LinkedIn continues to evolve their Campaign Manager, this time with what they are calling “a complete overhaul” of their campaign creation interface. The new and improved tool, in public beta as of November 14, is built around an objective-based advertising experience.

As quoted in Marketing Land, a LinkedIn spokesperson noted they have “flipped the entire experience.” Previously, LinkedIn advertisers were required to select their ad formats first. But with the new LinkedIn Campaign Manager, advertisers must set their campaign objective before making any other decisions.

This update to Campaign Manager allows for easier campaign creation, automated objective-based bidding and optimization that shows ads to consumers most likely to convert and customized analytics tied to the campaign objectives.

How Does Objective-Based Advertising Work on LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager?

The new LinkedIn Campaign Manager requires businesses to begin their campaigns by setting objectives. This is in line with other ad platforms, like Google and Facebook.

What Objectives Are Available with the LinkedIn Campaign Manager Update?

LinkedIn defines an objective as the “action you want the audience to take when they see your ad.” Currently available objectives include consideration and conversions with website visits, engagement, video views and lead generation as the drill-down objectives.

According to LinkedIn, brand awareness and website conversion objectives will be available in the “near future.”

What Ad Formats Are Available for LinkedIn Objective-Based Advertising?

Eight ad formats are available for LinkedIn objective-based advertising. However, once an objective is selected, the interface will display only those LinkedIn Campaign Manager features and ad formats that help achieve the set objectives.

How Does Automated Bidding and Optimization Work Within LinkedIn Objective-Based Advertising?

With objectives defined, LinkedIn better understands the desires of the advertiser and can put its system to work to drive results. Automated bids and creative optimization will adjust to achieve optimal, objective-based campaign results. With objective-based advertising, LinkedIn has promised to “optimize your campaign by showing your ads to people most likely to take the action you want.”

What Should Marketers Expect from the new LinkedIn Campaign Manager?

The LinkedIn Campaign Manager reboot is supported by several other interface changes and improvements to the overall look and function of the platform.

Enhanced Audience Targeting

Advertisers can still target using saved audiences. But, the enhanced LinkedIn “targeting experience” also includes a global search feature, allowing users to simply search for an audience using commonly-used phrases.

Additionally, a new drill down audience feature in the Campaign Manager lets advertisers define audiences by selecting from targeting criteria grouped into five categories:

• Company
• Demographics
• Education
• Job Experience
• Interests

New Forecasting Display

LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager also added a forecasting display that generates estimates of expected ad results, including potential audience size, impression volume, spend, click volume and objective-based metrics. The estimates are based on campaign inputs, such as bids, budgets, targeting selections, campaign schedule and campaign type. Data from comparable campaigns is leveraged to calculate forecasts.

Budgeting & Scheduling Options

Though the user interface has been redesigned, LinkedIn maintained previously available budgeting and scheduling options. Advertisers can set daily or monthly budgets, establish campaign start and end dates and specify maximum bids on a cost-per-click (CPC) or impression-based (CPM) basis.

Conversion Tracking

Optional, pixel-based conversion tracking of actions taken once a consumer clicks or views a LinkedIn ad continues to be available.

More Responsive Ad Creation Interface

In prior iterations of the LinkedIn Campaign Manager, advertisers could not see their ads until they were saved. A new live ad preview allows advertisers to see ads as they are being configured. LinkedIn promised a faster, enhanced customization process with the new Campaign Manager, and the live ad preview is one of the areas with the most obvious benefit.

Robust Reporting

The new LinkedIn Campaign Manager was designed to integrate seamlessly with the enhanced LinkedIn reporting dashboard launched earlier this year. With multiple views, the reporting dashboard helps advertisers easily view and analyze campaign performance metrics and quickly make optimizations.

According to LinkedIn these interface changes and the switch to objective-based advertising “will serve as the foundation for future innovation to come, making it easier and more intuitive to launch ads and meet your business goals on Campaign Manager.”

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