discover what resonates best with your audience and helps you stand out from the competition.

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Real-world examples of successful campaigns powered by the ad library

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Case studies: effective use of the LinkedIn Ads library

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To illustrate how useful and effective the LinkedIn Ads ad library can be, here are a few concrete examples of companies that ran successful campaigns thanks to this tool:

[HubSpot]: HubSpot is a platform offering software solutions for marketing, sales, and customer service. To promote its offer to digital marketing professionals, HubSpot used the LinkedIn Ads library to analyze ads run by its competitors and potential customers. It was able to identify the formats, messages, and offers that generated the most engagement and conversions on the platform. It then created personalized, targeted ads using sponsored content and sponsored messaging, resulting in a 60% increase in click-through rate, a 40% increase in conversion rate, and a 50% improvement in return on investment.
[Airbnb]: Airbnb is a platform that allows people to rent private accommodations around the world. To build brand awareness and credibility among travel professionals, Airbnb used the LinkedIn Ads library to find company pages that targeted the same type of audience, or that had a similar audience to its own. It was able to learn about its target's needs, expectations, and interests. It then created relevant, well-tailored ads using video ads and carousel ads, resulting in a 30% increase in impressions, a 20% increase in views, and a 10% increase in bookings.
[Salesforce]: Salesforce is a platform offering customer relationship management (CRM) software solutions. To generate qualified leads and retain its customers, Salesforce used the LinkedIn Ads library to benchmark its ad performance against competitors and peers. It was able to see whether it was above or below market, and identify the strengths and weaknesses of its campaigns. It then optimized its ads based on those insights, resulting in a 25% increase in conversion rate, a 15% decrease in cost per conversion, and a 10% increase in revenue.

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Best practices for maximizing the impact of your LinkedIn ads

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To wrap up, here are a few best practices for maximizing the impact of your LinkedIn ads:

Use the LinkedIn Ads library regularly: the LinkedIn Ads library is a constantly evolving tool, reflecting the ads being run on the platform at any given time. It's important to use it regularly to stay current on market trends, opportunities, and performance benchmarks.
Experiment with different formats, messages, and offers: the LinkedIn Ads library lets you test and innovate in your ad campaigns. Don't hesitate to try different formats, messages, and offers to discover what resonates most with your audience and helps you stand out from the competition.
Track and analyze your results: the LinkedIn Ads library gives you valuable data on your ad performance. Track and analyze your results to measure your campaigns' effectiveness, identify best practices and areas for improvement, and optimize your future campaigns.

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Want expert guidance on your digital marketing strategy? Don't hesitate to reach out!

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FAQs

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Q: How do you run ads on LinkedIn?

A: To advertise on LinkedIn, you first need to create a LinkedIn Page and a Campaign Manager account. Then, sign in to Campaign Manager, select a campaign group, choose your objective, define your target audience, and select your ad format.

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Q: How does LinkedIn advertising work?

A: LinkedIn advertising operates on an auction-based system. You set the amount you're willing to pay for your campaign. If your bid is higher than your competitors', your ad gets served.

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Q: What are the most effective ads?

A: The most effective ads are those that are easy to understand, follow a simple and optimistic narrative, use original and striking images, and create an emotional connection. In 2020, campaigns by Burger King and David Ogilvy Madrid for Milka were among the most effective.

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Q: Why use LinkedIn Ads?

A: LinkedIn Ads is a valuable tool for businesses because it offers more than 200 profession-based targeting parameters, such as job title, work experience, skills, schools attended, industry, and more. Additionally, the conversion rate for LinkedIn Ads is 6.1%, which is significantly higher than Google Search (2.58%).

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