Over the last few years, I have continued to watch LinkedIn CPCs rise (especially in the US), which means that CPAs increase as well.

For some advertisers, this pattern isn’t sustainable and I have seen B2B advertisers with a lot of potential hang up their LinkedIn hat in search of cheaper leads elsewhere.

If you (or a client) is considering cutting back on LinkedIn advertising or throwing in the towel altogether, I have something you need to test before you do anything: Group targeting!

Why Test Group Targeting?

I’ve heard advertisers say “we tested group targeting in the past and it didn’t work.” It’s worth another shot.

We started testing it with a client over the summer and very quickly we found that it was more cost-effective than the traditional job title, seniority and experience targeting that we had been testing.

My theory is that folks who join LinkedIn groups are more frequent users of the channel and are more likely to engage with posts and ads for that reason.

Check out the numbers below between our traditional campaigns, labeled “Other” here, and Groups campaigns.

Groups campaigns continue to outperform our “traditional” LinkedIn targeting with a 31% lower CPA and a 51% increase in conversion rates! The CPCs are a bit higher on average, but the users are more likely to convert so it’s money well-spent.

So How Do You Get Started?

There are loads of LinkedIn groups for every professional interest.

When I’m first starting, I do some initial research to see if the industry I’m targeting has any professional organizations, like the American Marketing Association. Many of those organizations have a specific city or state chapter that has a group on LinkedIn. I like to add all of those as well as the national organization, if available.

Once you have mapped out professional organizations you want to target, you can hop into LinkedIn and check out what’s available.

You’ll find Groups under Interests in the new Campaign Manager.

I would recommend being as specific as possible when searching. You’ll be able to see how many users are in these groups.

LinkedIn’s new audience and traffic forecast tool makes it easier than in the past to estimate what your reach with be with these groups.

For more on what size your LinkedIn audience size should be on LinkedIn, check out this post that can help you decide what size you need for your goals.

Tips for Success with LinkedIn Group Targeting

My biggest suggestion for making group targeting work for you is making sure you have a large enough geographic area. For example, this advertiser was targeting many large continents, whereas someone targeting only groups in Chicago may not see much of a change.

I would also suggest that you include more than 10 groups in your campaign targeting when possible.

You can layer in additional targeting, such as seniorities, in which case I’d recommend adding a few more groups to keep your audience size up.

In conclusion, this targeting isn’t rocket science, but it’s something that folks often overlook! I hope I’ve given you some great reasons to test it.

If you’re looking for some additional ways to target your B2B audience aside from LinkedIn, check out these posts:

• Leveraging LinkedIn Data on the Microsoft Audience Network [Beta]
• How to Leverage B2B Lookalike Audiences in the Stages of Your Sales Funnel

Have you tested Group targeting in LinkedIn? What tips do you have to share? We’d love to hear them below!