How Conversation Ads on LinkedIn help Synchrony engage business leaders directly

About Synchrony

Synchrony is a provider of customized financing programs across key industries including retail, health, auto, travel and home, along with award-winning consumer banking products.

Challenge

It’s becoming increasingly harder to reach Synchrony’s primary audience of Business Decision Makers as the marketplace continues to grow and become more saturated.

Opportunity

Leverage new and engaging tactics to get in front of the BDM audience to garner direct impact.

Goals

The primary goal of this campaign was to drive downloads for Season 1 of Synchrony’s Business Schooled podcast.

The secondary goals were to raise awareness and engagement.

Solution

• Synchrony’s Brand Marketing team, in collaboration with agency Giant Spoon, uncovered LinkedIn Conversation Ads as an opportunity to deliver interactive, tailored content to members through LinkedIn messaging, with multiple pathways based on the recipient’s response.
• “The ability to create a funnel within the same message thread—thus allowing us to achieve multiple goals—is a major benefit for us,” says Johnson.

Results

• With Conversation Ads, Synchrony was able to drive traffic and downloads to the podcast, and garnered awareness and engagement amongst a qualified audience.
• Engagement for the campaign healthily exceeded expectations and benchmarks, with 46% of people opening it, and 7% of people clicking buttons, whether that was to learn more or go to the site.
• 46% open rate on Conversation Ads
• 7% button clickson Conversation Ads

A deeper look into the campaign

Pursuing multiple objectives

• Being able to choose from multiple paths depending on interest level within the ad unit is encouraging,” says Johnson. “For users with strong interest, you can encourage them to fill out a form, helping to generate leads. For users with mild interest, you can place them in a retargeting pool and reach them later with different messaging.”
• One valuable element of Conversation Ads that really stood out to Synchrony was the ability to drive toward multiple positive outcomes.

Optimizing targeting for greater personalization

• Expanding beyond the initial test, Synchrony will introduce additional targeting and customized creative based upon audience and business verticals. It’s exactly the kind of sophistication LinkedIn is built for.
• “The ability to deliver personalized messages at scale through new formats and experiences positions us well to connect and engage with highly relevant audiences,” explains Johnson.

An audience ripe for thought leadership

• It wasn’t only the ad format that appealed to Synchrony and Giant Spoon for this campaign, but also the context of the LinkedIn platform itself.
• “LinkedIn provides a level of qualified engagement. A user is looking for thought leadership content on a consistent basis. Knowing this, LinkedIn is a great fit for our clients and will likely continue to be.” says Johnson.

About Synchrony

Synchrony is a provider of customized financing programs across key industries including retail, health, auto, travel and home, along with award-winning consumer banking products.