Lead Gen Forms for LinkedIn ads are the newest ad type available to advertisers. I’ve seen great performance from Lead Ads in Facebook and was excited to try it out for my B2B clients in LinkedIn. Here are 7 things I’ve learned so far while launching these new Lead Gen Forms.
1. Lead Gen ads and Sponsored Content ads directing people to your website need to be ran in separate campaigns.
Although both fall under the same campaign category of “Sponsored Content,” you’re asked to choose what type of ad you want to use in the campaign settings. So if you’re planning on running both ad types, know that you’ll need two different campaigns. I recommend including the ad type in the campaign name for easy analysis.
2. Lead Gen Forms are only available within the LinkedIn app.
This means your ads won’t be reaching anyone on desktops. As soon as you choose this campaign type “Collect leads using LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms”, all ads will be shown in the app only. Don’t plan on running only Lead Gen Forms on LinkedIn unless you don’t care about missing out on desktop traffic.
3. You can test different variations in your campaign.
The form itself is an important part of the ad and should be tested just like ad copy or images. Try different headlines, offer details, and form field combinations to see which works best at driving leads. I’d recommend having at least 2 form variants into rotation for testing.
4. Don’t ask for too much information.
It’s recommended to use three to four fields max for your forms, even though you can select up to seven. Gender and phone number fields generally don’t perform well, so only use these fields if it’s necessary. If a person tries to leave a field blank, they won’t be able to submit the form. So put yourself in your customers shoes and only ask for the most important information to drive more leads.
5. You can’t edit or delete a form.
If you want to make changes to an existing form, you’ll have to duplicate the original and make the necessary updates. This works in the same way as the Sponsored Content itself.
6. Clicks and Opens on your lead ads are not the same thing.
There are three ways that a person can click on your Lead Gen ad: your company logo, the sponsored content to open the form, or the social pill at the bottom of the ad. Logo and social pill clicks do not count as opens, only the sponsored content click does. So, not all clicks count as opens but all opens count as clicks. This is why you’ll likely see a drop off between clicks for your campaigns and opens. Note that you are charged per click, not per open, for Lead Gen Form campaigns.
7. Lead data is only stored for 90 days.
Ideally, you’ll want to set up your CRM to automatically import leads as they come through. If you are doing a manual download of lead data from the LinkedIn interface, you’ll need to download data at least every 90 days so you don’t miss out on any leads (although I recommend you do it much more frequently than that).
If you’ve been running Lead Gen Forms and have additional tips to share, we’d love to hear your thoughts and tips in the comments!
