As a school administrator or marketer, you understand that successful campaigns rely on reaching the right audience, not just broadcasting your school’s brand to everyone. When it comes to targeted advertising, LinkedIn has consistently proven to be an effective platform for schools.
As a professional networking site, LinkedIn offers unique opportunities to connect with a diverse audience, including prospective students, parents, educators, other schools, and industry professionals. But to truly harness the power of LinkedIn, it’s essential to understand its tools and features, particularly the game-changing Predictive Audiences.
Over our 15 years of experience, we’ve seen firsthand how LinkedIn can transform how schools engage with potential students. This dynamic platform allows educational opportunities, professional aspirations, and industry connections to converge. This is especially true for educational institutions looking to market themselves effectively.
When you leverage LinkedIn correctly, you have the opportunity to initiate meaningful conversations and foster relationships that can lead to long-term student engagement and enrollment. Let’s explore the LinkedIn predictive audiences feature in more detail and examine how your school can use this tool to create more targeted ad campaigns that resonate with the right individuals.
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Understanding Education Marketing on LinkedIn
Before diving into the specifics of LinkedIn Predictive Audiences, it’s important to understand why LinkedIn is such a valuable tool for education marketing. Who is LinkedIn’s target audience? Unlike other social media platforms that primarily cater to personal connections and casual content, LinkedIn is built around professional and educational advancement. This distinction makes it an ideal platform for educational institutions to reach out to potential students who are serious about their future careers and educational pathways.
When marketing on LinkedIn, the goal is to create a narrative that resonates with your specified target audience rather than attract attention from all directions. For schools and universities, this means highlighting your institution’s strengths, unique programs, and the success stories of your alumni.
It’s about showcasing how your institution can be a stepping stone to a successful career. LinkedIn allows you to tell this story through a variety of formats, including posts, articles, videos, and now, more sophisticated targeting options like targeted ads that utilize Predictive Audiences.
The beauty of LinkedIn is that it allows for highly targeted marketing. With over a billion members worldwide, LinkedIn offers a massive pool of potential candidates. However, the platform’s real value lies in its ability to zero in on the right audience. Traditional targeting options like location, job title, industry, and education level are great, but LinkedIn has taken targeting a step further with Predictive Audiences. Let’s take a closer look.
Source: LinkedIn
If you’re not already, now is the time to start marketing and advertising your school on LinkedIn. This platform is designed for institutions like yours to reach their target audiences on a large scale.
If you need support navigating LinkedIn advertising, reach out to us here.
What Are LinkedIn Predictive Audiences?
What is a LinkedIn predictive audience? LinkedIn Predictive Audiences is a relatively new feature that takes audience targeting to the next level. It leverages LinkedIn’s vast dataset and advanced machine learning algorithms to predict which members are most likely to take a desired action, such as clicking on an ad, filling out a lead form, or enrolling in a program. This predictive capability is particularly powerful for educational institutions looking to maximize their marketing efforts.
So, what does this mean for you as a school or university? Essentially, LinkedIn Predictive Audiences helps you reach individuals who are not just casually browsing but are more likely to engage with your content and take the next step. This could be a prospective student who has shown an interest in similar programs, someone who has visited your website in the past, or even individuals who share characteristics with your most successful alumni.
The predictive nature of this tool means you’re not starting from scratch every time you launch a campaign. Instead, you’re building on LinkedIn’s deep insights into member behavior and preferences. By using Predictive Audiences, you’re tapping into LinkedIn’s ability to analyze vast amounts of data and deliver your message to the people most likely to respond positively. This not only increases the efficiency of your marketing campaigns but also improves the overall return on investment.
Source: LinkedIn
Simply put, LinkedIn Predictive Audiences takes your data and curates a highly customized audience using complex machine learning algorithms. This tool can speed up the process of finding your school’s LinkedIn community, laying the foundation for ad campaigns that convert.
How to Utilize LinkedIn Predictive Audiences for Your Institution
This is the simple, step-by-step guide you’re looking for! By following this process you can be on your way to a highly targeted LinkedIn ad campaign that helps you find the right individuals who will take desired action, and ultimately enroll.
Step 1: Get Your LinkedIn Campaign Manager Account Ready
First, if you haven’t already, make sure your LinkedIn Campaign Manager account is set up and linked to your school’s LinkedIn Page. Here’s how you do it:
- Sign In and Set Up:
- Head over to LinkedIn Campaign Manager and log in with your LinkedIn credentials.
- Double-check that your ad account is linked to your school’s LinkedIn Page. This connection is crucial as it unlocks the features you’ll need, like Lead Gen Forms and conversion tracking.
- Create a New Campaign:
- To get started, Click on the Create Campaign button as pictured below
- Choose a campaign objective that matches what you’re aiming for, whether it’s Lead Generation to capture interest or Website Traffic to drive people to your school’s website.
Source: LinkedIn
Step 2: Upload Your Company and Contact Lists
To start building a Predictive Audience, you need to upload lists that LinkedIn will use to predict who’s most likely to engage with your ads.
- Get Your Lists Ready:
- Company Lists: List the companies or organizations you’d love to connect with. This could be potential employers for your students, partner institutions, or companies where your alumni work.
- Contact Lists: Make a list of specific people you want to reach, like prospective students, alumni, or educational partners.
- Use LinkedIn’s CSV templates for company and contact lists. LinkedIn CSV templates are predefined spreadsheet formats that help you organize and import data into LinkedIn for various purposes, such as managing ad campaigns, creating audience lists, or uploading connections. These templates ensure your data is in the right format for an easy upload.
- Upload the Lists:
- In Campaign Manager, click on Plan in the left menu and go to Audiences.
- Hit Create audience, select Matched Audience, then choose Company or Contact and click Next as pictured below.
- Upload your CSV file by following the prompts. Once uploaded, LinkedIn will match it against its database to create a Predictive Audience tailored to your needs.
Source: LinkedIn
Step 3: Make the Most of Predictive Audience Features
LinkedIn’s Predictive Audience feature is like having a crystal ball for marketing. It uses AI to figure out who is most likely to engage with your ads based on past behaviors.
- Turn On Predictive Audiences:
- While setting up your campaign, look for the option to enable Predictive Audiences.
- LinkedIn will do its magic, analyzing your uploaded lists and creating segments that are more likely to convert.
- Fine-Tune Your Audience:
- Don’t stop there—refine your audience by adding more targeting criteria like location, industry, job title, or company size. This helps make sure your ads are seen by the most relevant people. For example, if you’re a business school, you might target professionals in finance or consulting industries, with mid-level management titles and 3-7 years of experience. On the other hand, an arts and design school might focus on creative hubs like Los Angeles or Paris, targeting junior designers or marketing professionals with skills like Adobe Creative Suite or UI/UX design. Use LinkedIn’s audience insights to learn more about who your Predictive Audience is and how they behave.
- Use LinkedIn’s audience insights to learn more about who your Predictive Audience is and how they behave.
Step 4: Craft Engaging Campaign Content
Now that your Predictive Audience is set up, it’s time to create ads that speak to them.
- Design Your Ads:
- Pick ad formats that match your campaign goals. For schools, visuals are key—think about using sponsored content, carousel ads, or videos to showcase campus life, student success stories, or unique programs. Want to establish a personal connection with your audience? In that case, In Message Ads are worth trying. Experiment with ad formats to see what works for your school’s brand.
- Make sure to include a strong call to action (CTA). Whether it’s “Apply Now,” “Learn More,” or “Download Brochure,” you want to make it easy for people to take the next step.
Source: LinkedIn
Example: Use different ad formats to target specific segments of your audience. The left image effectively targets an ambitious prospective student who likely regularly checks their LinkedIn messages. The right ad example targets corporations looking to strengthen their teams.
- Set Up Lead Gen Forms (Optional):
- If you’re looking to collect leads directly from your ads, Lead Gen Forms are a great option. They let users submit their information without leaving LinkedIn.
- To create a form, go to Assets in Campaign Manager, click on Lead Gen Forms, and fill in the fields with the info you want to collect.
Source: LinkedIn
Example: LinkedIn message ads or InMail ads like the one pictured above are excellent examples of engaging ad content on LinkedIn. They are cost-efficient, personalized, and attention-grabbing. When highly engaging ad content like this is combined with your predictive audience, there’s a high likelihood of boosting conversions.
Step 5: Track Your Success with Conversion Tracking
Understanding what’s working and what’s not is key to any successful campaign. Conversion tracking is a powerful tool for ad campaigns because it allows you to measure the effectiveness of your ads by tracking specific actions taken by users.
By understanding which ads lead to the desired actions, your school can optimize your campaigns, allocate budgets more efficiently, and enhance targeting strategies to reach the most relevant audiences. Additionally, conversion tracking provides valuable insights into user behavior and preferences, enabling marketers to refine their messaging and improve overall campaign performance, ultimately leading to a higher return on investment.
Install the Insight Tag:
- The Insight Tag (pictured below) is a piece of code you add to your website to track conversions like form submissions or page visits.
- In Campaign Manager, find the Insight Tag under the Assets section. Follow the steps to generate your unique code and add it to your website.
- Define What Counts as a Conversion:
- Decide what actions you want to track. This could be anything from a student filling out a form to someone downloading a brochure.
- Enable enhanced Conversion Tracking for more accurate data, especially if your audience interacts with your school across multiple channels.
Step 6: Monitor and Optimize Your Campaign
Once your campaign is live, monitor it’s performing and make adjustments as needed.
- Check Your Results:
- Use LinkedIn’s reporting tools to see how your campaign is doing. Look at metrics like impressions, click-through rates, and conversions to understand what’s working.
- Use these insights to make tweaks to your ads, targeting, or budget. If one ad is outperforming the others, consider shifting more resources to it.
- Refine Your Strategy:
- Continue refining your Predictive Audience by updating your lists and tweaking your targeting criteria based on performance data.
- Don’t be afraid to experiment! Try different ad creatives and formats to see what resonates best with your audience.
By following these steps, you’ll be well on your way to using LinkedIn’s Predictive Audiences to connect with the right people and achieve your school’s marketing goals. Good luck, and happy marketing!
At Higher Education Marketing, we’ve seen how this tool can transform the way schools connect with potential students, and we’re excited to see how you can use it to achieve your own marketing goals.
Be sure to take the time to explore LinkedIn Predictive Audiences, set clear objectives, create compelling content, and continuously optimize your campaigns. With the right strategy, you can tap into LinkedIn’s vast network and reach the students who are most likely to thrive at your institution.
Want to create successful ad campaigns?
Request a Free paid advertising consultation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Question: Who is LinkedIn’s target audience?
Answer: Unlike other social media platforms that primarily cater to personal connections and casual content, LinkedIn is built around professional and educational advancement.
Question: What is a LinkedIn predictive audience?
Answer: LinkedIn Predictive Audiences is a relatively new feature that takes audience targeting to the next level.
