The Rise of Video: LinkedIn B2B Video Now Available for Native Ad Campaigns

• Marketers and Brands Can Leverage Video for Sponsored Content and Company Pages to Reach & Engage the Right Audiences, the Right Way
• Now, LinkedIn Can Also Add Native Video Directly

In a major announcement for marketers and brands, LinkedIn is now adding more muscle to its B2B marketing platform. LinkedIn B2B users can now leverage video content on the platform to run native video advertisements, and also include video within their brand assets, including their Company Pages. With its recent move, that always seemed inevitable to B2B marketers, LinkedIn users can now capture audience’s attention in a more engaging manner.

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As a part of LinkedIn B2B Video for Sponsored Content, LinkedIn has also signed an agreement with Oracle’s Moat to offer third-party video measurement and viewability, and intend to make these services available to customers later this year.

The LinkedIn B2B video for Sponsored Content announcement would help marketers and brands to highlight not only their products and services, but also their company mission, customer success stories, and thought leadership content.

Last year, LinkedIn had introduced native video in the LinkedIn Feed and the response to that was overwhelmingly positive. However, marketers were awaiting the release native video ads. LinkedIn announced the launch of their beta program in October, to test video for Sponsored Content with a limited number of advertisers. In this closed beta, advertisers could use richer visual narratives to their target audiences in the LinkedIn Feed with video.

Thursday’s announcement delivers the business objectives of promoting video content to marketers and brands using LinkedIn. It is a known fact that video, short and long-length formats, have proved to be a popular tactic to engage decision-makers, the challenge has been finding a quality environment in which to reach them.

According to an internal LinkedIn study, over 46% of B2B advertisers surveyed said this was a top challenge when running video campaigns on other platforms.

LinkedIn B2B Video for Sponsored Content Enlivens Your Campaigns 

In a blog post by Phil Spitzer, Product Manager, LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, said, “Native video ads represent the next evolution of LinkedIn Sponsored Content that lets you engage with business decision-makers throughout the buyer’s journey on LinkedIn. Unlike pre- or post-roll video ads, the video for Sponsored Content ads lives directly on the news feed as standalone posts.”

An ‘Across the Funnel Engagement’ with LinkedIn B2B Video

Most marketers would agree that traditional video content is an ideal component for the top of the funnel marketing. They help to build the sales momentum and create awareness, and not necessarily close the deal. However, LinkedIn’s Video for Sponsored Content is branded as an engagement for marketers and brands that could work across the funnel.

Company Page video is 5 times more likely than other types of content to start a conversation among members, based on results in our beta program.

According to a recent research from Forbes, “executives tend to watch work-related video on business-related websites (75%) far more often than they watch such content on YouTube (51%).” This demonstrates that B2B video content creates a better opportunity for an informed decision-making when hosted on LinkedIn’s professional network.

Drive More Traffic Across All Marketing Channels

LinkedIn B2B Video for Sponsored Content helps the user achieve marketing objectives across the funnel by —

• Building brand awareness by telling rich, visual stories in the premium context of LinkedIn
• Driving traffic to your desktop or mobile website
• Collecting high-quality leads with a persistent “call to action” button or through LinkedIn’s integrated Lead Gen Forms product.

Phil added that accurate targeting is the key to make any ad visible to the right audiences, your audiences. He said, “Without accurate targeting, your ads won’t be seen by the right audiences. With LinkedIn’s suite of B2B targeting capabilities available for video for Sponsored Content, you can find your audience by traits like job title, seniority, company name, industry, skills, and more. What’s more, the integration with our Matched Audiences solution ensures you can target your Sales team’s highest-priority accounts with account-based marketing (ABM) campaigns.”

“These videos would help marketers deepen engagement with their brands: on average, LinkedIn members spend almost 3x more time watching video ads compared to time spent with static Sponsored Content.” – Phil Spitzer

Customers Speak on LinkedIn B2B Video Solution for Marketers

At the time of this announcement, Kaydee Bridges, Vice President, Digital & Social Media Strategy at Goldman Sachs, a LinkedIn customer and partner during the beta program, said, “Video content is crucial for our brand, and these changes allow LinkedIn’s professional community to more easily derive value from the content we are producing. While our videos can be long – up to 3 minutes – we are seeing deep engagement at a great value.”

Marketers understand that everything hinges on delivering greater ROI. With video for Sponsored Content, you can measure your campaign’s success through insights and detailed breakdowns about the types of professionals watching, engaging with, and even converting on your video ads. LinkedIn’s proprietary Conversion Tracking tool is also integrated, enabling you to measure the number of leads, sign-ups, website visits, and other valuable actions that your video content generates.

Another customer, Renske Siersema, Social Media Manager at KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, also shared her insights on the importance of video ads for B2B campaigns. Renske said, “Video stands out because it doesn’t tell, but it shows. On a platform where there’s more business content, a video stands out more, especially on LinkedIn.”

Read More: Interview with Jon Lombardo, Global Brand Strategy Lead, LinkedIn