What is LinkedIn Sponsored InMail?
Sponsored InMail is a LinkedIn promotional tool that can send messages directly to other LinkedIn members you’re not connected to. Messages can have up to 200 characters in the subject line and up to 1900 characters in the body. This method is designed to inform professionals about your service/product by kickstarting the conversation and prompting LinkedIn members to engage with your brand.
Why use Sponsored InMail for Your Paid Campaign?
Sponsored InMail allows your brand to target a very niche audience and places your message right into LinkedIn members’ chat inbox while they are taking a work break and leisurely scrolling through their feed. Unlike other paid ads that users quickly scroll pass, an InMail appears as an unread message until it is opened or deleted. Because of this, people are more likely to click on an InMail ad rather than a typical image ad or carousel ad.
How to Set Up a Sponsored InMail Ad
Access your campaign manager and go to manage ads (linkedin.com/ads). Click create an ad.
Select an existing campaign group or create a new campaign group.
Create a campaign and name it “Sponsored InMail” or something memorable.
Set up who’s going to send the InMail message.
- Is it going to be you or someone on your team? They will be the one representing the brand and the message. Once you select who the sender will be, they will be prompted to accept the requests.
Create your content! Write copy that is short, informative and has a call to action.
An example might be:
Hey John Doe,
I hope this email finds you well!
I wanted to send you a quick note in regards of our webinar around the topic of Global Marketing. Our in-house experts will be talking about rising topics in the global market and addressing common questions.
In this webinar you will:
- Expand your knowledge of the global market
- Increase multicultural competencies, and
- Learn best practice on how to communicate with an international team.
Hope to see you there on Monday August 26th, 2019 2PM (PST). Click here to Sign up! Have a great rest of the day.
Best,
Jane Doe
Select your target audience.
- Make sure you send this message to the right person. For example, if you’re targeting someone in global marketing, it’s best you narrow down industry to “marketing” and exclude any other groups. You may also add “AND/OR” factors which means you can target your audience in the marketing industry AND hold a bachelor’s degree OR are interested in international marketing. The possibilities are endless with LinkedIn audience targeting.
- As you launch your ads, it is important to be aware of time zones. For instance, if the webinar you are promoting is PST (Pacific Standard Time), only target locations that are available to watch the webinar in that specific time zone.
Set up your bid and budget.
Launch your InMail campaign!
Here’s a Quick Example of Our Success with Sponsored InMail:
At LEWIS we have monthly webinars, hosted by our resident marketing experts, that discuss new marketing strategies and trends. To promote these webinars, we consistently run paid LinkedIn ads alongside Sponsored InMail ads to test which perform best.
The results? So far, InMail is winning! Compared to LinkedIn paid ads, Sponsored InMail has clearly delivered the best results. We can target a very niche audience with Sponsored InMail and, so far, have brought Cost per Click (CPC) down by 95%. We also increased clicks by 1900%. Overall webinar sign-ups increase by 225% and cost per conversion has dropped 73.55%.
If you’re thinking of launching a paid campaign on LinkedIn, make sure to test Sponsored InMail and see if it’ll work for your next promotion. If you want to learn more about paid ads, social media advertising, or audience targeting, take a look at our PPC Management Services.
