In this video, we will walk you through the basics of how the LinkedIn auction works and the different levers you have as an advertiser to be more competitive.
LinkedIn's auction has three main stakeholders.
The first is the advertiser.
The second stakeholder is the LinkedIn member.
The final stakeholder is LinkedIn, the host of the auction.
LinkedIn's role is to ensure that the auction is fair, and that the winning ads are those that drive the most value for both members and advertisers.
First, choose your campaign objective.
Determining your objective is the first step in creating a successful marketing campaign.
The campaign objective also indicates which key results LinkedIn's platform should optimize for.
Each campaign objective comes with different optimizations and ad formats, so it is important to choose the one that best fits your marketing goal.
Next, set your bid and bidding strategy.
Once you decide on your objective and ad format, you will want to place a bid.
The amount you bid expresses how much you value the desired outcome.
The bidding strategy you choose will determine how your bid is set in the auction.
You can adjust this at any time in Campaign Manager.
You can choose from three bidding strategies known as bid types: maximum delivery, cost cap, and manual bidding.
Maximum delivery and cost cap are automated bid strategies that help you get the most results, while delivering your full budget.
Cost cap allows you to set the maximum average cost per key result.
Manual bidding gives you the most bid control by setting the maximum bid across auctions.
LinkedIn does the rest by determining relevancy and placement.
In order to provide the best user experience, the ad auction considers your ad's relevancy in addition to your bid.
Your ad's relevancy reflects how likely a member is to take meaningful action.
Our AI models consider factors such as member activity, ad content, and targeting to predict the likelihood that a member will click through and engage with your ad.
When a LinkedIn member has an opportunity to see an ad slotted in between organic content, the auction runs instantly in the background to determine which ad is shown.
A campaign that has won the auction for a particular audience will be delivered to the LinkedIn member.
We've now learned that whether your ad is delivered to a LinkedIn member is a function of both your bid and relevancy score.
Let's bring this to life by showing you a quick example.
Imagine an auction with three advertisers.
In this case, advertisers A, B, and C are all competing to reach the same target audience.
Using the same campaign objective and ad format, Advertiser A places a bid of $12.
Advertiser B places a bid of $8 and Advertiser C places a bid of $4.
Now let's look at how relevant each ad is to the member.
Advertiser A's ad has low relevance.
Advertiser B's ad has high relevance.
Advertiser C's ad has medium relevance.
To determine which ad wins the auction, we consider both the bid and the ad's relevance.
Even though Advertiser A placed the highest bid, Advertiser B wins the auction because their ad is more relevant to the member while having a competitive bid.
To simplify, make sure you bid enough to be competitive and strive for relevant and engaging content.
Get started at LinkedIn.com/ads today.