Not only is LinkedIn an open door to prospective companies, it’s a proven lead machine for B2B companies.

At a glance, LinkedIn lead gen forms:

• Do not cost extra to implement
• Are available for both desktop and mobile
• Are completely optional
• Are easy to set up, and…
• Are easy for users to submit

As with any form of advertising, conversions are the only true way to justify spend. One feature that helps boost conversion rates and leads is LinkedIn’s Lead Gen forms. These forms are as easy to set up as they are for leads to fill out and can help increase your lead pipeline.

What’s not to love?

What are LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms?

A LinkedIn Lead Gen Form is an add-on call-to-action for your LinkedIn Sponsored Content or Sponsored InMail campaigns. It acts as an in-app form that automatically populates LinkedIn profile information without having to type anything by hand.

When a user selects an ad’s CTA and a Lead Gen Form is connected, a pre-filled form appears using data from their LinkedIn profile. Users hit “Submit” and are greeted with a thank you page or are redirected.

Simple. Effective. Awesome. But you don’t have to take our word for it….

The Benefits of LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms

Let’s face it, people are busy. If things aren’t simple and instant, there is a good chance the form fill out will be abandoned. As marketers, we know that if we want a prospect to take action, we need to ensure that the effort on their part is as minimal as possible. LinkedIn understood that and did us a solid by offering Lead Gen Forms.

Traditionally, when a user clicks a LinkedIn ad they are directed to a third-party website or landing page. Once there, the user would manually fill out a form to complete an action like signing up for mailing lists, downloading eBooks, or contacting your company. Here’s the issue with the traditional method; it’s not efficient.

Lead generation thrives on two things: automation and simplicity. The less actions it takes to engage your prospects, the better. And that’s exactly what the Lead Gen Forms accomplish. It’s as easy as click and submit.

Why is this so sexy?

• It makes it easier than ever for leads to take action
• User experience becomes easier and simpler
• More pertinent info is provided than traditional forms
• User info is automatically stored for CRM integration
• Improved lead and ROI tracking

As an added bonus, Lead Gen Forms are specifically designed for mobile use. This is a necessity given 80% of users interact with LinkedIn Sponsored Content using smartphones. Not optimizing for the mobile experience is one of the top two reasons businesses fail to create high-converting forms in the first place. The other is forms typically require too much work on the user’s part to fill out. LinkedIn’s Lead Gen Forms overcome both issues and streamline your lead generation.

Why You Should Use Lead Gen Forms

Generate High Quality Leads

LinkedIn is for professionals. While some people might use fake names, emails and profile pics elsewhere, most business professionals keep it real when signing up for an account on LinkedIn. That’s why the information gained from a LinkedIn Lead Gen Form is typically more trustworthy and relevant than traditional forms. Since these details are automatically pulled into the forms, incorrect data entry, partial data or spam is reduced.

Improve Conversion Metrics

Lead Gen Forms remove many of the barriers that keep users from converting. For example, having to click an ad, visit a page, fill out a form, open their email and click a download link is a lot to ask of a user. There are a lot of opportunities for a prospect to abandon the cause. But the automation and ease of use of Lead Gen Forms streamlines the conversion process. The potential upside is an increase in leads at a reduced cost-per-lead (CPL).

Gain Customized Data

When building a Lead Gen Form, there are over 20 fields to choose from. Each of those are tied to a piece of data from a user’s profile and will automatically generate. While we don’t recommend using them all, it certainly provides flexibility on the type of information you can collect with these forms. There is also the ability to create custom questions as well, though users will have to manually fill those out.

In addition, Lead Gen Forms are compatible with marketing automation tools like Zapier and Driftrock. This way you can automatically pull your lead data into your existing CRM in real time. For more info check out a full listing of CRM integrations.

You can also access performance reports for your lead gen campaigns right in your LinkedIn Campaign Manager dashboard. This will include KPIs like total number of leads generated, form completion rates, and CPLs.

Ok, so now that we’ve covered the what and the why of LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms. Let’s get practical and look at the how.

How to Create LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms

There are few ways to create a Lead Gen Form. You can do so while setting up an ad or you can create a form and attach it to your ads later on. Here’s a step-by-step on how to do both.

Creating a Lead Gen Form

1.Login to LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager

2.Select the Account Assets dropdown and choose Lead Gen Forms

3. Select Create Form

4. The first section is called “Form Details”. This is where the magic happens!

• Form Name: Type a unique name for your form. This name will not be visible to anyone else, but used internally when connected your form with ads (as shown below)
• Offer Headline: Enter your offer headline. This CTA could be anything you want to entice the user to fill out your form. For example, “Download My Awesome eBook” or “Signup for Our Awesome Newsletter” or “Learn How to Grow Your Awesome Business”.
• Offer Details: Write additional text that will appear beneath the Offer Headline describing the offer and further selling its value
• Privacy Policy URL: Provide a link to your website’s privacy policy page
• Custom Privacy Policy: This is an optional field where you can outline in greater depth how a user’s information will be used

5. The second section is called “Lead Details & Custom Questions”. This is where you select your input fields.

• Profile Information: As of writing this, there were 5 categories (Contact, Work, Company, Education & Demographic) to choose from. Each category has its own set of entries that you can select to appear on your form which will pull from the users LinkedIn profile.
• Custom Checkboxes: Optional fields that you can insert into your form requiring a user select them in order to submit. Examples include an opt-in checkbox or privacy policy checkbox.

6. The third section is called “Confirmation”. This is where you create your thank you screen, select your CTA button text and URL. If using ‘Download Now’ or ‘View Now’ as your CTA, be sure to insert a direct URL to your content

7. The final section is called “Hidden Fields”. This is an optional field hidden from users that you might want to consider if you’re connecting Lead Gen Forms to a CRM. To learn more about it visit LinkedIn’s page on Hidden Fields.

8. Select ‘Create’

9. Congratulations! You’ve created a Lead Gen Form. Now you’re ready to attach it to an ad.

Adding an Existing Lead Gen Forms to Your LinkedIn Ads

1. Login to LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager

2. Select Create Campaign (if you already created a campaign skip to step #7)

3. Choose “Lead Generation” as your objective

4. Designate your audience, placement, ad format, budget, schedule and conversion tracking.

5. Either Create an Ad or Browse Existing Content

6. If you choose to Browse Existing Content or already have created an ad select the blue ‘Associate Lead Gen Form’ link directly beneath the ad and skip to step #8

7. If you Create an Ad from scratch, you will first have to set up your ad copy and media

8. Create a new form or select one you already created, as outlined above

9. You’re all set! Select ‘Launch Campaign’ and watch the leads roll in.

5 Tips to Create a Winning Lead Gen Form

It’s one thing to know how to create a Lead Gen Form, and something entirely different to create one that is successful. At the end of the day, although LinkedIn has made it easier than ever to collect quality leads, there is no substitute for valuable content. So, here are some tips to create forms like a pro.

Your Form is Only as Good as Your Ad (and Offer)

Use catchy visuals and copy to entice your prospects and offer them content they can’t resist. This might seem like a no-brainer, but always put the most effort into providing content relevant to your target audience. In other words, give the people want they want. We don’t care how easy your form is to fill out, no one is going to do so if the offer doesn’t blow them away.

Don’t Use Too Many Fields

It might be tempting to add all 20+ fields to your form since they’re getting auto populated, but hold true to the motto less is more. LinkedIn recommends inserting 3-4 fields in your form. While you can certainly add more, we suggest not overdoing it as it might scare away potential leads if it appears that you’re data mining rather than providing something of value.

Avoid Fields Requiring Manual Input

Automation is what makes Lead Gen Forms so sweet. Let’s not mess with a good thing. One of the main reasons businesses have trouble collecting leads is because they ask too much of prospects. The more work a user must do, the less likely they are to convert. So, stop making them use their thumbs and let the machines do all the work.

Double Down on the Thank You Screen

Ever hear of a “double conversion?” It’s the golden egg of conversions, and Lead Gen Forms tee you up perfectly to take advantage of them. By submitting the form, a user already converts as a lead, but if you play your cards right and strategically design the ‘Thank You’ screen that follows you can convert them again. This could include getting them to download a whitepaper, signup for an event, follow your LinkedIn page or any other number of actions you’d like them to take.

Go Forth and Test

Are you still here? We’d have thought by now you would be off testing Lead Gen Forms. We have seen some great results from our clients who have opted to integrate them into their sales pipeline and wanted to share this information with you as well!

There a lot of options out there when it comes to prospecting. But any that add on to services we are already love at no extra cost and a minimal amount of extra work are as good as it gets. If LinkedIn has opened the door to prospective companies, their Lead Gen Forms are the best way to walk them through.

It used to be just one massive push for Christmas. However, the game has totally changed. You can blame it on Hallmark, consumerism, or American’s love of a good time, but whatever the cause, we now actively celebrate a crazy number of holidays.

While we dipped our toe into holiday readiness by prepping holiday email campaigns, it’s now time to put on our game faces. The marketers’ Super Bowl (aka holiday season) is upon us, and as the old adage goes, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

So how can you proactively prepare your digital marketing strategy and get the most returns during the holiday season? Let’s break it down.

Pre-Load Your Social Media

During the holidays, you should have an incredible amount of content cannon fodder ready to go. You know which holidays are coming up, so you already have an idea of when and what to post, making content calendars a breeze.

Plus, the holidays are a great time to really connect with your target demographic on social media. With a nearly unlimited well of topical holiday cheer to post about, you have the rare opportunity to break out of your normal content, humanize your company and post some non-promotional, brand-conscious content.

To take your holiday social media to the next level, here are a few things you can do.

1. 1. Preplan your content for Q4 and automate. Create your social media content and load it into your automation platform of choice. (Don’t have one? Ask us and we’ll give you a rundown) You’re going to be too busy overseeing the higher-level marketing campaigns to think about whether you’ve posted to your social media accounts.

    

   2. Think about the timing. You may have to stray from your typical posting times during the holidays. Think about when people are most likely to engage on the days that they might be out of the office.

    

   3. Plan your social media ads thoughtfully. The competition is stiff during this period, so your copy, timing, and demographic targeting need to all be laser-focused. Doing so will ensure that you don’t overextend your budget and miss out on the return potential. Take this time to deep dive into your social media ad campaigns and find what worked, what didn’t, and get granular with who and how you’re targeting before the holiday season starts. (We’ll dive deeper into paid media, below).

When it comes to social media for the holidays, the absolute best thing you can do is write and pre-schedule as much content as you can right now. Once that is locked and loaded, you can focus on some of the higher-level strategies.

Fine-Tune Your Paid Media

It’s easy to get into the habit of doing what works. In order to grab ahold of the highest returns this holiday season, you’re going to have to crack open those analytics, hunker down, and think smarter with your paid media.

Everyone pulls out all the stops during the holiday season. Bid rates get higher on PPC campaigns, influencers start upping their rates and ad space costs skyrocket. It’s important to have a stronghold on your target demo and goals before upping your budget to compete.

Branding aside, there are many things you can do to spruce up your paid media strategy before and during Q4.

1. Look at your past. Take a look back at what performed well last year.

• What creative worked well?
• Which campaigns should be revisited?
• Which audiences performed well?
• Which promotions drove the most revenue?

If it worked well last year, do it again!

2. Test new methods. Stick to the methods that are tried and true, but also dedicate a small amount (5-10%) of your overall paid media budget to test new channels, strategies, promotions and more.

3. Build and segment your audiences. All audiences are not equal. Fine tune your holiday marketing campaigns by segmenting your audiences into groups and customize your ads to meet buyers where they are in the buying cycle. For example, ads targeted to past purchasers vs. prospective buyers will look very different.

4. Target Gift Buyers. Expand your keyword bids to include terms that people searching for gifts might use to find your product. In addition, use social advertising to target users who are friends of someone who likes or follows your page.

5. Be proactive. Unlike the social media content strategy of “automate as much as possible”, with paid media, especially pay-per-click ads, you can’t set it and forget it. During the season, bids and impressions radically shift throughout the day, so you need to keep a close eye on it, and be ready to react in the moment. Be sure to set up some automated rules and limits, so that you don’t accidentally exceed your budget.

Remember, people are more poised to spend during this season, so capitalize on the energy and potential of the season by fine-tuning your paid media strategy to what prospective buyers may want to see.

Get Your Website Traffic Ready

You know how busy the mall gets during the holidays? And how frustrating the whole shopping experience is from parking alongside holiday-crazed drivers, to navigating the mall shops, to standing in forever long lines to check out?

Don’t let that be your users’ experience on your website. Prepare for an influx of potential holiday traffic and ensure your site will deliver an exceptional user experience.

1. Run a speed test, and make sure your site is loading quickly. Nothing kills a potential customer like a laggy website. Beyond that, high load times can also hurt your rankings.

2. Talk to your web host about capacity. Discuss your current server’s capacity and the estimated holiday traffic. Request an increase if necessary.

3. Consider using a CDN. Using a CDN (Content Delivery Network) can improve load times and deliver a more seamless customer experience. Some CDNs will also continue to load your site even if your server crashed behind the scene. We use Cloudflare for our agency and it’s continued to work great for us.

4. Enhance UX. Is your site easy to use and navigate? Are calls-to-action and forms readily available? Is the checkout process seamless, easy and bug-free? Make sure everything is intuitive and straight-forward before the holiday rush.

5. Optimize product descriptions and titles (if you have them). Refresh your keyword research and incorporate any keywords that could help put your products in front of potential shoppers. For example, ‘gifts for kids’. Stick to changes that you plan to have live for a month or two and use paid media for any promotions you want to highlight for shorter time frames.

Plan and Plan Some More

Ultimately, the best thing you can do to ensure a killer holiday season marketing strategy is to tighten up your holiday strategy, know your customers, and plan. Be sure to:

• Create everything you can beforehand
• Automate what you can
• Understand your paid media analytics and get specific about your number goals
• Be proactive and involved in your paid media campaigns
• Capitalize on the holiday copy opportunities
• Get your site ready to handle potentially larger volumes of traffic, especially if you have an ecommerce site

If you have any questions about getting holiday ready, we’d love to strategize with you. We wish you a very merry marketing season!

It’s Halloween time and there’s nothing scarier than being ghosted…

You found the perfect match with all the right assets. They seem to be the persona of your dreams. So, you shoot your shot and reach out. You got a response!

You enthusiastically suggest a phone call. Then, nothing. You leave a voicemail, or five… you don’t want to come across as too desperate. You even enrolled them in your best drip. But despite your efforts… radio silence.

You my friend, have been ghosted.

While this may sound like the woes of the dating the world, if you’re in marketing or sales, you know this scenario all too well.

How Can You Prevent Ghosting?

First, let’s talk about two different categories of leads:

SQL vs. MQL

The ideal lead is a SQL (Sales Qualified Lead) meaning they are qualified, and they are currently interested. These leads are typically ready and willing to hear what you have to say and may be interested in moving to the proposal stage.

The truth is, a lot of qualified leads are MQLs (Marketing Qualified Lead). They may be qualified, but they’re just not quite ready to entertain your offerings.

Why is this important?

Because the needs of these two types of leads are vastly different!

Meet Them Where They’re At

SQLs and MQLs can oftentimes be grouped into the same pool of ‘qualified’ leads when in reality, they are in completely different phases of the buying journey.

While SQLs may respond well to persistent sales outreach, that approach may make an MQL run for the hills. 

If a lead isn’t showing interest, perhaps they need more nurturing. Or maybe a lead is interested, but would like a follow up next quarter. Segment your leads based on actions, engagements, qualifications and/or responses to get a better understanding of where they are in the buying cycle.

Then, meet your leads where they’re at and refine the messaging they receive. Customizing your messaging can help greatly improve response rate.

The Reality Is…

No matter how valiant your efforts and how customized your messaging, ghosting happens. It just does.  Leads can go cold at any stage in the process and you may or may not ever know why.

So, Do We Just Forget About Them?

No! Taking time to find leads and qualifying them is painstaking and expensive. Even after being ghosted, there is still a ton of value in these leads!

Here we break down the three major types of ghosters and what techniques on how to re-engage cold leads/ghost leads:

1. Hook, Line and Ghosted

Things were getting steamy with this lead. You were about to close the deal, then seemingly out of nowhere they stop responding. What happened?

Leads who go cold late in the game have typically had a change of heart. Maybe they chose to go with another agency or bring their efforts in-house. Perhaps budget got pulled, or worse, there was something they didn’t like about your offerings. And unfortunately, when they ghost you, you’re left reeling to understand the reason why.

The good news is, this lead was interested. With a reminder, or even longer-term nurturing, it’s possible they could be interested again in the future.

Goal:

With leads who were further along in the process, the primary goal is to get them back on track. Or at least get them to open up about the reasons they’re not committing so you can respond to their concerns.

• Use re-engagement tactics 1,2 & 3 below

2. From Giddy to Ghosted

Maybe you and your lead were just getting to know each other. A few emails here and there, slight hope and innuendos. Then before anything even had a chance to develop, they go cold.

It can be tough to discern the MO of an early stage ghoster. Were they entertaining the possibility of getting in deeper with you – or just being polite?

Either way, you did get some response and that indicated interest.

Goal:

Leads who have engaged in some capacity have shown interest. The goal with these leads is to get a better idea of where they are in the purchase funnel so you can further customize your messaging.

• Use re-engagement tactics 1,2 & 3 below. If there is any indication of ‘not interested right now’ or ‘we are in a contract with another agency’, engage a nurture drip.

3. Ghosted from the Get-Go

Your reach out attempts go unanswered. Is there even a person behind that email address or are you writing to a brick wall? What went wrong? Is it them? Is it you? How do you get the opportunity to find out…?

Especially in cold outreach campaigns, unresponsive leads are not atypical. In fact, no-response is often the norm. As marketers and salespeople, we’re attuned to getting the cold shoulder. However, these leads are still valuable. They may just require more time and nurturing. And although these leads have a longer TTC (time to close), the vaster your lead pipeline, statistically, the more leads you will close eventually.

Goal:

Staying top of mind is the name of the game with unresponsive leads. There is a lot of value in a database of leads, even if they are unresponsive. Stay in front of them so if they do become interested, they remember your name.

• Use re-engagement tactic 4

Re-Engagement Tactics:

Re-Engagement Tactic #1: The ‘Assuming You Didn’t Receive the Email’ Email

We all get busy, inboxes get flooded, life and family matters pop up and things can get lost in the shuffle. And although you have a sneaking suspicion that might not have been the case, using this technique can offer a non-threatening and lighthearted way to elicit a response and give your lead the benefit of the doubt.

Re-Engagement Tactic #2: The ‘Specific Ask’

The specific ask is a voicemail or email (preferably both) where you ask a specific question with the goal of getting some sort of response.

Any response is the goal here. If you get some engagement, even if it is to close the file, then at least you have succeeded in possibly re-opening a line of communication.

Re-Engagement Tactic #3: The Alternative

Find an alternative point of contact at the company and reach out. Let them know you were in talks with their colleague and see if they can point you in the right (or different!) direction.

This is a fresh new person and they may be more willing to get back to you. You may also find out that your contact has been reassigned or has been out of the office for an extended period and you weren’t in the loop.

Re-Engagement Tactic #4: The Nurture Drip

The nurture drip comes in all types of flavors, but at its heart, it is a non-salesy email campaign designed to keep your company top of mind. Typically, nurture drips are informational in nature and offer content, tips and resources that your ICP (Ideal Customer Persona) would find valuable.

Nurture drips can be basic or very sophisticated depending on your lead base, as well as your own resources.

The takeaway is to enroll your unresponsive leads in some sort of ongoing nurture campaign, so if they do become interested in your services, you’ll be the one in front of them – not your competitor.

It may be the spookiest time of the year, but ghosting happens all year long. The scariest part? Losing out on potential value by letting unresponsive leads go cold.

You’ve already toiled to find these leads, so continue making attempts to re-engage them throughout their purchase journey. With some persistence and a solid nurture plan, you may just bring some of these ghosts back to life.