Get tips on how to create an effective LinkedIn InMail campaign that reaches your target audience directly and increases your chances of conversion.
Anders Stokholm Jessen
LinkedIn is known for being an expensive advertising platform with few success stories. Here, you’ll get one of our success stories AND the opportunity to run the very same campaign. We’re talking about InMails on LinkedIn.
InMails on LinkedIn are direct messages you can send to people on LinkedIn who are not in your network. This feature is only available to Premium members on LinkedIn – AND as an advertising format which can be broadly targeted to your audience.
With that clarified, let me now share how we have used LinkedIn InMails in our advertising, and why I believe this is THE most overlooked advertising format on LinkedIn, and perhaps in online marketing overall.
Advertising on LinkedIn can be tricky. In the B2B space, LinkedIn offers unique targeting options that no other platform can match. No other social media allows you to target people by job title, industry, company, seniority, etc., with the same vast user base as LinkedIn.
On the other hand, true success stories with LinkedIn advertising are few and far between – until now!
LinkedIn is a social network for YOUR professional connections – and this is often forgotten when it comes to advertising.
Far too many people use LinkedIn as they would Facebook: with ads that appear in the news feed or as LinkedIn’s version of right-hand side ads – text at the top of the browser. LinkedIn doesn’t even mention InMails as an advertising option.
This is why LinkedIn InMails are overlooked, and that’s a shame!
As an advertiser, you’re competing with everyone else for your audience’s attention. When you receive a message (whether it’s SMS, email, Messenger or LinkedIn), you see the message and at the very least read a few lines in the preview.
In other words: You have the recipient’s full attention!
That’s what makes this advertising format so powerful! As a recipient, you pay much more attention to this message than to yet another ad in your news feed.
I’m not talking about the sort of InMail (messages) that the kings of LinkedIn with Premium accounts can send. No, I mean regular adverts you set up in LinkedIn’s campaign manager, which are delivered directly to your target audience.
Here’s an example:
We’ve just finished a test campaign with sponsored messages on LinkedIn:
As you can see in the example above, we didn’t give away a free ebook or other freebie. That would definitely have resulted in more clicks after opening than in this example.
Our campaign was delivered to people who had visited our website and who, in one way or another, are decision-makers regarding marketing initiatives for their company.
Fortunately, setting up an InMail campaign is relatively straightforward, especially if you’re already familiar with LinkedIn advertising. Below you’ll find a step-by-step guide for how to do it.
Before you begin you’ll need:
Above, you name your campaign group, set a total budget and choose the campaign period.
I’ve experienced major problems when selecting dates in LinkedIn’s campaign manager, where LinkedIn automatically switches the day and month. So pay close attention to the date you select and be patient!
Currently, there are two campaign objectives in campaign manager that support InMails/Message Ads:
In this example, I want people to visit my website to read about a case study. So I choose Website visits.
I want to reach all marketing directors, commercial directors or communications directors (and similar) in the Central Jutland region. These criteria/parameters are easily added in the audience tool as shown below.
Tip! Check if your audience changes depending on profile language. LinkedIn defaults to English as the profile language, and not everyone has changed it to Danish. So it may be a good idea to select English as the profile language in your campaign setup.
Now comes the crucial moment – what sets this apart from other ads you might have set up on LinkedIn. Here, you must choose Message Ad as your ad format:
Next, you specify budget, schedule and bid.
LinkedIn requires a minimum budget of DKK 60 per day.
This budget might not be spent in full. It depends on whether your audience logs into LinkedIn.
It can be beneficial to add conversion tracking via your LinkedIn Insights Tag. This allows you to monitor whether those who receive your ad click through and convert on your website.
Now you need to create your ad. This is the message your target audience will receive. You do this simply by clicking Create new ad.
Next, name your ad and choose a sender.
The sender must be a personal profile. It cannot be your company profile – and this is where the real strength of this ad format lies. All other campaigns will have your company as the sender. With this format, you have the opportunity to use a personal sender and thus a greater chance to build a personal relationship with people in your target audience.
Tip! Make sure you have a short, catchy subject line. As you may not have a direct relationship with the person you’re writing to, introduce yourself AND your message early in the text.
Once you’ve filled in the fields and uploaded an image/banner, click “Create” and you’re ready to go!
Most ad formats have downsides, but the only drawback I’ve found with InMails is that you can’t see exactly which individuals receive your message ad.
If you want to ensure your message reaches specific people, you’ll need a LinkedIn Premium membership to send InMails directly to them.
That approach is much more expensive and time-consuming, so if you want to reach a wider audience, I highly recommend the method described in this post.
It is, of course, extremely important that all your campaigns comply with the Consumer Ombudsman’s guidelines on SPAM, in this case especially the rules for direct marketing.
On 11 September 2018, the Consumer Ombudsman decided that:
The Consumer Ombudsman considered that InMails sent to a user’s inbox are electronic mail, and that the messages were for marketing purposes. Therefore, the company was required to obtain prior consent.
On 21 July 2020 the Consumer Ombudsman also ruled on LinkedIn’s new ad format, Conversational Ads:
The Consumer Ombudsman considered that marketing sent via Conversation Ads is electronic mail and therefore covered by the spam ban. The company was therefore required to obtain prior consent to send marketing via Conversation Ads.
Based on the above Consumer Ombudsman rulings, it is therefore directly against the spam ban (section 10, subsection 1 of the Marketing Act) to use either Sponsored InMails or Conversational Ads on LinkedIn in your marketing without prior consent.
What does this mean in practice?
It means that if you have not obtained consent from the recipient (as you would with traditional newsletters), you may not contact the recipient via these two advertising options on LinkedIn.
However, you may send Sponsored InMails and Conversational Ads to those who have given explicit consent to receive direct marketing from you – for example, your newsletter subscribers, as long as it is stated in your terms (which they have accepted).
Tip! If you do not wish to receive sponsored InMails or Conversational Ads on LinkedIn as a private individual, you can opt out in your settings.
You’ll find this under Settings & Privacy → Communication → Messages
I hope this guide has inspired you to set up your own InMail campaign on LinkedIn.
If you have any questions or need help with your LinkedIn advertising, we are of course always happy to assist. Contact us here or call us on 71 99 34 74 – there’s absolutely no obligation.
If you’d also like to make sure you’re getting the most out of your ads, I recommend reading these excellent posts from my colleagues:
Best of luck
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