data-driven personas and LinkedIn Ads: How to increase the success of your campaigns

Thanks to more than 20 million users in the DACH region alone and high conversion rates, the LinkedIn business network has become indispensable in the marketing and recruitment sector. An important tool for increasing the reach of your message or job advertisement is paid advertisements on LinkedIn, known as "LinkedIn Advertisements" or "LinkedIn Ads" for short.

But simply placing ads and hoping that, for example, more potential customers will visit your website or dream candidates will apply for your job advertisement is not a promising strategy. Whether your investment in LinkedIn ads pays off depends on how precisely you address your target group. This is where data-driven personas come into play. Read here to find out how you can use them to increase the ROI of your LinkedIn ads in both the B2B and B2C sectors.

LinkedIn Ads: Precise use of ad formats

LinkedIn offers a variety of ad formats that you can use depending on your objectives and the needs of your target groups:

• Single image ads: Image ads that appear in the newsfeed and generate attention through strong visuals.
• Video ads: Help you to tell stories and emotionally charge your brand.
• Document Ads: Suitable for sharing whitepapers or studies directly in the newsfeed and generating leads.
• Carousel ads: Show all facets of a product or job or tell a story.
• Event Ads: Efficient for attracting participants to events and maximizing reach.

An important tool for implementing customized LinkedIn Ads: the LinkedIn Campaign Manager. It offers numerous targeting options.

The most important attributes include:

• Demographic data: Age, gender, location
• Companyographic information: Company size, industry, turnover
• Professional experience: job title, seniority, professional skills
• Interests: Which groups, topics or content appeal to the target group?

With these options, you can, for example, target decision-makers in medium-sized companies or reach potential applicants from specific professional fields. LinkedIn Audience Expansion also allows you to identify similar target groups that match your personas.

Why data-driven personas improve your LinkedIn campaigns

data-driven personas offer in-depth insights into the characteristics, needs and goals of your ideal target groups. They are based on real data - for example, demographic analyses, website tracking or surveys. data-driven personas make it easier for you in the context of LinkedIn advertising campaigns:

• identify precise target groups: Which industries, positions or companies are relevant for your campaign? What individual characteristics and pain points are there?
• support B2C recruiting: How can you address specific target groups such as passive and active job seekers and create targeted recruiting campaigns?
• to advertise efficiently: How do you minimize wastage and make targeted use of budgets?

An example: A company wants to attract talent in the HR department. Thanks to data-based personas, the campaign can be tailored to the individual values and interests of the desired candidates, such as flexible working hours or work-life balance. Such tailored content has a direct impact on the number of applications submitted.

In addition, data-driven personas help you to develop LinkedIn Ads that are tailored to the needs of your target group:

• Tonality: Do your target groups feel addressed? A factual approach is suitable for B2B decision-makers, while a more emotional tone promises success in B2C recruiting.
• Additional visual content: Find out whether your desired target groups are more likely to respond to videos or infographics.
• Call-to-actions (CTAs): Does your target group want to "apply now" or rather "download a whitepaper"?

Performance measurement and optimization

Each ad format can be further optimized by combining it with persona insights. Test different formats and content to find out which approaches resonate best with your target group.

To optimize your ads, use the following measures:

• Monitor KPIs: Track metrics such as click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate and cost-per-click (CPC) to evaluate the performance of your ads.
• Insight tag and matched audiences: Use the insight tag to track conversions and use matched audiences to retarget existing contacts or reach similar target groups.
• A/B testing: Test different ad variants to identify the best content and designs. Vary headlines, images and CTAs to achieve optimal results.

Conclusion: Successful LinkedIn ads thanks to data-based personas

950 million users in more than 200 countries - LinkedIn is the world's leading platform for business marketing. And whether you want to recruit talent, generate leads or build brand awareness, data-driven personas are a powerful tool to make LinkedIn Ads more effective and efficient.

In combination with LinkedIn's versatile tools and ad formats, companies and organizations can achieve their marketing and recruiting goals faster and in a more targeted manner. Get advice or find out about our various offers to take your LinkedIn Ads to the next level with the help of data-based personas.