If you haven’t implemented LinkedIn’s Lead Generation Forms into your demand generation strategy, then it’s safe to say you’re missing out!
The forms, available for Sponsored Content and Sponsored InMail, allow us marketers to collect even more quality leads from our ads, whilst offering LinkedIn members a seamless, simple experience with a pre-filled form.
Firstly, the feature allows you to add a call-to-action button to your ads, which opens a form, pre-populated with users’ data, meaning that members can instantly share information with just a few clicks. In my personal experience, lead gen forms work best with sponsored content when promoting assets, such as a downloadable eBook or guide.
The benefit to the member?
A seamless experience that allows them to access valuable content, without leaving the LinkedIn platform.
The benefit to the marketer?
The opportunity to generate high quality leads at a higher conversion rate than sending users to a gated landing page.
So, where’s the evidence?
For one global computer software client, we ran a 3-month test, splitting the budget equally between one campaign using sponsored content integrated with lead gen forms, and another campaign using sponsored content directing users to a gated landing page. Both campaigns were targeting the same ABM audience and promoted the downloadable content with the same copy and creatives.
After reviewing the results at the end of the quarter, not only had the lead generation campaign generated more leads, it achieved a whopping 147% higher conversion rate than the campaign directing users to the client’s gated landing page. By generating more leads with lead gen forms, the cost per lead was 59% lower, allowing our client to reap the benefits and get more with their budget!
Initially, lead generation forms were only available on mobile, but they’ve recently been released on desktop, along with an additional auto-bid optimization setting that allows the platform to optimize your activity for lead form submissions.
And are there any downsides?
Depending on how you look at it, there are a few potential downsides to using lead gen forms for your sponsored content.
Firstly, by giving users the ability to fill in a form in-platform, you’re sacrificing traffic to your site. However, if like our clients’, your objectives are orientated around lead generation rather than awareness and traffic, then lead gen forms are still the answer for you when advertising on LinkedIn.
Secondly, all leads collected through lead gen forms are stored within the LinkedIn platform, which can be considered a slight inconvenience, however, these can be easily be exported and uploaded to your database. Alternatively, LinkedIn also supports many marketing automation and CRM platforms, such as Marketo, Eloqua and Salesforce Sales Cloud.
But the best solution?
Integrating your LinkedIn leads with your marketing automation platform so that new leads generated from your campaigns can flow straight into your marketing funnel for truly effective demand generation. You can find out more information about integration here.
If you have any questions surrounding lead gen forms, or fancy a chat to see what we can do for your B2B demand generation strategy, feel free to contact us!