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LinkedIn’s Newest Ad Format Has Arrived: Thought Leader Ads

LinekdIn's Newest Ad Format Has Arrived: Thought Leader Ads
LinekdIn's Newest Ad Format Has Arrived: Thought Leader Ads

LinkedIn’s Newest Ad Format Has Arrived: Thought Leader Ads

LinkedIn officially rolled out Thought Leader Ads a couple of weeks ago and if they haven’t popped up in Campaign Manager yet, you should see them very soon. (The functionality appeared for Sharp Ahead over the weekend).

We’ll start with how they work but if you just want to know whether you should try them or not, skip ahead now!

Let’s start with the how first.

Obviously the first step is to decide which employee post merits sponsorship. Choose someone in your organisation, likely to be a senior member of your team, who has recently created a compelling piece of content. Or choose a recently published piece of content and ask them to post it to their newsfeed.

Next, get yourself over to Campaign Manager to set up the campaign.

Pro tip: Although you can either start a new campaign or choose to include a Thought Leader ad in an existing one, we recommend creating a new campaign for your first trial. That way you can keep a close eye on success metrics and budget more easily.

LinkedIn thought leader ads

Thought Leader Ads don’t (yet) work for all objectives or ad types. 

The current functionality allows brand awareness or engagement and only works with single image sponsored content.

Next, choose Browse Existing Content (a helpful note from LI might pop up if this is the first time you’ve been in to campaign manager since the new functionality has been enabled).

LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads

Choose employee as your library source and if it’s greyed out, get yourself back to campaign setup as it’s likely that you’ve forgotten to disable the LinkedIn Audience Network (which is helpfully enabled by default).

Here you can search by employee and then choose from a list of their posts, which will appear in reverse chronological order.

linkedin thought leader ads

Pro tip: The team member in question must:

·       Have a public profile

·       Have your company as an active and current job in their LinkedIn profile

·       Your company name must match the company page associated with the Campaign Manager account

Next, simply select the content you would like to Request sponsorship for, read through the legalese pop up and send your request. Reminder that the request and subsequent approval emails can take up to an hour to appear in inboxes so don’t wait until the last minute to get your thought leader lined up to approve!

Sponsor Request LinkedIn Ad

Note that once a post has been approved for use, it can be used for multiple campaigns without having to request additional approval.

Viewing Sponsor Requests
Sending a Sponsor Request in LinkedIn

Pro tip: You can setup remarketing audiences for Thought Leader ads in the same way you would for other campaign types!

So are they worth it?

Certainly, we’ve seen success stories from people in our networks, but for us the jury is still out.

We experimented with brand awareness and engagement objectives and both campaigns currently have higher than average CTRs at 3.83% which is 50% higher than our next best performing campaign, But they are on the high side at over twice our average (£7.13 vs £3.00) and the CPMs are 10X our average.

So are they worth it?

Certainly, we’ve seen success stories from people in our networks, but for us the jury is still out.

We experimented with brand awareness and engagement objectives and both campaigns currently have higher than average CTRs at 3.83% which is 50% higher than our next best performing campaign, But the are on the high side at over twice our average (£7.13 vs £3.00) and the CPMs are 10X our average.

Our recommendation? 

Try a Thought Leader Ad under these circumstances:

·       You have someone in your organisation who already has a large and engaged follower count

·       They have an in-depth, timely piece of content to share

·       Your objectives really are focused on brand awareness or engagement (and not leads)

·       They are a supporting activity to a broader mix of activities

·       You are willing to experiment with a slightly larger audience than usual

If you want to hear more from us at Sharp Ahead, sign up for our email newsletter and keep an eye on our blog to stay in the loop!

If you have your own experience to share with Thought Leader Ads or want help setting one up, please get in touch! 

Bard Bungles B2B – Bing Better

Bard Bungles B2B - Bing Better
Bard Bungles B2B - Bing Better

Bard Bungles B2B – Bing Better

Last month I looked at how Microsoft’s chatGPT-powered search engine performed for B2B research. I was pleasantly surprised at how useful it was. Read the full blog article here.

This month I’ve applied the same structured research and evaluation process to Google’s equivalent, Bard. 

I can’t sugar coat this. Bard is currently pretty terrible at B2B research – at least, for the types of question I tested.  

Google is up front that Bard is still a prototype, and we can expect it to change and evolve at a rapid pace. But as it stands today, I don’t see much use for Bard in B2B research. Bing Chat is far superior. 

Here are a few examples to show what I mean.  

Google Bard chat - How should I split my budget between Google Search and LinkedIn Ads?
Google Bard response - What's the best coworking space in Oxford?

Top of funnel queries – general information seeking 

Bard did OK with the basics here. I noticed two big differences in comparison with Bing Chat: 

  • Bard doesn’t quote its sources unless you specifically ask for them, whereas Bing Chat often volunteered web links that were its reference material. I found this feature of Bing Chat very useful to build confidence in the answers. With Bard, I found myself having to ask follow-on questions like “what are your sources for that answer?” in order to sense check the results. 
  • Bard doesn’t suggest follow-on questions. You can type in your own, but there’s no guidance. I missed the suggested follow-on questions that Bing Chat provides. 

Bard also had a habit of offering information that didn’t directly answer my question. For example when I asked “How can PV generation be integrated with industrial unit roofing?” Bard gave a good basic answer, but then rambled off to talk about the benefits of solar power. To me, it’s implicit in my question that I already know quite a bit about solar power, and that I’m going to be looking for something specific. So this extra off-topic content doesn’t add value. Bing Chat was typically much more focussed. Here are the Bard and Bing results side by side for comparison: 

How can PV generation be integrated with industrial unit roofing? - Google Bard response continued
How can PV generation be integrated with industrial unit roofing? - Google Bard

Middle of funnel queries – shortlisting suppliers 

Again Bard’s answers weren’t very focussed and didn’t respect the specific context implicit in my question. For example when I asked Bard “What’s the most comprehensive source of construction industry leads in the UK?” it gave me a slightly useful answer, but then suggested I might want to try going to conferences or networking to get leads!  

Comprehensive construction leads sources - Google Bard chat

The Bing response is more concise and actually more valuable: 

What's some other sources of construction industry leads? Google Bard response

Things got a bit weird in places here. When I prompted Bard for more details it gave me a list of suppliers, but the links in the list went to the wrong places. For example a link for the service “Construction Lead Finder” pointed to an article about rogue builders on the Guardian newspaper! This just looked like a bug – fair enough for an experimental service, but it undermined my confidence in Bard as a tool. 

Google Bard chat around construction leads

Bottom of funnel queries – evaluating specific suppliers 

Bard really lost the plot here on several queries. For example when I asked “Is the Curious Lounge a high quality coworking space?” it hallucinated several plausible-looking but completely imaginary reviews. 

Google Bard chat around The Curious Lounge
Bing Chat around the Curious Lounge coworking space quality

Latest score: Bing Chat 1 – Bard 0 

It’s an uneven contest at present. 

Bard rambles, forgets or ignores important context, and – worst of all – Just Makes Sh*t Up when it doesn’t know the answer. Bing Chat, in comparison, stayed focussed and was honest about its limitations. 

I really can’t recommend Bard in its current form as a B2B research tool, and I don’t think we’ll see any great takeup of it in the B2B world unless or until Google improves it. For now: stick with Bing Chat for your B2B research. 

But there is so much at stake here for the search engine giants that I’m sure we WILL see great improvements in Bard and other tools. We’ll keep testing and reporting on progress! 

Given the significance of this technology change you can be sure we’re going to keep a close eye on developments with generative AI-powered search in the future. So sign up for our email newsletter and keep an eye on our blog to stay in the loop!

If you have questions about how Google’s new AI Chatbot might affect your business, or simply want to continue the conversation, please get in touch! 

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