Boosting
Best Practices Guide
How to reach new audiences
with your content
What is Boosting is the easiest way
to reach new audiences
Who is
boosting for?
boosting? with your content
• Social media or
PR managers
Boosting turns a post
Reach new on your LinkedIn page • SMB digital marketers
audiences with into an ad on the feed who prefer to work
boosting. from the pages
Boost to increase awareness, experience
get engagement on your post
and increase traffic to your
website with just a few clicks
Why boost? Getting ready to boost
You need to get the right permissions to boost.
It’s an easy way to reach new
audiences with your content. LinkedIn page admin permission. We
now offer 4 levels of access to a company
With just a few clicks, you can turn an page. You need to be at least a “content
organic post into a paid ad without admin” of the company page you’re boosting
leaving the page admin experience. from. If you’re not already at least a content
admin, follow instructions in this article.
Here are some reasons you may
want to consider boosting: Access to campaign manager (Optional).
If you’d like the boost to be charged to
You’re looking to expand your an existing campaign manager account,
reach and gain followers you need “campaign manager” and
You have a time sensitive opportunity such above access for that account.
as an event or a promotion coming up To get access:
You want to experiment with running 1. Ask the marketing contact
a quick, paid campaign on LinkedIn in your organization who the
You’re looking for a simple way admin is on your account.
to reach new audiences 2. Make sure you’re connected with
You want to drive traffic to your landing that admin on LinkedIn.
page so you can retarget audiences 3. Once you’re connected they can then
or boost your search presence grant you “campaign manager” access.
“We got a ton of new followers
from boosting our LinkedIn Event.”
- IronNet Cyber Security
2 | Boosting Best Practices Guide
Boosting Best Practices
Follow these simple guidelines
to maximize your results.
#1 Have an effective
organic strategy
#2 Pick the right
objective
#3 Use profile-based
targeting
#4 Don’t make your
audience too small
#5 Try to budget at
least $25 per day
#6 Schedule boost
for 1-2 weeks
3 | Boosting Best Practices Guide
Best practice #1:
Have an effective organic strategy.
Successful boosted and organic
Did you know?
content go hand in hand.
If you post regularly to your LinkedIn Page, you’ll ↑ 14% ↑ SEO
be able to glean insights about the type of content Organic can boost Organic traffic from
that resonates with your target audience by demand by 14%. LinkedIn can support
comparing the performance of your unpaid posts. your SEO efforts.
So when it comes time to boost, you’ll only
need to look back through the organic posts to
see which ones were most successful (proven Please note: Remember that GIFs, documents
content) and boost to amplify their reach. or poll posts are currently not boostable.
How do I develop a successful organic presence on LinkedIn?
Best practices for establishing your company’s presence on LinkedIn:
Complete your Make sure you have Be open to a two- Speak with one brand
LinkedIn page. an active presence on way conversation. voice and personality but
Have a custom cover image, your LinkedIn Page. Your LinkedIn pages acts get straight to the point.
logo, overview of your Create a monthly or weekly as a customer service You develop credibility by
company and a call to action. content calendar to plan what channel where customers establishing a single brand
A call to action is a free and you are going to post. Daily can engage and give you voice. Regardless of what type
valuable way to gather leads posts are recommended so feedback on what’s important of voice you use, make sure
or drive traffic to your website. you stay top of mind. Share to them and the benefits you get straight to the point.
Please visit here for more tips. news like product launches or and features they’re seeking LInkedIn is a professional
build trust with informative or from your business. Reply platform so focused
Did you know? Pages with inspiring professional content. to them quickly and make messages tend to do better.
complete information get Not every customer is ready sure you channel feedback
30% more weekly views to buy right away so you need back to your organization.
to develop a relationship if
you are going to become one
of their preferred brands.
4 | Boosting Best Practices Guide
Best practice #2:
Pick the right objective
Picking the right objective matters. Knowing what action you want your audience
to take allows us to optimize the performance
The right objective can help improve the performance of of your ad to get the result you want.
your campaigns based on the outcome that matters most While it doesn’t determine the “look” of your
to you. So ask yourself: If I spent $1,000 on this campaign ads, objectives are important because it helps
and got 100 views is that considered a success? Or do you us determine how to best serve your ad.
want people to take a more specific action like follow your
company or visit your website.
Brand awareness
This objective is all about getting as many people as possible to
see your post in their feed. When should you use brand awareness?
You want to increase Announce new news or
your share of voice. communicate issues affecting
If you’re a new player in an industry or your current customers.
your brand awareness is low, you need Brand awareness campaigns can
to nurture trust. Establishing awareness is inform your customers on important
critical before customers will take actions business updates. Use it to drive
requiring more commitment such as filling awareness of a new product launch,
out a form or clicking to your landing page. promotions or alert customers to
critical product or customer issues.
Engagement
The engagement objective was created to maximize
followers, likes or reshares of your post. Use it to:
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Grow your followers. Get viral engagement Maintain credibility You can’t decide
Engagement is the on a post. and stay top-of-mind. on an objective.
ONLY objective that will If you’re a social or PR While your customers may Engagement is a good “catch
add a “follow” button to manager wanting to spark not be ready to share their all” objective since it optimizes
your boosted posts. engagement, whether it’s “likes” information or buy, maintaining performance against most
Please note: your boost or commenting on your post a relationship with them is viewer actions. Engagement
preview may not show “follow - The more people engage important so you stay top also tends to be cheaper on
company” button if you as the with your post, the more it of mind as they come into a cost per click basis than
user boosting the ad is already can go viral as it gets seen by consideration or buy mode. website visits objective.
a follower of that company. more folks in the network.
5 | Boosting Best Practices Guide
Website visits
Do you want to drive traffic to your website or landing page? Then the website visits objective is for you. This objective
funnels traffic to your website to capture leads, download content or explain your product or service in more detail.
Please note that you can only use website visits objective if you have a link to a URL within the body of your
organic post. Clicking on the image of the boosted post will take members to your landing page.
Consideration. Conversion. It’s important to Please note:
tailor your ad and LinkedIn’s prefilled
You can direct Conversions refer lead gen forms are
the info on your
traffic to your to actions you want not available in the
website as well
website where you your customers to boosting feature.
as your targeting
can showcase your take on your own To use LinkedIn
to constantly
product or service website that are lead gen forms
improve the quality
in more detail. important to you, pre-populated with
of your leads.
such as visiting member information
a specific page Don’t forget to to collect leads,
or providing lead follow-up with your you must use our
information on leads, to nurture more advanced
your own website. them into a business “Campaign
opportunity. Manager”.
Best practice #3:
Use profile-based targeting.
Reach members by their seniority, In addition, our targeting has very high accuracy
because members have an incentive to keep
job function and industry. their profiles updated, with the intention of
The power of LinkedIn lies in our ability to reach the right attracting job and business opportunities.
business people when they’re thinking about business.
There are 3 ways to target during boosting: We highly recommend building your own target
audience using members’ audience attributes (#1).
By dimensions or attributes of members’ This way you can pinpoint exactly who you want to reach from
1
LinkedIn profile, like seniority or industry thousands of professional dimensions like job function (marketing,
finance, etc.), seniority (manager, director, etc.), industry and more.
A great way to build your audience is by mapping your
y commonly used, preset
B
2 personas to the kinds of jobs your target audience might
LinkedIn audiences
have. Then you can layer on additional attributes from there.
Please note:
3 By professional interests
• Unlike other non-professional platforms, demographic
targeting is discouraged on LinkedIn.
• Targeting by job titles is not available yet. You can use a
combination of seniority plus job function to get around this.
6 | Boosting Best Practices Guide
Best practice #4:
Don’t make your audience too small.
Making the audience too small is If your audience is too small the boost won’t work or you
won’t reach enough people to make it worth your while.
the most common mistake we see.
Follow these tips to ensure that you target an optimum audience size (generally 50k or more):
You’ll also want to check the forecasting panel (on the upper right corner
of your boosting experience) to make sure it’s hitting your business goals.
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Always establish the end- Don’t use more than 2-3 Your forecasted results will indicate
goal you’re trying to hit before targeting criteria or “facets.” the size of your audience.
you start your campaign. For example, if you’re targeting based Your audience should be at least 50K
How many clicks or leads do you on “seniority” and “job function”, then or more. If your audience is below
want from this boost? Then use the you may not want to include “industry”. 300, you may not be allowed to boost.
forecasting panel to work backwards Audience size will generally be smaller
and see if the audience you’ve chosen on LinkedIn vs. other platforms.
( in combination with the budget and
schedule) will achieve your end goal.
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Boosting uses only “AND” targeting. Remember that ‘excluding’
With “AND” targeting, the more criteria an audience is optional.
you add, the narrower your audience As an example, if you’re including all
gets. For example, this means that if 3 of the critical targeting attributes
you select “directors” (seniority) and like job function, industry and seniority,
“marketing” (function), your audience you don’t need to use the field
will only target directors within the “exclude” unless you want to.
marketing function. It doesn’t mean
“directors” OR “marketing” professionals.
7 | Boosting Best Practices Guide
Best practice #5:
Try to budget at least $25 per day.
What sets LinkedIn apart is our premium audience
of influential decision makers and professionals.
We have seen successful boosts High-value B2C products such as financial
among clients with high lifetime value services, luxury goods or educational
customers such as B2B products. services may also be good fit for boosting.
Best practice #6:
Schedule your boost for 1-2 weeks
It’s important to give your boosts enough time to seed, so be patient.
We recommend a minimum You can check the forecast on the upper right of
your screen to determine if your campaign is long
boost duration of approximately
enough to hit your goals. If it’s not, you’ll need to
1-2 weeks to see optimal results. increase the duration and/or your boosting budget.
Congratulations!
You’re ready to boost.
Visit our Boosting Landing Page to learn
more about reaching new audiences
Appendix
What is Campaign Manager?
A boosted post is considered an ad. Many ads on LinkedIn are created
in Campaign Manager, which offers more customized, advanced
solutions with more objective, targeting options and formats.
Boosting Campaign Manager
Objectives Awareness, engagement, Awareness, engagement, website visits
website visits plus video views, conversions, lead generation
Targeting Language, location, job experience Language, location, job experience (seniority,
Options (seniority, industry, job function), industry, job function plus job titles, member skills,
interests, or preset audiences years of experience), education (degrees, field of
study, member schools), company (company name,
company industry, company followers, company
growth rate, company category, company size)
Member interests Interests and traits (member interests,
member groups, member traits)
Preset LinkedIn Audiences Preset LinkedIn Audience Templates (customizable)
Matched audiences (website retargeting,
retargeting by engagement, contact
targeting, company list targeting)
Ability to save audiences
Formats / Single image and video posts Single image and video posts plus carousel, message
Creative ads, text and dynamic ads (right rail and top rail ads)
Control
Must use existing organic Create ads from scratch, add specific
posts (cannot edit) descriptions and call-to-action buttons
Conversions - Conversion tracking (insight tag/pixel)
Prefilled lead generation forms
10 | Boosting Best Practices Guide
