Linkedin video ads: tips, tricks and best practices

Social networks play a crucial role in today’s digital marketing strategies. Through their social pages, brands can reach a range of goals: from brand awareness to lead generation, from driving sales to increasing brand loyalty, and much more.

Whether we’re talking about B2B or B2C markets, brands can’t exclude LinkedIn from their social media strategies.

LinkedIn is famously known as a social network for professionals, especially in the B2B context. In fact, about 80% of B2B marketing leads from social media come through LinkedIn (source Linkedin.com).

However, B2C brands can also take advantage of LinkedIn to increase their online visibility and reach new potential customers. According to LinkedIn, 46% of social media traffic to a company website comes from LinkedIn (source Linkedin.com).

To achieve all of these goals, building an effective organic and paid social media strategy and attracting and engaging users through content are fundamental activities.

What are the most appreciated formats and types of content on LinkedIn?

The answer? You guessed it, video is the most effective and engaging type of content on LinkedIn.

In this post, we’ll talk about video and specifically LinkedIn video ads, and we’ll provide some tips and tricks to create a perfect one. Before we dive in, let’s take a look at some LinkedIn statistics that are relevant to this discussion.

Linkedin video ads statistics that you can’t miss out

In a previous post, we discussed the importance of using video in B2B marketing and we explored the most engaging types of video.

From the B2B point of view, LinkedIn video ads can and should be used at every stage of the funnel to reach a range of goals. Why do brands use them? There are two main reasons.

1. A matter of content

According to research by LinkedIn, video ads in the LinkedIn feed earn 30% more comments per impression than non-video ads. Another reason that brands invest in video ads on the platform is the fact that 59% of executives said that they prefer video content over text content on LinkedIn.

2. A matter of goals

More and more marketers are planning to include LinkedIn video ads in their 2022 video marketing strategy. In fact, 87% of video marketers consider LinkedIn an effective channel for their marketing strategies and 51% have used LinkedIn video ads for their campaigns.

Another considerable statistic concerns revenues. Marketers that use video, grow revenue 49% faster than those who don’t. Finally, LinkedIn video ads have proven to be very useful for lead generation, considering that 77% of marketers think that video drives higher lead volumes. (source: LinkedIn Marketing Solutions)

Before focusing on how to create LinkedIn video ads, there’s another question to ask: what type of video ads are B2B brands creating? According to LinkedIn research, B2B brands choose:

• Product videos (49%)
• How-to videos (41%)
• Explainer videos (39%)
• Customer videos (37%)
• Live streams (31%)
• Webinars (29%)

B2B brands are trying to seize the opportunities offered by video ads to inform their audience, drive brand awareness, and inspire emotions in a compelling way. Now that we understand the current state of LinkedIn video marketing, let’s take a look at the most effective LinkedIn video ads for each goal.

Different Linkedin video ads for different stages of the funnel

As in any marketing strategy, defining objectives and the metrics to evaluate them is the first step in creating your LinkedIn video campaign. For each stage of the funnel, LinkedIn has identified three effective strategies and the video ads that perform best.

A micro-video in the upper funnel

To drive reach and brand awareness in the upper funnel, it’s better to focus on creating brand stories in 15 seconds or less.

This kind of video ad is very effective at the top of the funnel, as it allows brands to tell a compelling story and deliver a clear message in a short time.

What about metrics? The view-through rate (VTR), which refers to the percentage of videos that are played for at least the first two seconds on a device, is the most important metric to take into account. The average performance ranges from 57% to 85% VTR.

A short-form video in the mid-funnel

The mid-funnel is where communication becomes more human-centric.

To nurture the audience and increase user engagement, you can take advantage of a variety of video ads, including product demonstrations, case studies, and event content.

In order to deliver a compelling message and leverage emotions quickly, your short-form video should be condensed into 45 seconds or less.

In the mid-funnel, what makes LinkedIn video ads, especially product videos, more visually attractive is the use of animation and motion graphics. This allows users to empathize with what they see on the screen and allows brands to deliver complex information simply and clearly.

Finally, when it comes to metrics, the most important one is, without doubt, engagement rate. This refers to the percentage of videos that were reacted to, commented on, and shared. The average engagement rate of LinkedIn video ads is 1%.

A long-form video in the lower funnel

In the lower funnel, the main objective for brands is to drive clicks and conversions.

This is a delicate stage where you have to persuade and convince users to take a specific action. To do so, it’s fundamental to create an intriguing video ad, and it doesn’t have to be short.

According to LinkedIn, the most effective video ads in the lower funnel are product demonstrations, thought leadership videos, and case studies.

These types of video content should provide detailed information and engage users at the same time. For this reason, they should be at least 2 minutes long to be effective.

The click through rate (CTR) is the key metric for measuring the performance of these video ads. CTR refers to the number of people who clicked on an ad divided by the number of impressions (the number of times that the ad was seen). At this stage of the funnel, the average CTR ranges from 0.62% and 0.71%.

Now that we have identified the most effective types of video content, the formats, and the right length for each stage of the fnel, let’s see how to create an engaging Linkedin video ad.

5 tips for creating a Linkedin Video Ad

1. Know the specs

To create an effective video ad, you’ll first need to become familiar with the technical requirements:

• Video file type: MP4
• Video sound format: AAC or MPEG4
• Video file size: 75 KB (min)- 200 MB (max)
• Frame rate: 30 frames per second recommended
• Video duration: 3 seconds- 30 minutes

What about the dimensions for video ads?

• Landscape (16:9): min 640×360 pixels – max 1920×1080 pixels
• Square (1:1): min 360×360 pixels – max 1920×1920 pixels
• Vertical (9:16): min 360×640 pixels – max 1080×1920 pixels

2. Capture attention from the start

Given the short attention span of users and their tendency to quickly scroll through their feed, it’s essential that you focus on the core message of the ad in the first 3 seconds of the video.

According to Vidmob, introducing the brand in the first 2 seconds of thought leadership ads can drive the engagement rate up to 16%. Indeed, introducing a brand in the first 2 seconds of a lead generation video ad can increase CTR up to 17%.

For all of these reasons, an attention-grabbing video ad is the result of the combination of the right video message, copy, and images at the right time.

3. Motion graphics is what your Linkedin video ads really need

As we already saw in a previous post, motion graphics can really make the difference in video marketing campaigns because they allow you to explain complex and abstract ideas and content in a format that is easy to understand, as well as entertaining and engaging at the same time.

This is also true for LinkedIn video ads. In fact, it has been shown that users respond positively to animated ads and product video or explainer video ads with motion graphics. Using these features in video ads can increase the social interaction rate (+1% compared to global benchmark), the click-through rate (+3%), and the engagement rate (+8% for ads with an offer or promotion).

4. Make sure your LinkedIn video ads work with the sound off

When we shared these tips for how to improve your social media videos, we included an important statistic: 93% of people prefer to watch social media videos without sound. In fact, up to 85% of social media videos are played with the sound off. (source nexttv.com)

It’s the same on LinkedIn, where his percentage is 79%. What is the main advantage of this behavior? It’s the fact that, if users want to find more about a certain product or service, they can’t look away from the screen.

What is the main disadvantage? Users can get easily bored or distracted.

Finally, what is the best approach? Make sure that you take advantage of visual storytelling features, using captions, descriptive images, or subtitles in your LinkedIn video ads instead of sound.

5. Be concise: keep your copy short

Copy is a fundamental part of a LinkedIn video ad as it helps attract users’ attention and persuades them to watch the video and eventually take action.

According to LinkedIn, your video ad copy should be three lines or shorter, due to the fact that the “see more” link can reduce engagement rate by 7%.

In addition, statistics say that video ads that use short copy can increase the rate of social actions by up to +26% and the engagement rate by up to +5%.

Finally, the use of inspirational words such as “succeed,” “future,” and “transformation” can increase the view rate by up to 31%.

Conclusion

As we’ve just seen, creating effective LinkedIn video ads is a challenge that can be faced by choosing the right type of video for each set goal, and by using strategic tools and approaches such as visual storytelling, motion graphics, and captivating copywriting.

But more than anything else, it’s about creating content focused on people’s interests, needs, and emotions.