When we are looking for comprehensive communication between businesses and clients, we need the quickest methods to get to the people that matter. LinkedIn Sponsored InMail Ads can give you the edge. Regular InMail or LinkedIn Sales Navigator (used by sales people such as recruitment agencies), already has an InMail function, so why you should you even bother using Sponsored InMail Ads? Let’s give you the details.
What is Sponsored InMail? (Messaging Ads)
Sponsored InMails has features of regular LinkedIn InMail. In the most basic sense, LinkedIn InMail is a hybrid of email marketing with the targeting options for LinkedIn Ads. The messaging can be used to target a specific audience or group of people with personalised messages to prospective clients or existing customers. Unlike LinkedIn Sales Navigator or regular inMail, where email communication is designed for one-to-one correspondence. Sponsored InMail Ads has the benefits of paid ads targeting with the ability to contact thousands of LinkedIn users at once. You can reach your audience like standard email marketing letters, but with targeting associated with Paid Ads. As a way to get new leads, Sponsored InMail gives you more options to reach new prospects than a traditional email marketing campaign.
How does it compare to regular inMail or Sales Navigator
If you’re wondering why your business needs to upgrade to InMail when you’ve already got the standard InMail package, the differences between regular InMail and Sponsored InMail are subtle, but pivotal…
Messaging Options:
If you use regular InMail, you’re not able to send bulk messages to your audience. While regular InMail has its uses as a personal tool, and you can save templates to send out as and when is useful, these messages only allow you to send up to 30 messages from the account. If you have an entire network of people to market to, this can prove troublesome. The Sponsored InMail feature gives you complete control over your campaign. You’re able to send messages to every active member that fits in your target market.
The Cost
You can message someone for free if you have a 1st-degree connection with them on LinkedIn. While LinkedIn users that have a paid subscription have a specific number of InMails they can use, depending on the subscription plan, the campaigns in Sponsored InMail are similar to LinkedIn. The cost per message is 20p or £8.00 per day as a bare minimum.
Receiving Notifications
You want to be able to jump on a notification as soon as it hits you. Regular InMails appear in the user’s message notifications. A Sponsored InMail is marked as “sponsored.”
Why should we use it?
The Sponsored InMail is infinitely more appealing than a regular InMail, Sales Navigator or standard email marketing. One of the significant draws of InMail Ads is that it sends a Sponsored InMail to a user when that person is online. This makes targeted advertising stand out more with less chances of being missed. In addition to the timely and qualified audience targeting of sending an InMail to a user when they are online, this also ensures that the item is 100% deliverable.
When you are looking to generate leads, while LinkedIn recommends InMail, it works in numerous other ways. You can use InMail as a way to promote webinars, as well as other content like ebooks. If you’re concerned as to the efficacy of this, the open rates outcomes reached 13% according to a GE case study on sponsored InMails back in 2013. As far as managing your own campaigns, rather than having LinkedIn do it for you, you are now able to get the same sort of adjustability and reactivity as a sponsored update campaign. The many benefits of this can give you the opportunity to adjust the messaging to your specific target audience, increasing your chances of generating more leads and new customers.
Benefits & Drawbacks of Sponsored InMail Ads
As with any traditional email or advertising campaign, there can be numerous positives and negatives…
The Benefits
- Like an email campaign, there are personalisation options. This gives you that additional personability. Long gone are the days where you can greet someone with a generic “hello.”
- There’s optional ABM, also known as Account-Based Marketing. This account targeting feature allows you to put your campaigns in priority relating to a specific list of accounts.
- Because it’s 100% deliverable, due to the messages only been sent when a user is on LinkedIn, this gives you a higher chance of response and engagement. And because LinkedIn users are only able to receive one Sponsored InMail every 60 days, this gives you a far better opportunity for your text to be seen, and the message to be heard. Sending your message to an uncluttered inbox like this stands you a better chance of engaging the audience.
- Sponsored InMail has real-time analytics tools. Once upon a time, this was not the case for sponsored InMail, but now, it’s giving marketers the same opportunities as LinkedIn.
- You are able to get help from LinkedIn so your campaign can be tweaked to ensure optimum engagement.
The Drawbacks
The InMails are marked as “sponsored” which could send alarm signals to the recipients.
- It can be time-consuming. If you want to reach your audience, and other advertisers are sending LinkedIn InMails to the same person, you may find your content proving to be irrelevant.
- If you’re on a tight budget, this could prove to be inefficient. The minimum campaign budget equates to £8.00 per day, or 20p per message. Do the mathematics, and this adds up over the course of a month.
- LinkedIn InMail campaigns aren’t managed by LinkedIn anymore. While you can argue that this doesn’t give you as much of the support you demand, because they are self-served, this does equate to higher reactivity. As such, you can optimise your copy and change your images as you see fit.
The Lowdown
Sponsored InMail is a fantastic way to send personalised messages to the most important people in your business. Being able to share and target content directly without being seen as yet another email marketing campaign is a delicate balance to tread. And as Sponsored InMail can work wonders with Account Based Marketing, marketers can you use this function to engage with the relevant people from the most relevant businesses. As account targeting offers more than ever before, up to 30,000 accounts to be precise, using LinkedIn ads Sponsored InMail in combination with this is the perfect way to engage.
