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Driving Sales Qualified Leads on LinkedIn

AJ Wilcox

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About AJ Wilcox

• 8 years of PPC and SEO experience• Began heavy B2B focus 4 years ago• Stumbled onto LinkedIn Ads and they won me over• Saw awesome successes

• Quit my full-time job to start B2Linked.com

• Lives in Lehi with my wife and π kids

• Triathlete, exotic car lover, soulless ginger

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B2B Challenges

• Business-to-Business (B2B)• Selling to a business rather than the end user/consumer

• Business users are still consumers

• 72% of the Fortune 1000 are B2B• B2B is less sexy than B2C, but it’s where the money’s at

• Offline conversion events on delayed sales cycles• Gives rise to Pipeline Marketing• eCommerce analysis much simpler

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What is a Sales Qualified Lead (SQL)?• All leads are not created equal• Content download• Newsletter signup• Demo request• Contact us

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What is a Sales Qualified Lead (SQL)?• Sales funnel steps

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What is #PipelineMarketing?

• Form fill doesn’t tell the whole story• CPL != $/Close

• Make optimization decisions based on real results

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Lead Scoring

• When sales team receives more leads than can be followed up on• Leads given a score based on:• Depth of engagement• Type of contact• Job title• Position in buying cycle• Etc

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Lead Scoring

• My favorite sales framework - BANT• Budget• Authority• Need• Timing

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Tracking Down the Funnel

• Links contain tracking parameters • Google Analytics UTM parameters

• Web form passes those parameters to CRM• Reporting allows you to pull in cost data to marry to

CRM

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Methods for Driving SQLs

• Organic Outreach/Inbound• Free• Not scalable

• Keyword-based Advertising (AdWords)• Intent-based• CEOs type the same keywords as janitors

• Audience-based Advertising (LinkedIn, FB, Twitter)• Persona-based

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Organic Outreach

• Message your connections• Free with InMails• Export your connections to expose personal emails

• Reach out to non-connections• Paid with InMails• Connection requests with customized intro

• Remember to tag links for attribution!

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Organic Inbound• Make profile approachable

• Not a resume• Highlight your USP

• Interaction in LI Groups• Be approachable in groups

• Be visible• Endorse others often• Profile “Flair”

• Visit others’ profiles• Remember to tag links for attribution!

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Keyword-based Advertising

• AdWords/Bing Ads• Hot leads• Unqualified

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Persona-based Advertising

• LinkedIn/Facebook/Twitter• Display ads• Fully qualified

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LinkedIn Advertising

• Up to date (self selected)• Robust targeting• Near-unlimited traffic• Business mentality• Self-service

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What’s Successful?

• SaaS software• Recruiting• That hard-to-reach professional• Reaching influencers

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Isn’t LinkedIn a Resume Site?• Before 2012

• LinkedIn visited when members wanted to update their resume

• 2012• LinkedIn releases InFluencer program to allow influential business professionals to write

long-form content

• 2013• LinkedIn acquires Pulse news service and begins to serve relevant professional content• Sponsored Updates ad units rolled out

• 2014• Long-form publishing made available to all members

• In just a few short years, LinkedIn made the move from resume site to content hub

• Also, more ad inventory…

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LinkedIn AdWords

Account

Campaign

Ads

Campaign

Ads

Account

Ads

Campaign Campaign

Adgroup

Adgroup

Adgroup

Adgroup

Keywords

Ads Keywords

Ads Keywords

Ads Keywords

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LinkedIn Ads 101

• Go to: LinkedIn.com/Ads• Average CPC between $4-$7/click• CPM or CPC Bidding• Auction based on audience

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LinkedIn Ads 101 cont’d

• Ad Units• Text Ads – Right rail

• 50x50px image• .04% CTR is good• 25 char headline, 75 char adline

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LinkedIn Ads 101 cont’d

• Ad Units• Sponsored Updates – News feed

• 180x110px image• .4% CTR is good• Character limits

• 150 char intro• 55 char title• 155 char description

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LinkedIn Ads 101 cont’d• Targeting (profile completeness dependent)

• Job Title (Project Manager)• Job Function (Marketing)• Seniority (Manager)• Company Name (Microsoft)• Category/Industry (Hi-tech, consumer goods)• School Name (Stanford)• Skills (nunchuck, MySQL)• Group (Project Management R Us)• Gender (M/F/Both)• Age (55+)• Company Size (51-2000)• Geography (San Francisco Bay Area)• In any combination• & Exclusions!

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LinkedIn Ads 101 cont’d

• 4 Methods of Targeting• Titles• Job Function + Seniority• Skills + Seniority• Groups (+ Seniority)

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CMO

Groups

Job Functio

n

Titles

Skills

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The Red-Headed Stepchild?

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• Lacking functionality• Opaque• Ignored by LinkedIn

The Red-Headed Stepchild?

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Let’s say…

• You’re running 2 ads. • A has a CTR of .61% and a CPA of $48• B has a CTR of .40% and a CPA of $41

Which ad is better?

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Content Marketing Funnel

Blog Post/Infographic

Guide / Whitepaper

Ebook

Webinar

Low Friction

High Friction

Retargeting

Marketing Automation

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Our Relationship with Ads

• Ads = Manipulation• Content = ?

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Glorious Retargeting

• Paid Search retargeting = Building audience around keyword• LinkedIn retargeting = Building persona!• Deliver content tests to your ideal audience• At a fraction of the price of LinkedIn advertising

• UTM parameter tagging allows for separate audiences

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Case Studies of Interesting Uses

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Case Study #1

• Medical software targeting VCs• Got news out to

VCs about recent round of funding

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Case Study #2

• Marketing software targeting publishers

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Case Study #3

• Tag management software company ObservePoint• Customers have titles across the board• Wanted to reach them other than with titles• Took customer email list, ran through social scraper

• Appended LinkedIn Skills and Groups to list• Ran frequency of Skills and Groups across audience to find

the most common• Built our own homegrown lookalike audience

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Q&A!

• AJ@B2Linked.com• @WilcoxAJ• www.B2Linked.com