LinkedIn Sponsored Updates are huge boon towards B2B Marketing. Learn how to go about sponsoring company updates and what stats the LinkedIn dashboard shows.

1. Your First-hand Experience with LinkedIn Sponsored Updates
It’s been a couple of months since LinkedIn rolled out the Sponsored Updates feature for all the
company pages. With more than 3 million Company Pages on LinkedIn, Sponsored Updates
could not have been launched at a more competitive or accurate time.
Personally I am a LinkedIn worshipper. I thoroughly enjoy the B2B marketing potential that the
platform provides us with. Even though I am still experimenting with the new feature I can say
with much confidence that Sponsored Updates is a boon for us!
Let’s take a look at how we go about sponsoring a company status updates. When you reach
your LinkedIn ad dashboard, this is what you see:
Select the second option to start with your sponsored updates campaign. You can sponsor
multiple updates at the same time, however it is advisable to sponsor one update at a time to
gain maximum visibility for your campaign and avoid cannibalization. Once you choose
“Sponsor an Update” you will see the following:

2. It is essential to have a clear and simple campaign name for this type of advertising because we
might end up sponsoring quite a few updates. Personally I wanted to experiment with different
targeting options, updates with and without an image; hence I kept a simplecampaign name
which will help me remember the USP of the campaign just by looking at the headline.
This is how your Sponsored Update will appear on a desktop:

3. LinkedIn gives you an option to see how your Sponsored Update will appear on a desktop,
mobile device and a tablet. The next step is choosing the target audience. The options provided
by LinkedIn are identical as for the self-serve ads.
Your bid range and minimum bid will vary depending on your target audience. The minimum
bid for my first campaign was 191 INR and for the second one was 137 INR.
If you go for CPC model you will only be charged when someone clicks on the link that is
present in the update, the image or the video or any other external content piece that you have
included in your update, the company name and the company logo. Social actions are free!

4. For a CPM model the minimum bid will vary from 574 INR to 610 INR.
Go ahead and launch your campaign. Set up a daily budget, you can run the campaign until a
specific date or till your budget gets exhausted. From what I have observed, it is ideal to run
one Sponsored Update for two to three days.
Sponsored Update will prove to be very significant to spread awareness about a new product
launch, driving sign-ups for an upcoming event, gather recommendations, etc.
When you go on your company page you will see a clear divide between the number of
followers acquired, clicks received, impressions and interaction via Sponsored update and via
the organic reach of your update.
The most interesting part about the Sponsored Updates is the analytics offered by LinkedIn. It
will not only help you optimize your campaign accurately but also give you insights about your
target audience.

5. The LinkedIn adverting dashboard will show you Top Clicks by Job Function, Region, Industry,
Seniority and Company Size.
So in your next Sponsored Update you can word your update in such a manner that is most
enticing to your target audience. If your target audience consists essentially of entry level
people from technical background, you might want to give out more operational level detail in
your next update.
The most awaited question here would be: What is the average CTR for Sponsored Update? So
far we have observed an average CTRof 0.117%. This shows that Sponsored Updates are
performing way better than basic LinkedIn ads which have an average CTR of 0.03%.
The next thought that will pop-up in your mind will be: Are LinkedIn Sponsored Updates faring
better than Facebook Promoted Posts?
Here are the stats:
The link clickto update likesratio for LinkedIn sponsored updates is between 10.57 to
11.23,while the link click to update likes ratio for Facebook promoted posts is between 0.09 to

6. 1.22. This clearly tells us that when it comes to News Feed ads (promoted posts) on Facebook,
people tend to ‘like’ the update more as compared to clicking on the link in the update and
going to the landing page. Whereas on LinkedIn, people tend to click on the link more often and
end up going to the landing page.
This clearly tells us that LinkedIn advertising even though a little more expensive than Facebook
advertising is worth every penny. As an advertiser the above number helps me justify why I
would choose LinkedIn advertising over Facebook advertising when the latter is cheaper (read:
some believe cost effective :P)
This also restores my faith in the lead generation capability of the platform for my client’s
business. After all isn’t it quality that we strive for, always? 
Have you seen a sponsored update on your LinkedIn news feed? Have you tried it as an
advertiser? Let us know!