“The ask” is a pivotal moment in every lead generation campaign. Marketers need quality lead data, but asking for too much or offering up a complicated experience can diminish your results.
To bridge the gap between the marketer’s need for quality lead data and our members’ ease of access to content, we have LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms.
What are LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms?
“Traditional landing pages take people away from the LinkedIn platform. Having members stay in-app with Lead Gen Forms is a seamless user experience.” –Nik Love, Global Digital Manager, IR
LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms make it easy for advertisers to collect quality leads by making it as easy as possible for users to share that information, at their own discretion.
Lead Gen Forms populate your ads with customizable forms pre-filled by the member’s LinkedIn profile data. When your audience sees your ad, they’ll see that their name, contact info, company name, seniority, job title, and location are all pre-filled and ready to be submitted. All they have to do is hit the CTA button. They get the guide, experience, or other asset they’re interested in, and they provide you with professional data to tailor your campaigns.
How Can LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms Help My Company?
LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms offer brands a chance to generate high-quality leads at scale with much more ease and reliability than traditional forms and landing pages.
You can add LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms to your Message Ads and Sponsored Content, and the results of doing so will speak for themselves: while the average landing page conversion rate is 4.02% based on a study conducted by Unbounce, our data shows that the average LinkedIn Lead Gen Form conversion rate is 13%.
Companies across industries and of all sizes have reported successful results with Lead Gen Forms, increasing both their lead volume and quality and even making it easier to prove the ROI of their LinkedIn marketing campaigns to boot. LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms connect with LinkedIn Analytics to automatically keep track of and report on Cost Per Lead, Form Fill Rates, and Conversion Rates.
Whether you want to share whitepapers and eBooks, share an event signup, generate newsletter sign-ups, provide discounts or special offers, or more, LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms make it so much simpler for members to connect to your brand and content. When it’s easier for them, it’s much more effective for you.
Here’s everything you need to know about utilizing LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms to their fullest potential — and unlocking much better lead data at scale in the process:
How to Create a Lead Gen Form Template
Creating a Lead Gen Form template will allow you to save and re-use the format of the form you create for all future ads of a similar design, saving yourself tons of time in future campaigns.
To create a Lead Gen Form, follow these steps:
- Sign into Campaign Manager
- If you need to switch accounts, click on the account name in the upper-left corner and select the account you want to make the template for from the dropdown menu.
- Click Assets on the left menu and select Lead Gen Forms.
- Click the Create form button at the top.
- Complete the sections you’d like to include in your Form:
- Form details
- Lead details and questions
- Confirmations
- Hidden fields
- (See Create Lead Gen Forms for more information on each section)
- Click Create.
How to Use Your Lead Gen Form Templates In a Campaign
Once you’ve created your Lead Gen Form Template, you can use it in your ads by following the usual steps you’d take to create an ad and selecting the option to “Collect leads using LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms” at the end. Note that you can also create a new Lead Gen ad directly inside the Campaign Manager while creating your ad if you so choose:
- Sign into Campaign Manager
- Select “Create Campaign”: Select the account and Campaign Group you’d like to create Lead Gen Form for. Then, click Campaigns next to Campaign Group and select “Create Campaign.”
- Select the “Lead Generation” Objective under the “Conversions” category: This is the only category of goal Lead Gen forms are available under.
- Set up your targets: Follow the instructions on the targeting page to select the demographics of who you’d like to see the ad. LinkedIn allows you to target highly-qualified professional audiences based on information including job title, job function, seniority, industry, and more.
- Select your ad format: Lead Gen Forms are available under Single Image Ads, Carousel Image Ads, Video Ads, or Message Ads.
- Set your budget: This will determine how much you will spend on the ad and how long the campaign will run.
- Select Create New Ad: Or, if you want to use existing ad content, select “browse existing content.”
- Select “Existing Form” from beneath the “Form” drop-down under “2. Form Details”: Your Lead Gen Form template will appear here. If you want to create a new Lead Gen Form for this campaign, select “Create New” instead.
- Run the campaign with the Form attached.
How Can I Manage My Leads?
There are two ways to manage the leads your Lead Generation Forms generate: first, you could download lead lists directly from Campaign Manager.
To do this, click on “Account Assets” in your account, then click “Download” for the form template you’d like to download your leads from. You’ll need to be a LinkedIn Page admin or have a LinkedIn Page admin grant you Lead Manager Access to download leads.
LinkedIn Campaign Manager also integrates Lead Gen Form lead tracking with several marketing automation partners and CRM platforms, including Convertr, Driftrock, HubSpot, Salesforce Sales Cloud, and more. When you integrate your Lead Gen Forms campaigns with partners like these, they can automatically pull data from analytics to populate in your CRM, as well as providing a wide variety of other benefits.
How Can I Manage Results?
To see campaign performance for your lead gen campaigns, click on the “Leads” tab in your Campaign Manager dashboard. Here you’ll see key performance metrics including the total number of leads, form completion rate, and total cost per lead.
You’ll have access to lead data for 90 days. To protect our members’ data, we delete all lead data after 90 days. We recommend downloading your lead data frequently for your records or setting up an integration so that leads flow into your CRM or marketing automation system in real time.
How Can I Optimize My Lead Gen Form Campaigns?
When setting up your lead gen campaign, follow these best practices:
Hook your audience with a concise question
You want to entice your audience into learning more. Make your headline a question under 120 characters long that relates directly to what might compel them most about your product or offering. They can get more context after they click; focus on the sale at first.
Avoid including fields that require manual input.
Try to avoid any fields that will require manual typing, such as gender or phone number, if possible. After all, the whole point of Lead Gen Forms is they do the work of inputting information for your audience. The addition of even one free-response custom question can yield a 3-4% drop in submission rate.
Only use three or four fields in your form.
Including far fewer than the maximum 12 fields will improve your conversion rates. Keep forms short, simple, and populated with only the info you absolutely need.
Relate the thank you message back to the form.
Reference what they’ve just opted into, and provide concrete next step details including how you’ll contact them.
Pair Lead Gen Form campaigns with Brand campaigns.
Used Matched Audiences to target audience members who have been exposed to your previous/current brand campaigns with follow-up Lead Gen Form campaigns. LinkedIn members exposed to both brand and acquisition messaging are six times more likely to convert.
Switch out form copy regularly
Only 10% of forms receive leads after their first 66 days in rotation. Continuing developing new form copy, Forms, and offers to keep your Lead Gen Forms fresh.
Keep testing
A/B test your Lead Gen Forms against variations and standard landing pages to see which performs best with each of your audiences and why. Try different combinations of questions, CTAs, copy, and images to refine your ads over time.
Lead Gen Forms take the friction out of the lead generation process. Your prospects get what they want in a few clicks. You get the high-quality lead data you need.
Ready to start collecting leads today? Sign in to LinkedIn Campaign Manager and create your first Lead Gen Form today.
3. Create a “Thank You” page
Once members submit their information they will see your thank you page. You can also provide additional information here with various thank you page calls-to-action.
Now you’re ready to add your form template to your Sponsored Content or Message Ad. After you create your ad or choose the content you’d like to sponsor, add a call-to-action button and pick the Lead Gen Form you just created. Simply select the option to “Collect leads using LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms.” You can also create new form templates for later use in Campaign Manager.
“Within a matter of minutes, you can create a campaign and start generating quality leads. We’ve received great feedback from our admissions team as well as the prospects themselves.” –Fareed Raja, Director, Digital Marketing, Jack Welch Institute
Managing Your Leads
You can download lead lists from Campaign Manager or sync leads with your marketing automation or CRM system. Here you’ll find more information about integrating Lead Gen Forms with marketing automation and CRM systems.
To download leads directly from Campaign Manager, click on “Account Assets” in your account. Then click “Download” for the form template you’d like to download leads from. You’ll need to be a Company Page admin or have a Company Page admin grant you Lead Manager Access to download leads.
Measuring Results
To see campaign performance for your lead gen campaigns, click on the “Leads” tab in your Campaign Manager dashboard. Here you’ll see key performance metrics including the total number of leads, form completion rate, and total cost per lead.
You’ll have access to lead data for 90 days. To protect our members’ data, we delete all lead data after 90 days. We recommend downloading your lead data frequently for your records or setting up an integration so that leads flow into your CRM or marketing automation system in real time.
How to Optimize Your Lead Gen Campaign for Results
When setting up your lead gen campaign, consider the following tips:
For the ad itself:
Make sure images and copy are relevant throughout.
Make sure the messaging stays consistent when members click from the update through the form. For example, if you are asking members to sign up for an infographic, make sure you either send them the infographic via email or link to it on the “thank you” page.
Be direct, and verify that your messaging matches the CTA.
Keep in mind Lead Gen Forms are bottom funnel. Be upfront about what members will receive when they submit their information.
For the Lead Gen Form:
Less is more.
If opens are high but leads are low, it could be that you have too many fields. Put yourself in the member’s shoes. You too may be less likely to submit seven fields rather than two. Typically, we recommend advertisers have 3-4 fields at most.
Try not to include fields requiring manual input.
Phone number and gender, or fields that may not be listed on a member’s profile already, require the member to manually type in their information before submitting. Members cannot submit a form with blank fields. To keep conversion rates high, ask for information that is likely to be on their profile.
Lead Gen Forms take the friction out of the lead generation process. Your prospects get what they want in a few clicks. You get the high-quality lead data you need.
Ready to start collecting leads today? Sign in to LinkedIn Campaign Manager and create your first Lead Gen Form today.
Topics: Lead generation
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