The Crucial Role of Ad Testing on LinkedIn

Many industries are turning to paid social media ads to expand their online presence and connect with potential clients. Law firms, while still behind the curve, are starting to dip their toes into this necessary element of a modern-day digital strategy. By harnessing the power of social media, law firms can grow their digital footprint and reach new clients they may have never discovered before. However, relying on your existing followers is a short-sighted approach. Paid social allows firms to reach a wider and more targeted audience based on the persona of their ideal client. This savvy strategy not only widens its client pool but also boosts the firm's reputation in the highly competitive legal arena.

But, putting up ads on social channels like LinkedIn isn't just about setting them up and hoping for the best. It's about being smart and strategic. Testing your ads is a key part of that strategy. It helps firms save money, make more from their investments, and ensure they are providing the right message and content that will resonate with audiences.

The Importance of Ad Testing for Law Firms on LinkedIn

1. Cost-Efficiency: Ad testing on LinkedIn can help law firms save money by ensuring that their ad spend is optimized. By identifying high-performing ad variations, you can allocate your budget more effectively, avoiding wasted spend on underperforming ads.
2. Improved ROI: A well-executed ad testing strategy allows you to discover what resonates best with your target audience. As a result, you can increase your conversion rates and achieve a higher ROI on your advertising investment.
3. Enhanced Campaign Performance: Ad testing enables you to refine your ad content, design, and targeting over time. This iterative process ensures that your campaigns consistently improve, resulting in better overall performance.

Steps to Create an Ad Testing Strategy for LinkedIn

1. Define Your Goals and KPIsLike any marketing strategy, it's crucial to establish clear objectives for your LinkedIn ad campaign. Determine what you want to achieve with your ads. Are you looking to generate leads, increase website traffic, or build brand awareness? LinkedIn provides 8 objectives to choose from when creating a campaign. Knowing your personal objectives and matching them to the right LinkedIn objective is key to ensuring your ads are being algorithmically served based on what you want to accomplish.Ensure you determine the metrics to be measured for each goal. LinkedIn helps with this through a “key result” identification when selecting an objective. For example, “Brand Awareness” uses reach as a key result. Website visits is clicks, engagement is engagement rate, video views is video views, and so on. But other metrics, while not necessarily the key result, are also important (and some are just not).
2. Develop Audience ProfilesCreate distinct profiles for the types of people you want to target. Think about factors like job titles, industries, locations, and company sizes. This helps you tailor your ads to the right audience. For example, create one audience of in-house Chief Legal Officers within a specific region to drive firm awareness. Another audience can be current associates at firms with 1-3 years of experience to help with talent acquisition. Develop as many audience segments as appropriate for your campaign goals.Pro Tip: You are looking for an audience size of 50,000-100,000 as a sweet spot.
3. Create Ad VariationsDesign different versions of your ads but change only one thing at a time in each variation. For instance, test different headlines while keeping everything else the same in a single ad variation. This way, you can pinpoint what works best. Other variables can be the creative itself, the post copy, or a call-to-action.
4. Start Micro CampaignsInitially, run small campaigns with a limited budget. This allows you to test your ad variations without spending too much money. It's like a trial run.
5. Monitor and Optimize AdsKeep a close eye on how your ads are performing. If you notice that certain ad variations are doing better based on your key metrics, allocate more budget to them. Pause or tweak underperforming ads to make them better. Pro Tip: Allocate a certain budget just for ad testing knowing you will see minimal results with certain variations. Don’t consider this “losing money”, but “using money” to maximize your larger investment later. Continue to optimize your ads as you see fit until the testing budget is depleted.
6. Measure PerformanceRegularly check the performance of your ads. Pay attention your identified metrics like click-through rates, engagement, and conversions. These metrics tell you how well your ads are doing.
7. Scale Your SuccessesIncorporate the insights gained from your successful ad variations into new campaigns. This helps you grow your ad strategy based on what's working.

Limitations to Ad Testing on LinkedIn

To save you some frustration, knowing the LinkedIn ads limitations is important as you are planning your strategy.

• You can only select one objective per campaign.
• You can only utilize one type of ad for each campaign. For example, if you are running video ads, your campaign can only use video ads. You cannot mix them with single image or lead generation ad types.
• There are limitations to targeting when overlapping variables. For example, if you are targeting job titles, you cannot overlay that with job functions. You will see certain targeting variables grayed out as you start your audience building.

Ad testing is a critical component of a successful LinkedIn advertising strategy for law firms. It allows you to save money, increase ROI, and refine your campaigns to ensure they are reaching the right audience with the most compelling messaging. With a solid testing strategy, law firms can develop a data-driven approach to their advertising efforts on LinkedIn, ultimately driving better results and achieving their marketing goals. As the digital landscape continues to evolve, law firms that embrace ad testing will be better positioned to stay ahead of the competition and connect with potential clients effectively.