In Q2 2014, LinkedIn introduced Sponsored Updates via five partners, including Social.com. Sponsored Updates are a way to advertise to highly valuable audiences directly in the LinkedIn feed. In Q3, LinkedIn added Direct Sponsored Content, the ability to create Sponsored Updates that appear to your target audience without being pushed as company updates to all of your followers.  

Globally, one in three business professionals are on LinkedIn. A large benefit of advertising on LinkedIn is the accuracy of the profile information about people’s professional lives, including job title, industry, seniority, and skill set — because people use LinkedIn as part of their professional identity, advertisers can target business executives on the platform with a precision that was not previously possible.

Four out of five LinkedIn members impact business decisions within their organizations, and LinkedIn members have twice the buying power as the average web audience, according to Comscore. This desirable audience drove a CPC that started at $4.38 in Q1 and rose 36% to $5.97 in Q3.

If you advertise a highly considered product, either B2B or B2C (such as financial services, automotive, education, or insurance), we recommend that you consider LinkedIn as a source of new leads and a way to connect with extremely valuable customers as they engage in their customer journey. 

We look forward to an exciting year ahead for advertisers in 2015 and look forward to bringing you more insights from the social advertising world throughout the year including a detailed look back at the all important Q4 in advertising.

The Social.com Advertising Benchmark report is here! Download the report at our website, including more data about LinkedIn.