Account Targeting on LinkedIn

On March 1, 2016, LinkedIn announced the launch of account targeting, a new way to run successful account-based marketing campaigns on LinkedIn itself.

Account-based marketing has become very important in the B2B marketing world, as it seeks to align program dollars and resources against priority accounts. This new account targeting feature gives marketers the flexibility to customize their Sponsored Updates or Sponsored InMail campaigns to a priority list of accounts. This allows clients to market products to the right people. The goal is to accurately target influencers and encourage them to deliver content that translates into meaningful results.

Here’s how account targeting works:

1. Advertisers provide a list of priority accounts they want to engage on LinkedIn using one or more of the available advertising products.

2. LinkedIn’s platform cross-references the list against its 8 million+ company pages.

3. LinkedIn create an account target segment based on the match.

In an effort to get content in front of the right people in an organization, marketers can also layer additional profile information, such as job function or seniority.

The launch of account targeting within LinkedIn has been said to be perfect for advertisers that want to engage a B2B professional audience.

Account targeting on LinkedIn is not offered to everyone yet. Right now, it’s available to customers purchasing Sponsored InMail and Sponsored Updates through a LinkedIn account representative. This will eventually expand to LinkedIn’s self-serve clients. In addition, a few companies—Salesforce, Comcast Business and Swrve—have participated in a pilot program. The results of the test are very positive so far.

Suzanne McVey, Head of Global Demand Generation at Swrve, made this statement: “The pilot has enabled us to increase the scale of how many accounts we can target, giving us increased exposure to our most important customers. For us, this strategy not only allows us to continue our focus on lead gen but also provides us with the ability to increase awareness and solidify brand positioning among our most important audience. The fact that we can target in this way, at scale, increases our chances of getting the right people in the right accounts at the top of our funnel.”

LinkedIn account targeting ultimately shows how neatly data-driven targeting can integrate with LinkedIn’s native advertising solutions. LinkedIn’s end goal is to create a unified ad platform powered by data from LinkedIn and its customers. This will allow them to innovate even more quickly.