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Sponsored Post

What is a sponsored post? Definition, examples, and best practices

Sponsored posts – both in the form of social media content ads and written or video content – are a way for brands to cut through the clutter in a crowded online marketplace and say more than they can with a simple banner ad.

In this guide, we’ll explain what a sponsored post is and why they are valuable to B2B marketers. Additionally, we’ll outline LinkedIn sponsored content ads best practices that generate measurable success.

Select a topic to explore further:

Definition: What is a sponsored post?

A sponsored post is a form of social media, blog, video, or traditional media piece of posted content that a brand pays for to reach its key target audience online. Like native ads, they are meant to feel more like content and be less intrusive than a traditional ad unit. However, sponsored posts can also be evergreen or feature content stories created by a paid journalist, blogger, or influencer, which must be clearly marked as a “promoted” or “paid” advertisement.

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To learn how to boost a LinkedIn company page post, watch the video below:

Boosted posts can attract more followers to a brand's page, but they are not to be confused with paid ads created to drive users to a website or landing page.

Boosted versus sponsored posts

 

When a brand publishes content to its social media timeline and gets a lot of likes, shares, or comments, it will sometimes pay to boost that post as an online ad to reach more of the same target users.


For example, LinkedIn advertisers can pay to boost one of their company page posts as a sponsored content ad after it generates high follower activity.

To learn how to boost a LinkedIn company page post, watch the video below:

Boosted posts can attract more followers to a brand's page, but they are not to be confused with paid ads created to drive users to a website or landing page.

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Why are sponsored posts valuable for B2B marketers?

Sponsored post ads on social and traditional media platforms help B2B marketers connect with their target market around brand-related issues. Topics in sponsored posts typically revolve around a challenge a brand’s customers may face daily.

For example, a live chat or messaging app brand may survey its customers to uncover their top struggles when trying to connect with new customers. From those insights, they may develop an ebook or research report or host a webinar that they can promote via sponsored social media posts, blogs, articles, and videos to help target audiences learn about text-based messaging solutions.

The sponsored content may cover ways that the software can reduce the need for phone conversations and increase customer engagement.

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The advantages of using sponsored posts to promote this B2B branded content include:

 
  • Starting a social media conversation and building customer engagement (e.g., comments and likes) around the customer challenges covered in the sponsored post, as well as in an online webinar, downloadable branded ebook, or research report.
 
  • Amplifying the brand message across traditional and social media platforms, enabling industry experts or influencers, journalists, and target customers to share the content with others in their social networks, including LinkedIn.

 

 

 
 
  • Positioning a B2B brand as a thought leader in their industry, demonstrating in the sponsored posts that they are an expert in their field.

 

  • Generating a contact list of target customer leads – specifically if the report or event is promoted via links in the sponsored post ads, blogs, or article content that send customers to a landing page. There, they must provide their contact information in exchange for the ebook, event signup, or report download.

 

 

Different types of sponsored posts

Let’s review the different sponsored content ads or posts B2B brands can create on social media, blogs, and traditional media.

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Social media sponsored or promoted posts

Sponsored content ads, often labeled as “promoted” posts on social media platforms, help B2B brands target their content to the right customers at the right time.



Key benefits of promoted post ad units include the ability to:

 

 

  • Capture a target user’s attention directly in their social media feed: Because the ads are part of the user’s timeline, the ads blend in with other posts from users that target customers follow online.
  • Achieve key B2B marketing objectives: Whether the goal is to build brand awareness or drive highly-targeted leads to their business.
  • Gain audience insights and achieve a measurable return on investment (ROI): B2B brands can measure their sponsored post social media ad performance and learn about the demographics of their target audience.
Illustration of a sponsored post on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn’s sponsored content examples

LinkedIn offers a variety of sponsored content ad formats to choose from, including:

Single image ads: The ads include one image in the LinkedIn sponsored post and appear directly in the LinkedIn feed of highly-targeted professionals a B2B brand wants to reach on desktop and mobile devices.

Document ads: This mobile and desktop sponsored post ad format enables B2B brands to capture quality leads from interested audiences by gating their content (e.g., an ebook or research report) with a LinkedIn Lead Gen Form. These ads help advertisers build trust with key audiences through inspirational, educational, and thought leadership content.

Video ads: Advertisers can engage with new prospects and spotlight their brand story via a mobile or desktop user’s LinkedIn feed. B2B brands can also track how their Video Ads are performing and see what kinds of professionals are viewing and engaging with them.

Carousel ads: B2B businesses can accelerate brand consideration and showcase their key messages using multiple eye-catching images. This sponsored content ad format immerses targeted LinkedIn audiences with each swipe. Advertisers can also see how many professionals engage with their cards and optimize campaigns for desired results.

Event ads: Brands can use this sponsored post ad format to promote and amplify their LinkedIn Event to the right target professionals, including key decision-makers and practitioners. Advertisers will capture their target audience’s attention as they scroll through their LinkedIn feed, allowing users to access all of the event info they need, such as the event date, time, and where to join. B2B advertisers can then see how many LinkedIn members viewed or clicked their LinkedIn ad to register for the event.

 

All LinkedIn sponsored post ad formats can be delivered using a variety of professional targeting options, including: Job experience or job titles, Demographics, Personal interests and traits, Education, and Company or industry. To learn more, download LinkedIn’s targeting capabilities guide.

Blogs and traditional media

Bloggers, journalists, and industry thought leaders are often approached to create B2B branded social media posts and content for advertisers on their personal or traditional media publication platforms.

These opportunities will not be paid for via LinkedIn’s advertising platform, or any other social media advertising platform. However, B2B brands can use social media to identify key influencers and publishers who can create sponsored content for them, then reach out individually.

B2B sponsored post influencer and journalist content ideas
 
To promote an upcoming event, brands can reach out to journalists, bloggers or social media influencers who are experts and thought leaders in their industry, asking them to share and comment on the event’s sponsored posts or promoted ads helps to boost awareness of the event and increase signups.

Brands can also invite highly influential B2B journalists, bloggers, and industry thought leaders to speak at or attend their events. They might also be interested in covering the event on their publishing platforms and sharing live updates on their social media profiles.

Illustration of an individual on their laptop and a blog highlighted on the side.
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Best practices: How to create successful sponsored posts

Consider these best practices when developing a B2B sponsored post strategy:

1. Identify the target audience

First, identify the target audience for the sponsored advertising post and research where they spend the most time online. What is their job title and role within their organization, and what industry or markets are they focused on? Which bloggers, traditional media publications, or trade publications do they read? Which B2B influencers are they following on social media, and what kind of content do they share with their followers and colleagues?


When conducting audience research, B2B brands can follow their target customers, as well as key journalists and social influencers online to gain that intel. They can also develop surveys to send to existing clients using Google Forms or SurveyMonkey.

Additionally, a sales organization might use the Sales Navigator lead generation platform. In that case, marketers can look at insights from their targeted leads and accounts to see what kind of content they post or interact with on LinkedIn.

The combined insights from surveys and Sales Navigator can inform what creative or content resonates best with the target B2B audience.

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2. Choose platforms suitable to the business

Once B2B brands have the audience insights they need, it's time to select the social media and traditional media content creators and ad platforms that can help promote their content strategy and sponsored post messaging.


Read or watch posts on each chosen traditional media and social media platform to understand how they speak to the target audience. Is it formal or informal? Do they provide lots of stats and research, or are they more focused on human interest stories and interviews?

The content a B2B brand may ask journalists and influencers to create on their platforms, along with the stories they pay to promote in a sponsored social media post, should be tailored to that individual platform’s language.

On LinkedIn, for example, many B2B brands highlight research or key insights that users can access via promoted document ads or carousel ads to generate leads. They might also use headshots, teaser videos, and profiles of keynote speakers for an upcoming event or webinar to drive signups.

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3. Craft a compelling message with a clear call-to-action (CTA)

The message in a sponsored post ad should be concise, clear, and compelling. Some of LinkedIn’s sponsored post best practices and content tips include:

 

 

  • Write ad headlines with under 150 characters to maximize social media ad engagement.

 

  • Keep descriptive copy under 70 characters. Otherwise, the copy may be truncated, meaning users must click to read the entire sponsored post.

 

  • Embed larger images instead of standard thumbnails to get up to a 38% higher CTR (click-through rate). We recommend image sizes of 1200 x 627 pixels.

 

 

  • Be specific with ad targeting, choose the location and two other targeting criteria to start, and follow LinkedIn’s ad targeting best practices.
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Additionally, using a clear call to action (CTA) that stands out in a sponsored post helps B2B brands to get customers to act immediately. Effective CTAs can ask target customers to:

 

 

  • “Download” a report or ebook
 
  • “Get the report” or “Get the ebook”
 
  • “Signup” for an email newsletter or event
 
  • “Buy now”
 
  • “Try now”

 

 

 

For sponsored articles and blog posts, B2B brands must work with a publisher or influencer to craft the message. Each publisher, blogger, or vlogger will have different story guidelines and strategies. It’s best to reach out to each one individually to learn what they’ll need to create their paid B2B branded story.

4. Set measurable campaign goals

Before launching a sponsored post ad or content campaign, be sure to define and set measurable goals for success.


Many B2B brands identify key performance indicators (KPIs), such as how many impressions, downloads, or signups they want to generate for the length of an ad campaign. The KPIs for a sponsored content post campaign might be a target number of page views, social media shares, comments on a blog or an article, and clicks on specific links included in the content.

In the next section, we’ll share how to track those key success metrics and analyze campaign performance.

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How to measure the success of sponsored content

Finally, let’s review helpful ways to measure B2B branded sponsored post ad campaign performance.

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Use tracking URLs

Marketers can track and measure sponsored content ad performance using campaign reporting and analytics data to measure their advertising success.


They can also set up third-party tracking URLs to measure their advertising performance by adding a tag to their LinkedIn ad creatives. LinkedIn supports Moat and Google Marketing Platform (formerly Google DoubleClick) tracking and attribution for Sponsored Content.

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Monitor engagement

Consider posting content organically for a few weeks in the beginning to gain targeted followers and gauge the best performers on chosen social media platform(s). Looking at likes and shares, Identify what content resonates best, and what comments users post regarding the content. Use those insights to develop sponsored content ad campaigns for optimal results.


Once the campaign is live, continue to monitor social media sponsored post engagement to see if the ads are resonating with targeted customers on each platform. If not, try optimizing sponsored content ad elements (e.g., headlines, copy, and images) using A/B testing to boost audience engagement.

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Analyze campaign performance

Marketers can view a wide range of campaign metrics, for every sponsored content ad campaign they run by logging into Linkedin’s Campaign Manager tool.


We recommend running a small test campaign first to establish a baseline for future campaigns. Then, set goals to improve upon baseline results.

Advertisers can also use retargeting to boost conversions with the desired target audience. Retargeting is based on meaningful behaviors, such as the pages users visit on a branded or publisher website, or social network.

Retargeting makes it possible for marketers to deepen customer relationships through specific and relevant messaging by using data about a target user’s previous interactions with sponsored ads.

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Sponsored posts increase target customer engagement

Sponsored posts or sponsored content advertising helps B2B brands build relationships with highly-targeted audiences resulting in qualified lead generation and increased customer engagement.


From single image and document ads, to video and carousel formats, each social media sponsored content ad unit offers opportunities for B2B brands to grow their audience and followers while showcasing their industry expertise.

Paid content posts on blogs and traditional media platforms are another way marketers can work with journalists and influencers to connect with their desired target customers.

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