LinkedIn is the best social platform for marketing to healthcare executives. With roughly 8.6 million healthcare practitioners on the platform, it’s no wonder why 80% of social leads generated by B2B companies come from LinkedIn. (i)
In this post, we will outline five key LinkedIn ad mistakes to avoid when marketing to healthcare executives. Escaping these common pitfalls will help you develop successful advertising campaigns for your B2B healthcare company.
By 2023, total spend on LinkedIn ad is estimated to surpass a whopping $2 billion. (ii) However, while LinkedIn advertisements can be a powerful means for sourcing leads, expanding brand awareness, and driving traffic to your website, there are certain mistakes that influence how effective they will be.
- You’re Targeting the Wrong Audience
One of the biggest mistakes B2B companies make with LinkedIn ads is targeting audiences that are too broad or not directed at the right people. Using LinkedIn’s advanced targeting feature allows you to filter advertisement campaigns to users based upon different relevant criteria. (iii) Some examples of these criteria include:
- Location
- Company industry
- Company size
- Job title
- Job function
While it may be tempting to cast your advertisement net as widely as possible, it is not an effective strategy. Instead, being thoughtful about which search filters to use can help ensure that your advertisements are getting in front of the right eyes. For B2B brands specifically, it is important to determine who the ultimate decision-makers are in the companies you want to reach and how you can best target them specifically.
- Your Ads Don’t Complement Organic Content
Too many B2B healthcare companies dedicate all their time to paid advertising campaigns and forget to invest in organic content and their LinkedIn profile page. Paid and organic marketing strategies should go hand in hand—you don’t want someone to see your advertisement and then visit your company’s profile page only to find it outdated with little to no engagement.
- Your CTA Is Unclear
Every paid advertisement should have a specific purpose that correlates with an action you want your audience to take after seeing the ad. LinkedIn refers to these purposes as objectives and divides them into three categories: awareness (brand awareness), consideration (website visits, engagement, video views), and conversions (lead generation, website conversions, job applicants). (iv)
When you don’t have a solid understanding of your advertisement’s objective, you won’t be able to create a clear call to action that goes with it. It is important to spend time strategically thinking about the intent of your ad campaign and to not just create ads for the sake of creating ads. An unclear CTA will leave your target audience unsure of what to do after interacting with your advertisement, resulting in low conversion rates.
- You Aren’t A/B Testing Your Ads or Measuring ROI
Overlooking A/B testing can leave you wasting money on advertisements that aren’t effective. HubSpot recommends tweaking one variable at a time in your ads (such as the image, headline, or audience attributes) to help determine what is resonating with your audience and what is not. (v)
Similarly, it is essential to accurately assess how well your ads are working and what your measurable return on investment is. According to LinkedIn’s 2019 Measure What Matters study, less than 20% of marketers feel as though they correctly measure ROI. (i) However, accurately tracking your ads’ performance is the only way to make sure you are getting a return on your investment. Paying for LinkedIn ads is expensive, so you want to understand what is really working—which leads us to our final point: integrating LinkedIn ads with CRM software.
- Your Ads Aren’t Integrated With Your CRM Software
Integrating your LinkedIn account with your CRM software can give you a true report of your ad campaign ROI. Specifically, LinkedIn has partnered with HubSpot to provide users with more accurate insights, syncing, and automation opportunities.
According to HubSpot, with connected accounts you can automatically bring leads from LinkedIn into your CRM database, use your HubSpot data and segmentation to more accurately target your ads, track your leads through LinkedIn in one place, and more. (vi)
Leveraging one of the leading CRM software alongside your ad campaigns can help you make more informed and strategic marketing decisions overall.
There’s a reason so many B2B companies choose LinkedIn as their preferred platform for marketing to healthcare executives. LinkedIn’s vast network of users and advanced targeting tools allow for effective advertising campaigns. However, the five mistakes outlined above can significantly impact the success of your brand’s ads.
If you need help avoiding these mistakes and strengthening your advertising strategies, we would love to partner with you. Our team of experts understands the nuances of the healthcare industry and can help you brainstorm, develop, and launch campaigns for your target audience. And as a HubSpot Solutions Partner, we can help you leverage the leading CRM platform to get an accurate understanding of your ROI and optimize your marketing efforts.
References AND RESOURCES
- www.linkedin.com. (n.d.). LinkedIn: Advancing Healthcare Marketing in a New World. [online] Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/business/marketing/blog/linkedin-ads/linkedin-advancing-healthcare-marketing-in-a-new-world.
- www.linkedin.com. (n.d.). The State of B2B Advertising in 2021. [online] Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/business/marketing/blog/trends-tips/emarketers-b2b-advertising-forecast-2021-6-key-insights-and-revelations [Accessed 16 Apr. 2022].
- Marketing Solutions Help. (n.d.). Targeting Options for LinkedIn Advertisements. [online] Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/help/lms/answer/a424655/targeting-options-for-linkedin-advertisements [Accessed 16 Apr. 2022].
- business.linkedin.com. (n.d.). Chose your objective | LinkedIn Ad Tips. [online] Available at:https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/success/best-practices/choose-your-objective .
- Decker, A. (n.d.). How to Run LinkedIn Ad Campaigns: A Beginner’s Guide. [online] blog.hubspot.com. Available at: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/linkedin-advertising-campaigns.
- Why LinkedIn & HubSpot Are Better Together Targeting your customers with highly relevant content and reporting on the true ROI of your campaigns is simple with LinkedIn ads in HubSpot. Try LinkedIn + HubSpot together Why use LinkedIn with HubSpot? (n.d.). [online] Available at: https://www.hubspot.com/hubfs/HSCM%20LinkedIn/Whitepaper-HubSpot.pdf?_ga=2.112342594.795198193.1649802858-341326705.1634152436 [Accessed 16 Apr. 2022].
