April 2, 2018
LinkedIn lead gen forms are a type of sponsored ad that allows a user to submit their contact info without ever leaving LinkedIn. These ads are designed for companies whose main goal is to capture emails and user information.
Lead gen forms provide the user an easy way to show interest that takes less time and reduces friction. This is important in the fast-moving world of today. The form is already pre-populated with information from the user’s profile making the form effortless. This is especially beneficial for mobile users who are less likely to visit a webpage and manually fill out a form on their phone. LinkedIn also offers an option to connect with marketing and CRM tools to have the lead information at your fingertips for nurturing, increasing the value of these leads.
Keep in mind with lead gen forms, you are likely decreasing the amount of traffic to your website versus using a traditional sponsored ad. However, you are also likely increasing your conversion rates and the number of emails captured.
Get to Capturing
Setting up a lead gen form is super easy. Navigate to account assets and on the drop down select “lead generation forms.” You will have the option to input your offer details and select which profile information you would like to capture, such as email, city, job title, etc. You can choose up to 7 items to capture with the option to create up to 3 custom fields. Best practice is to stick with 3-4 fields. One thing to note, you will have to also input your privacy policy information linking to a valid URL.
There is also the option to customize what the users see after they have submitted their information. This is titled thank you message, but I would recommend using this space to throw in another offer that links to your website. This essentially gives two opportunities to advertise to a user while only paying for one click. That caveat here is if you are initially offering them a white paper or something similar then you will need to link to that instead of trying to squeeze in another offer.
Sweet, Sweet Success
Most importantly, LinkedIn offers built-in analytics to track the success of your lead gen forms. The metrics included are:
- Leads: Total number of leads that the campaign has collected in the specified time period.
- Lead Form Opens: Number of clicks that open the form, including clicks on the CTA, intro text, ad title, and image.
- Lead Form Completion Rate: The percentage of open forms that were submitted.
- Cost per Lead: The amount spent per lead collected.
Of course, I highly recommend utilizing UTM parameters as well to track user behavior in Google Analytics after they leave LinkedIn and hit your website.
In Conclusion
If you are a lead gen company, start testing these ads ASAP and compare to traditional sponsored ads offering the same content. Also, I recommend segmenting your campaigns by device to further divide the data and results. That’s all folks!