90 examples of linkedin ads for inspiration

MASTERING LINKEDIN ADS:LEARNING TO RECOGNIZE AND WRITE GREAT ADS

The Will Marlow Agency

LinkedIn PPC

LinkedIn Ad Examples

If you have read my ebook on Facebook Ads, then this introduction will look familiar to you, because the principles of great advertising apply in the same way to Facebook Ads as they do to LinkedIn Ads. They also apply to Google Ads, just as much as radio advertising, for that matter.

My hero David Ogilvy, known as the father of modern advertising, wrote extensively on what makes great ads, and his guidance is still valid today, even if it is largely ignored, and we draw on his expertise heavily.

My other hero, the fictional Don Draper, said that you should bathe yourself in ads if you want to be a great ad writer.

This eBook is meant to help marketers become better ad writers by 1. highlighting LinkedIn Ads that work well,2. highlighting LinkedIn Ads that are terrible, and3. helping you consider lots of ads at once.

LinkedIn PPC

This approach to teaching ad writing is premised on the belief that repetition breeds excellence. That is, if you are studying painting, you are better off spending six months paintings 100 portraits rather than six months trying to make one portrait perfect. We want you to look through these ads that follow to be able to make quick judgments on whether the ad is powerful.

And you should do so in the context of the following 9 questions, because as the great Tony Robbins says, the quality of your results is determined by the quality of your questions. You should think about the following questions as you are writing your own ads, and you should start by thinking about these questions in the context of the ads that follow.

Finally, I want to point out that advertising in the digital arena is an eco-system. You are always competing for the attention of your audience, and you are not always competing against your direct competitors. It is critically important to understand that the following ads were drawn from only two people. This means that approximately 100 ads were in the LinkedIn Newsfeeds of two people. That is a lot of ads.

LinkedIn PPC

I have tried to group the ads in a sensible way: i.e., ads for the New York Times are next to ads for the Wall Street Journal, and desktop ads are separated from mobile ads. But even though the Wall Street Journal is directly competing with the New York Times, it is also competing with Whirlpool, Dyson, the Commonwealth of Virginia, and IBM, all of whom are buying ads to reach the same people.

It helps to remember that your ads need to stand out not only against your competitors, but against all other ads that are reaching the same individual.

What follows are the questions you should consider when looking at the ads. I hope you find this exercise useful in becoming a more effective marketer.

1. Does the headline grab your attention? David Ogilvy said that when someone sees your ad, the headline will be read 80% more frequently than the lower body copy, and we believe that this is still true. If you make your headline more effective, you are going to have far better results than if you spend time dithering with the less-read subtext. should.

LinkedIn PPC

2. Does the headline evoke a compelling emotion? Selling is not an entirely rational thing. If you are simply trying to state the facts, you are unlikely to stand out.

3. Does the image grab your attention? Since the beginning of advertising, there has been a war between the art department and the copy department over which is more important. My own position is that you need to excel somewhere. You can’t make a great ad if you have mediocre copy and mediocre art. But you can make a great ad if you are excel only in one of the two areas. So ask yourself, is the image grabbing your attention?

4. Does the image evoke a compelling emotion? Once your attention is grabbed, you need to be compelled to do something. We believe that the image should evoke an emotion of some type, just like the copy.

5. Does the ad hold your interest?

LinkedIn PPC

6. Does the ad appeal to your ego?

7. Does the ad appeal to your sense of greed?

8. Does the ad appeal to your sense of fear?

9. Does compel you to take an action, and is the action clear?

The same ad does not need to hit all of these points. You can have a great ad that appeals to greed and not fear, for instance. But you can’t have a great ad that misses all of these points. And now that you know them, I encourage you to bathe yourself in the ads that follow and see how they measure up.

Don’t forget that even the bad ads were likely approved by more than one professionally trained marketer, which should give you hope that there is plenty of room for you to be a leader in this industry.

-Will Marlow

LinkedIn PPC

LinkedIn Ad ExamplesLinkedIn Desktop Ad

LinkedIn PPC

LinkedIn Ad ExamplesLinkedIn Mobile Ad

LinkedIn PPC

90 examples of linkedin ads for inspiration

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