Selecting Compelling Assets for Your LinkedIn Sponsored Content Campaigns

Editor’s Note: This blog post is part of a 14-day series on running successful LinkedIn Sponsored Content. View the previous blog post here.

Selecting high-quality, relevant creative assets to showcase to your audience is an important part of ensuring that your Sponsored Content campaigns perform well.

Before settling on an asset to promote, ask yourself the following questions:

• Does it accurately describe the content you’re promoting?
• Does the messaging make the reader want to click on the content?
• Do the visuals accompanying the content stand out on a user’s’ feed?

Hint: if you answered “yes” to all of the above questions, you’re good to go.

The promotional strategy you use is key to generating the results you want from your clicks. Think carefully about the assets you choose to promote and test wisely.

Visual Assets

There are limitless ways to create visual content that stands out to your audience. All it takes a little creativity, a lot of testing, and the right tools to make it successful. Whether you’re using a graphic or video, make sure you’re designing and finding images that set context for your content, capture users’ attention and align with your brand.

Messaging Best Practices

• Write catchy, actionable headlines focused on setting context and making the user interested in the content
• Include compelling statistics or quotes lifted out of a larger piece of content
• Keep it short and sweet (150 characters or fewer)
• Include shortened URLs to clean up the copy
• Include a Call to Action (CTA) - click here for helpful advice on CTAs

And here’s an infographic on copywriting for conversions.

Don’t just select one asset or messaging technique for each campaign, run A/B tests so that you can tailor your strategy to what works over time.

Visual Pro Tips

• Make sure you’re using rich media: 1200x627 pixels with a text-safe area of 1000x586. (Rich media images have up to 38% higher CTR than linkshare updates with a thumbnail image preview.)
• Use Canva to create unique, branded social media images
• Vary your image types -- try using icons, gifs, stock photos, graphics, etc.
• Use colors that stand out from the page -- stay away from lighter backgrounds like white or gray
• Create graphics that are designed for conversions
• Include CTAs to encourage clicking

Video Pro Tips

• Make sure the video thumbnail is compelling enough to make the user click “play”
• Use your video platform of choice to test different types of video -- like animated, human-centered, word-focused, etc. -- to see what your audience responds best to
• Add text to your videos so people can watch the video silently and still tell what your content is saying

Here are five tips to help you make a killer marketing video.

Tomorrow we’ll explore how to create an AB testing strategy. Until then, stay informed by downloading LinkedIn and HubSpot's complete 2 Week Sponsored Content Planner.