LinkedIn offers different tools, such as Lead Generation Forms that help advertisers collect leads from the platform without the users being redirected to a landing page. This article will learn more about LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms and how they work.
What Are LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms?
To put it simply, LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms are a tool used by advertisers to add a unique form to their ads. These ads already have users’ information from their LinkedIn platforms. This is a great way for advertisers to improve user experience. Users can fill up fewer form fields than they would have to otherwise. This tool helps ensure that the users stay on LinkedIn and do not have to go to your website to fill out any information.
All the advertisers looking to acquire lead information can use the forms in the advertisements and other sponsored content campaigns. There are no limitations as to which campaign you can use them on. You can use them on old and new campaigns alike. These forms are compatible with different ads featured on LinkedIn sponsored content and InMail. These LinkedIn features are accessible on different gadgets, such as mobile phones and computers.
Only with one click can you get all the basic information of your users when they agree to submit the form prefilled by LinkedIn. These forms help you get the quality leads you to need for your business and help you scale it higher. Once your users fill out the form, you can connect them with a signup link, a lead magnet, or any other offers you might have prepared.
The platform offers in-app features such as downloading and registration and allows users to click on the call to action posted. You can specify the actions when you put up your LinkedIn Lead Gen Ads.
How LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms Work?
The Lead Gen Forms work by a user clicking on your ads. These ads come in a form with prefilled information from their user profiles. The users must go through the information to ensure it is correct before submitting it.
After submitting, the user’s report with all the important details, such as personal details, name, and email, along with company and job details, such as title, is sent to the user. It is important for there to be a call to action for the user to click on. For instance, you can put a ‘Sign Up’ button to get the process going.
If you are running a B2B business, you must take advantage of Octopus CRM LinkedIn lead generation tool. LinkedIn has proven to be the best platform for acquiring leads on social media. Having a B2B business on LinkedIn will help you generate the most leads. Lead Generation on LinkedIn is the most effective and aids user interaction and ads.
Related article: Why You Need Octopus CRM for Lead Generation
Benefits of LinkedIn for Lead Generation in B2B Marketing
LinkedIn Lead Generation also offers other benefits for lead generation in B2B marketing. Let’s take a look at some of these benefits:
LinkedIn is not like other social media platforms. It is strictly made for professionals who are looking for jobs, are offering employment, or want to connect with people within or outside their fields. This means that LinkedIn is not designed for entertainment, which helps filter out the audience on the social media application. As a result, the leads on LinkedIn are highly qualified and can only be limited to those who are actually interested in your LinkedIn Lead Gen Ad.
Moreover, you will not have to chase dead ends or low-quality leads, saving you time and resources. Instead, your experts will solely focus on leads that will bring them guaranteed outcomes.
The Traditional Way to Generate B2B Leads with LinkedIn Ads
Measuring your return on investment for lead generation on different applications can be very difficult. However, when you use LinkedIn, you get access to the Campaign Manager Tool, which will give you access to all the different metrics, such as the cost per lead, lead form fill rate, and conversion.
You can constantly check the report in real-time, which will make it easier for you to analyze the performance of your ads and then change your campaign accordingly. Real-time reporting is essential to analyze the performance of your ads and make the most out of your B2B campaigns.
One of the most prominent ways of generating leads on LinkedIn is by using LinkedIn ads. The advertisers can link a banner with their landing page using these tools. Users will be redirected to the website when they click on the ad.
When they reach the landing page, users will fill out a landing page form and get more information on the product and services offered by advertisers. However, this traditional way comes with its set of challenges marketers have to face. For instance, if the website is not well optimized, it will take longer to open. The audience online has a very short attention span and may not wait for the website to open up completely and shift to another. The ideal time for the website to open is 3 seconds, if it takes any longer than that; there are high chances for the users to go to another website.
Moreover, your website pages must be mobile phone oriented. This is because many users use LinkedIn or the internet on their mobile phones. If your site is not optimized for mobile phones, it will not open up properly, and your audience will leave the site immediately.
In addition, one aspect of traditional lead generation on LinkedIn is that it uses many fields. When users have to fill in too many fields, they will be less interested in filling out the form. The more fields you have, the lesser number of leads you can expect. To avoid this, you can add fewer fields for the users to fill, but this way, you will not get all the information you need.
To combat these challenges, advertisers on LinkedIn can now use LinkedIn Lead Ads and generate more leads than before.
Advantages of Using LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms
LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms come with several benefits; let’s take a look at these advantages:
Mobile Optimized
The LinkedIn lead Gen forms are a tool exclusively for mobile users. Mobiles are the most popular gadgets, and many people work entirely off of their mobile phones. This is why; if you want to reach a massive audience, you need a solution optimized for mobile usage. LinkedIn Lead Gen forms help you reach a large audience population, which helps increase the number of leads.
Removes Friction
LinkedIn Lead Gen ads are a great way to remove the friction between lead conversions. Your users no longer have to spend a lot of time filling out the information in your forms. They just need to click a few times and be good to go. For instance, they will first click on the ad to open it, then on the call to action, and finally submit all the prefilled information.
This is a very straightforward process, and it helps generate a high number of leads. With the help of LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms, you can even ask the users for additional information, and it won’t affect the number of leads. However, you must design the best form that gets all the data you need without hindering the user experience.
Double Conversion
With LinkedIn Gen Ads, you can have a double conversion, meaning that the first conversion happens with the user’s email. This is when they first sign up or click on your call to action. Then they are led to your website or a landing page where you provide them with more information to nurture them into being customers.
Doesn’t Interrupt The Browsing Experience
The best part about LinkedIn Lead Gen forms is that they do not disrupt the browsing experience. These ads and forms are displayed like normal content, and you won’t have to worry about disrupting the scrolling experience. Moreover, these forms and ads will not redirect you to a third-party page of the site when you use them. This feature improves the browsing experience and more and more users fill out the form.
Highly Versatile
The Lead Gen Forms are great for the creation of different campaigns that come with an array of objectives. You can use them accordingly to push your users to take action, such as signing up for a newsletter or providing free demos.
You have a lot of creative space to do whatever you want. Try to use different lead generation campaigns to the best of your ability.
Easy To Set Up
LinkedIn Lead Gen Ads are not difficult to set up. You just need to click around and type in a few things, and you will be good to go. To design these forms, you do not need to come up with any codes or include tracking tags. Just determine your parameters and add other things such as including an image with text; you will not have to worry about anything else. The easy setup allows everyone to set up the lead generation form.
These advantages help you with your lead generation and can significantly increase your business.
How to Set Up LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms
If you want to get started with the Lead Gen Forms, then the first thing you need to do is to create a promoted content ad. You can only use LinkedIn lead gen forms in the promoted content ad, as only they support this feature. The next thing is to determine whether you want to increase the traffic using your ads or generate the leads using the Lead Gen Forms. You will need to select the latter option if you want to use this feature.
You will have to name your campaign and select the Lead Gen Forms. Then select the posts you wish to sponsor, or if you want to use new content for the ad, then you will have to create it from scratch. Once you decide on the content, you need to create the form template. There are two options; you can either design one on your own or choose one from the given templates. Name the form, choose the headline and then include any additional info you want to feature in your form. You can customize the ad and include custom privacy policy details to give your users confidence in their data.
However, you will need a valid URL for the privacy policy page. Other than that, you have the minimum option of seven fields, including options like:
- First Name
- Last Name
- Email Address
- Additional Contact Details
- Location
- Professional Details
Most of this information will be collected automatically by the platform. You need to consider the comfort of users when collecting information and not go overboard, as they may not be ready to give you a lot of their private information. These forms may have the tools to automatically fill the information in the fields, but your users may not be too comfortable with handing over all of the information.
Lastly, you must thank your audience for filling out the forms. Once they are done filling out the form, they must have the option to save it.
How Much Do LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms Cost?
Several factors contribute to the LinkedIn Lead Gen forms cost. This is why no distinct answers give you a number about the cost of LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms. The cost of LinkedIn ads varies from advertiser to advertiser, and you are required to bid for the Cost Per Click and Cost Per Impression starting with a minimum of 2$.
You may want to control the money you spend on ads on LinkedIn, and for that, you can use different methods such as:
- Maximizing your delivery
Automate the delivery so you can get the highest outcomes in the least possible budget. This will help you get a higher value for money.
- Setting a target cost
This is where you target a cost and try to stay within your cost goals while achieving maximum results.
- Controlling Bids
With manual bidding, you have complete control of your bids in the auction, which will bring you better returns and control the amount you spend.
6 Steps On How to Create and Use LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms
Do you want to get started with the creation and use of LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms? Here are 6 practical steps you can follow to publish and launch ads with promoted content and lead Gen forms:
Set Up Campaign
The first step is to set up a campaign. To begin, you need to click the Advertise button in the upper right corner of your home page. It is right under the Work button. If this is the first time you run LinkedIn ads, then you will need to set up an Ad account.
Fill out all the information in the form, such as the Account name and the currency you will use, among other things. Once you are done creating the ad account, you can move on to create the new campaign group. When you do that, you will need to select the right objectives from the Lead Gen Form.
Select Lead Generation, so LinkedIn automatically shows your ads only to those willing to fill out your form. This way you will set up the entire campaign and move on to the next step.
Target Audience
Selecting your target audience is very important, and LinkedIn gives you plenty of options. It is best to be very specific with your target audience as that will mean that you won’t have to pay a lot of money to run these ads as compared to when you are unspecific with your target audience.
This is the best time to refer back to your Ideal Customer Persona, as it gives you the silhouette of what your customer should look like. If you have run ads previously, you can also use the option of saved audience. If not, you will have to choose the target audience from scratch.
Do that by selecting the location of your target audience. Then you can use the data to get more information on the known contacts or website visitors. List upload, third-party data, and lookalike audience can help you get all the necessary information.
Then you can customize the search further by adding targeting criteria and other attributes for the audience. For instance, you can include information such as education, skills, company, demographics, and other interests. These qualities will help you narrow your search and give you a specific audience you can cater to.
After you get the target audience, you will receive forecasted results data. It is best to aim for audiences between 20,000 and 80,200 people. Furthermore, you can also alter things such as enable audience expansion so that LinkedIn does not automatically increase the audience.
Next, you can select your ad format such as a single image ad, and then finally link your company’s page.
Choose LinkedIn Bidding
The most important part of your ad campaign is your LinkedIn budget. There are many intricacies you will need to take care of.
For instance, you will need to first decide on a daily budget. This means you have to determine how much money you are willing to spend daily on your campaign. Then you can move on to select the type of bid. There are multiple options for you to select from:
Cost Cap
This is an automated option where LinkedIn makes the choices. However, it also allows advertisers to determine their preferred costs based on key results. Then LinkedIn will try its hardest to stay within the range.
Manual Bidding
As the name suggests, this is a manual bidding option where you will need to check your campaigns on your own. You will have maximum control over your bids and the value. If you are looking for a solution that provides you the most control then you need to go for Manual Bidding.
Maximum Delivery
This is the fully automated bid option where LinkedIn sets the bid for you. It gets the highest key results possible while delivering your full budget.
Budget Your Strategy
Once you decide on the type of bid, you need to move on to the daily budget and the CPC. LinkedIn makes it easier for you to choose and gives you the needed recommendation keeping the details of your campaign and audience size in mind. It is best to start the CPC with the lowest number; LinkedIn will tell you your lowest number. If you cannot generate the traffic needed, you can come back and adjust it according to your needs.
Related article: How to Generate Leads on LinkedIn
Write Ad Copy
You should aim to make your ad copy stand out and motivate your users to take action. With that in mind, you should write a very compelling ad copy. There are two parts to your ad copy. The copywriting and the creative element. The copywriting of the ad is the text you see. This text includes the ad’s headline, the introductory paragraph, and, finally, the text’s description. The creative part of the ad includes the graphic asset. If your ad is attractive enough, more and more people will click on it, which will help you generate many leads.
Create Lead Gen Form
The last and final step is to create the lead gen form. This form is presented as a drop-down, and the target audience can easily fill it in then and there. When creating the form, you can use different fields, such as a call to action where you can include different options such as ‘Get Quote,’ ‘Subscribe,’ and ‘Learn more. In the next part, you can choose the lead details and other custom questions you want to include in the fields of your form.
Users can use auto-fill to include all the details according to their LinkedIn profile. However, the custom question fields need to be filled manually. Add in the confirmation text and include any other optional hidden fields.
Your form is now complete, and you can launch it right away.
How to Test LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms
If you want to ensure the maximum outcomes, then you need to test your LinkedIn Lead Gen Ads, which will help you determine if you are on the right track. Testing your LinkedIn Lead Gen Ads is essential, especially if you have integrated it with third-party marketing automation or even if you are using a CRM provider.
Follow these steps to test your LinkedIn Lead Gen form:
- First, log in to the “Campaign Manager“
- Choose the account and the campaign group with the name where you saved the form on
- The pop-up will have a manage button, click on it and the icon so you can choose preview from the drop-down
- Click on the call to action that is in the preview and then the privacy policy check box before you can click on submit
- Close the preview window and then the back arrow so you can go back to the ‘Account Overview Page.’
- Click on the account assets tab to choose the Lead Gen Form
- Download all the leads and get a CSV file on your device.
The report will consist of different values, and you will see the merits of True and False. True means the lead is a test lead, while False means the lead is real.
B2B LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms Examples
The best way for you to learn about LinkedIn Lead Gen is through the examples:
Example #1
The company Leadfeeder used LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms by offering their users a free guide that every user would get if they registered for it. The ‘Ultimate Guide to Website Visitor Identification’ teaches users valuable information that could help them in their future businesses. In exchanging this professional information, the users will have to give their details by filling out the form.
Example #2
Marketo uses omnichannel marketing to feature the same ad on different social media platforms. Users have to fill in the forms with their information, and then they can submit the post on whichever platform they want.
When running LinkedIn lead gen forms, you need to ensure you do it in the right way. Here are some practices you can use to get the best results possible.
Best Practices for LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms
Focus On The Headline
A compelling headline can go a long way. If your headline is compelling enough, your audience will be interested in your form and will be sure to complete it. When writing the heading, make sure you describe the offer clearly so you don’t mislead the audience. The next part is the description, and when writing the description for the job, you need to be very clear about the benefits that come with the headline and what your audience will accomplish when they complete the form.
Use Lesser Form Fields
Using only the minimal form fields for your LinkedIn Lead Gen Ads is best. If you have more fields, then that can result in lower conversion rates. As discussed earlier, online audiences do not have a lot of patience, and if you ask them to fill out many fields, they may not complete the form at all. To increase conversion rates, it is best to use three to four fields as they offer higher conversion rates.
Related article: How to Increase Sales for Small Business
Avoid Using Manual Input
Most users are not a fan of manual input and would prefer LinkedIn to auto-fill the information from their profiles. This is why the best practice is to only request the available information on their user profiles, so all they have to do is give the confirmation and submit the form right away. Avoid all the information that is not available on the platform itself.
Be Sure To Include Thank You Page
If you want to increase your conversions, then you can use the thank you page and increase your conversions by two folds. The users will first give you their email address when they fill out the signup form, and then they will receive a thank you message that includes a link to your website. This will help you lead your audience to our website. On the website, you can set up a registration for an event, or you can also ask them to download an Ebook. This will increase your leads and give you better outcomes.
Include The LinkedIn Landing Page URL
It is possible that the users will not visit your website until and unless they have reached the end of the process. In this case, it is best to treat the text of your form as if it were a landing page. When creating the text of the form, try to be as convincing as possible. Give information to your users as to what they can expect and what you offer with the ad. Try to be as concise as possible because the text characters are very limited.
Once you create your LinkedIn landing page, be sure to include your landing page URL so you can redirect the users directly to your website. When the users reach your website, you can nurture them using your content, and that will help you get better returns. They will get more information about your business and then use it to decide whether they want to work with you.
Automate With Third Party Tools
Octopus CRM is a third-party tool that you can use for LinkedIn automation. The LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms help you streamline actions such as data transfer and make the entire process 10 times easier and more efficient, increasing your productivity levels.
It is very important to keep an eye on your LinkedIn Advertising Campaign. But the monitoring might not be the same for everyone. The strategy will depend on your objectives; different businesses will have different objectives. For instance, your goal may be to build awareness in the audience or increase engagement. Or you may want to increase conversions by generating leads.
Monitor Your LinkedIn Advertising Campaign and Download Leads
When you set out to track your advertising campaign, there are different metrics you must focus on, such as:
- CTR
- Impressions
- Clicks
- Cost per conversion
- Conversion rate
- Cost per lead
- Leads
You can download the leads and keep track of the advertising campaign.
Conclusion
One of the biggest things you learn from the LinkedIn Lead Gen Form campaigns is how to make the most of your options. The LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms are a great solution for B2B leads as it helps you increase your return on investment, increase conversion rate, and also spread brand awareness. Keeping these benefits in mind, advertisers need to make the best use of lead generation forms and improve the performance of their campaigns.
The best part about LinkedIn lead generation forms is that you can set them up without any help from an expert. This guide outlines the step-by-step process you can use to set up forms and use the right practices to maximize your outcomes.