LinkedIn is offering an increasing number of advertising solutions to connect marketers with its global community of more than 135 million members in over 200 countries and territories.
 
Dx3 Canada, a trade show for digital marketers, digital advertisers, and digital retailers held this month at the Metro Toronto Convention Center, is currently using one of these ad products—LinkedIn Display Ads—as part of the visitor acquisition campaign.
 
My agency worked directly with Dx3 to develop, buy and execute the LinkedIn campaign, which appears primarily on users' home and profile pages, and with their permission, I am pleased to share with you five aspects of this b-to-b attendee advertising campaign:
 
(1) Dx3 leveraged LinkedIn's granular targeting capabilities (industry, job title, company, and seniority) in order to define target sets for the campaign that were most important to the show, enabling Dx3 to focus dollars on its core targets, and minimize wasting dollars on audiences not key to the show. A geo-targeting overlay was used to control the footprint of the media spend, and shape it so dollars are allocated to areas based on their potential to drive attendance.
 
(2) The Dx3 campaign leverages target-specific messaging, applying different value propositions against different targets to make the messaging as compelling as possible.
 
(3) A/B split testing is being employed to optimize creative so at the end of specific time intervals, metrics can be analyzed, and creative can be changed as necessary.
 
(4) The Dx3 campaign employs standard IAB ad units which sync with creative running on other web sites in order to drive frequency and reinforcement of the message.
 
(5) Dx3 purchased the ads based on a CPM pricing model, and integrated text links into the overall ad buy to reduce eCPM.

Cristopher Levy is managing partner of Encore Media Partners. Encore is an audience strategy, marketing and media buying agency covering traditional, digital and mobile platforms, which specializes in local, national and global trade and consumer shows, exhibitions and conferences. Reach him at clevy@encoremediapartners.com.