LinkedIn Ads Audience Network: Pros, Cons, and 2 Strategic Use-Cases

LinkedIn continues to be a powerhouse for professionals seeking to connect and engage with their target audience. In this blog, we look into a specific aspect of LinkedIn advertising—the LinkedIn Ads Audience Network.

Understanding the LinkedIn Ads Audience Network

What is the LinkedIn Ads Audience Network?

The LinkedIn Ads Audience Network is a collection of partner websites where advertisers can showcase their LinkedIn ads. Rather than advertising on the LinkedIn platform, this network allows your ads to appear within partner websites in a native ad format.

The Negatives of the Audience Network

The primary concern is that it deviates from the targeted approach LinkedIn ads are known for. Instead of reaching users in a business mindset on LinkedIn, your ads may be displayed on partner websites where users could be engaged in non-business-related activities.

Users not in a business mindset: When people surf the web, they tend to be in a relaxed, leisurely mode rather than a professional or business mindset. This mindset change can affect the performance of your LinkedIn Ads when they are displayed on the LinkedIn Ads Audience Network. The casual browsing environment of these partner websites may not align with the professional, business-oriented content of your ads, making them seem out of place.
Lower Quality Clicks: Despite LinkedIn's assurance of partnering with reputable websites, many question the quality of the Audience Network. The quality of clicks on smaller, less recognizable websites within the Audience Network is often questioned, with concerns about click fraud and accidental clicks diminishing their value.
Lack of Transparency: LinkedIn does not show data on which partner sites display your ads and how each website performs
Takes over your campaign: This setting is turned on by default, yet many new advertisers don't know the impact it has on their accounts. This setting is not balanced. It will take over your campaign and >95% of your dollars will be spent on the Audience Network, yet most advertisers who use this setting do not even realize that none of their ads are actually showing on LinkedIn.

Best Practices and Strategies

Avoid the Audience Network - In Most Cases

Given these factors, my general recommendation is to not use the Audience Network, especially if you are new to LinkedIn ads. If you are an advanced user, and want to test the Audience Network, here are 2 ways you could test it as a part of your LinkedIn Ads strategy.

Be sure to follow this advice closely.

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Use-Case 1: The Audience Network with an Allow List

An allow list, also known as a whitelist, is a feature that allows advertisers to specify a list of websites or apps where they want their ads to be displayed. It is a way to control and limit the placement of ads to specific trusted and high-quality websites. By using an allow list, advertisers can ensure that their ads are shown only on websites that align with their brand values and target audience.

For example, if you have a LinkedIn ads campaign and you want your ads to be displayed on specific partner websites within the LinkedIn Ads Audience Network, you can create an allow list that includes those websites. This way, your ads will only appear on the websites that you have approved, providing you with more control over where your ads are shown.

Using an allow list can be beneficial for several reasons.

Maintain brand safety by preventing ads from appearing on websites that may be inappropriate or low-quality.
Target their ads more effectively by selecting websites that are relevant to their target audience.
Block out all non-relevant topics and websites that you don't recognize

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Use Case 2: The Audience Network in a Remarketing Campaign

Remarketing or retargeting campaigns tend to perform well and are a good opportunity to test the Audience Network. These campaigns specifically target users who have previously interacted with your brand. Since these users may already have some level of familiarity or interest in your brand, they might be more likely to engage with your ads on partner sites.

Does not replace your standard remarketing campaign showing ads on LinkedIn
Instead, it is a compliment to gain more reach across the web
Keep this campaign separate and at a lower budget

Tips for Effective Use of the LinkedIn Ads Audience Network

Effectively utilizing the LinkedIn Ads Audience Network can greatly enhance your ad reach and engagement. Here are some tips that can help you.

Keep Audience Network Campaigns Separate

Always keep Audience Network campaigns separate from standard LinkedIn campaigns and use these campaigns with purpose, and not by default. By keeping the campaigns using the Audience Network in a separate Campaign Group, it will be easier to monitor the performance of each campaign independently. It provides you granular control over your ads and the ability to optimize each campaign based on their specific metrics.

Use Manual Bidding

Employ manual bidding for better control over budgets and bids in Audience Network campaigns.

With manual bidding, you can decide how much you're willing to bid for each click, impression, or video view. It provides the flexibility to allocate your ad budget as per your advertising goals as well as establish limits to protect against overspending on a single ad. Here are a few points to consider while bidding:

Start with bids very low
Monitor your campaign performance closely
Look at Google Analytics data to measure the quality of website traffic

In conclusion, manual bidding is an excellent tool for controlling your LinkedIn Audience Network campaigns' spending. By smartly managing your bids, you can ensure that your ad budget is put to its best use for collecting your desired results.

Analyze Data with Skepticism:

Interpret the data from Audience Network campaigns with caution. Compare referral traffic with paid social traffic on LinkedIn to gauge the quality of clicks

Conversion Tracking:

Conversion Tracking in LinkedIn Ads is a powerful feature that offers invaluable insights into the audience's behavior post clicking on the ad. This tool robustly measures how many of your audience have fulfilled your intended goal such as sign-up, form submission, purchase, and so on.

With LinkedIn's conversion tracking, you can measure actions taken on your website or landing pages and link these actions back to specific ads, thus providing a detailed understanding of your campaign's effectiveness. This insight is critical in identifying which ads are driving the highest value actions and which perhaps need some tweaking.

The application of Conversion Tracking extends to the LinkedIn Audience Network as well. By tracking conversions on content displayed through the network, you can better understand the behavior of your audience when interacting with your ads outside of LinkedIn. It helps you to gain comprehensive insights, allowing you to fine-tune your campaigns and improve overall ROI.

Remember, when it comes to monitoring and analyzing your LinkedIn Audience Network campaigns, every data point is an opportunity to learn and improve. Embrace both the victories and the failures as crucial lessons in the ongoing optimization of your advertising efforts on LinkedIn.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, while the LinkedIn Ads Audience Network may have its place, it requires a strategic and cautious approach. It's wise for new LinkedIn advertisers to avoid using the Audience Network.

However, for those willing to experiment, following best practices and guidelines can help maximize the potential benefits while minimizing the associated risks. As the digital landscape evolves, marketers must stay informed and adapt their strategies accordingly.

Check out my new YouTube video for a detailed walkthrough on using LinkedIn Ads Audience Network. I cover the essentials to help you understand and make the most of it. Your insights will be upgraded—don't miss it!