Comprehensive Guide to LinkedIn Ads Bidding Strategies

If you're starting on the path of LinkedIn ads and wondering where to kick off your bidding strategy, you've come to the right place! In this complete guide, we'll be uncovering all the essentials you need to know about LinkedIn bidding strategies. With an effective bidding strategy, you can maximize results and better optimize for conversions or leads. From understanding different bidding approaches to choosing the best campaign bid strategy and distinguishing between bidding and pricing, we've got you covered. Read on, and give your LinkedIn ads campaign the winning edge!

"The right LinkedIn bidding strategy can make the difference between an average and a highly successful ads campaign."

Understanding the LinkedIn Auction

LinkedIn works on an auction system, where you compete with other advertisers who are targeting the same audience. The amount of your bid, the relevance of your ad and your targeted audience are the determining factors for the success of your ad.

Before jumping in, it's crucial to set a clear objective for your campaign; this will likely influence your bidding decision. You need to understand the value of the result you're pursuing and how much you're willing to pay for it. This predetermined amount is your bid.

Choose the Right Optimization Goal

Once you have your campaign objective set, the next step is to think about conversions or lead optimization. These are actions taken by users that you consider valuable, such as filling a form, subscribing to a newsletter, or making a purchase on your website.

LinkedIn provides an option for objective-based bidding, which means your campaign is optimised for the specific action you want users to take. This is preferred if your goal is conversion or lead generation. In this case, you might choose to bid on cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) depending on your campaign objective.

In most cases, you want to keep this as the default (depending on your campaign objective, this will be usually be Website clicks or leads), and not change it for impressions.

Identifying your Campaign Goals

The key to maximizing results on LinkedIn win developing and implementing the right bidding strategy. But, which approach is best? The answer depends entirely on your campaign goal and budget.

If your goal is to raise brand awareness, for example, you might choose a Reach or Impression-based strategy: you're charged for each 1000 impressions your ad receives, regardless of engagement. For those looking to drive actions such as website visits or conversions, a CPC bidding strategy might make more sense, where you are charged each time someone clicks on your ad.

Understand the Different LinkedIn Ads Bid Strategies

Your campaign's bidding strategy depends on what you hope to achieve. Understanding how bidding strategies vary will help you choose the right one for your specific goals.

LinkedIn offers several bidding strategies, each tailored to different campaign objectives and budget scenarios. These include Maximum Delivery Bidding, Target Cost Bidding, and Manual Bidding. But what do they entail and how can you leverage them for your campaigns? Let's decipher each one:

Maximum Delivery Bidding : When you choose Maximum Delivery Bidding, LinkedIn takes the reins. They'll automatically adjust your bid in real-time to get you the most results for your budget. But do you need a large volume of results? Are you okay with potentially paying more per result to get them? If yes, then Maximum Delivery might be the way to go. With this option you can easily spend your budget, but may not acheive the lowest cost per clicks possible.

Manual Bidding : Then, we have Manual Bidding, which puts you in full control. You decide what each click is worth to you. You set your maximum bid and LinkedIn will use this as your max bid. This method requires more hands-on management, but it also gives you the most control over your ad spend and can help you get the most clicks out of your budget. With this option, you may not spend your whole budget if you set your bids too low, but you are better able to maximize the amount of clicks you get out of your budget.

Target Cost Bidding : Target Cost Bidding, on the other hand, provides a more controlled expenditure. You set a target cost for your desired result. LinkedIn strives to keep your actual cost as close to your target as possible across the campaign's lifespan. So if you're keen on a steady spending pace and predictability in costs, Target Cost is can offer a middle ground between Manual bidding and Maximize Delivery.

Remember that the success of your campaign doesn't solely depend on your bid strategy, or bids-, but also on the quality and relevance of your ads. A higher bid can give you a competitive edge in the auction, but an engaging and relevant ad can win at a lower bid.

What do I prefer?

As an experienced LinkedIn Ads manager, I prefer Manual Bidding for the most control over my campaigns spend and bids. This allows me to set bids at the lowest level that allows me to spend the target daily budget. More Clicks -> more conversions. But don't be intimidated, you can do it too!

How to Use LinkedIn Ads Manual Bidding

From experience, you can often get a 20-30% lower Cost Per Click using Manual Bidding vs. Maximize Delivery in LinkedIn Ads.

Getting a lower Cost per Click directly translates to better delivery and performance across the board.With the same budget, a lower Cost per Click will stretch your dollars further:

✅ 20 to 30% More clicks
✅ 20 to 30% More impressions and reach
✅ 20 to 30% More conversions & leads

Manual bidding can be intimidating, but the strategy is actually quite simple. The goal is to control your level of spend using your bids and not your budget. You want to find the balance of what is the lowest manual bid you can set to spend your target daily spend by the end of the day.

If you are spending your full campaign daily budget by lunch, you should lower your bid. If you are not spending your target daily spend, you should raise your bid.It helps to set your campaign's daily spend above what you truly want your campaign to spend.Ex. If my target is to have a campaign spend $100 a day. I would set the campaign's daily budget to $150, and control the bid manually to get the campaign to spend $100 a day. This ensures that you are achieving the lowest CPC possible.

Final tips for Effective Manual Bid Management on LinkedIn

Managing your bids on LinkedIn can be an art in itself. It's not just about setting a price and forgetting about it. Your approach to bidding can make or break your advertising efforts. Let's jump into some key tips for effective bid management on LinkedIn:

1. Keep an eye on your campaign ad spend: If you are spending your entire budget by lunch, lower your bids. If you are not spending your target spend by the end of the day, raise your manual bids.
2. Understand how your target audience affects the auction: If you have a very large audience of lower seniority professionals, you can expect to pay less per click than a very niche audience of high-level executives or directors.  LinkedIn Ads is fundamentally an auction for advertisers, so more desirable audiences will usually have higher cost per clicks.
3. Look at Trends: Try to strike a balance between monitoring and changing bids daily and looking at longer periods of time. While it's essential to have a bid level that is able to spend, it's also important to ensure don't over-react to daily sways in ad spend. Try to look at the last 7 days as well to gain more perspective before making large changes.

And finally, remember that LinkedIn, just like any other advertising platform, can be a place for trial and error. Don't be afraid to make mistakes and learn from them. Keep testing and your strategy, and you’ll find the bidding approach that's best for your business.

Conclusion

I recommend using Manual bidding for the most control on your campaigns. Keep in mind, successful ad bidding and management is ongoing and requires steady monitoring, evaluation, and alterations. Monitor your ad performance to make real-time adjustments and outperform in the competitive digital world. Happy bidding!

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