Equipment manufacturers and B2B marketers typically have a niche target audience that makes broad advertising tactics a waste of money. Instead, campaigns targeted to specific industries, companies, and positions within those companies are more effective because the marketing budget can be honed in on the right people - potential buyers.

Digital advertising is a great way to reach a target audience, but LinkedIn offers a level of detail that makes the channel worthy of an extra slice of the advertising budget. Ads can be directed to LinkedIn profiles such as industry, company, job title, and even interests. This level of targeting allows marketers to reach potential buyers with precision, which can lead to better results.

The Benefits of Advertising on LinkedIn include:

• Smarter retargeting to expand the reach of your website and event audience 
• Credibility is gained on LinkedIn. In a survey (done by LinkedIn) 92% of respondents say a brand appears more professional after seeing an ad on the platform.  
• Brand lift that makes it easier to stay top-of-mind with potential buyers
• Audiences exposed to brand and acquisition messages on LinkedIn are six times more likely to convert than those who saw only one of the two 
• Privacy is protected to minimize the amount of personal information shared while marketers still leverage targeting and tailoring capabilities

LinkedIn is generally seen as a top-of-the-funnel advertising platform with brand awareness as the primary benefit. With the capability to retarget those who’ve already visited your website, the channel goes deeper into the sales funnel to people who are familiar with the brand.  

Target Industries with LinkedIn

When creating ads on LinkedIn the audiences are defined in a number of ways. For example, you can select the industries you sell to when creating the ad campaign. But audiences can also be created by uploading a list of targeted companies. Since LinkedIn’s database of profiles includes employers and job titles, it enables marketers to designate the company and job title to include when defining an audience. Perhaps even more valuable, the audience can exclude job titles that are not involved in the decision-making process for your product. For example, if you sell industrial pallet wrappers, you’d want to include plant managers and exclude people with job titles such as “accountant” because the better your audience is defined, the more efficiently the budget is used. 

Examples of LinkedIn Ad Targeting

LinkedIn audiences can be further refined to the demographic of age and years of experience. For example, a client who is a pump manufacturer targets male and female purchasing managers or engineers, in the age range of 35-65 years old with five or more years of experience. It targets the current employees in a specific industry using a list of 33 companies that are the most likely to need its products.

Targeting ads gets a higher click-through rate (CTR)

Ads targeted to interested people are more likely to get engagement. Using a list of targeted companies and setting specific demographics, Scaffolding Solutions ran LinkedIn ads and achieved an exceptional CTR of 2%*.

(*0.5% is the industry standard and 1% is very good)

Since 2021, the campaign ranged between 100-200 clicks each month.

Manufacturer LinkedIn Advertising Strategy

Since LinkedIn advertising tends to be a top-of-funnel sales effort that introduces someone to your brand, the goal is to continue reaching the audience with subsequent messages. The old statistic of needing seven touches with a contact to close a deal is probably low in today’s digital environment; many experts say it is now more like 11 touches over 18 months. So a single exposure to a LinkedIn ad is not likely to convert a prospect to a sale. But getting a targeted prospect to your website and further engaging them, perhaps remarketing digital ads after they visit, moves the needle to become a lead.

Air-Tite had 36 assisted conversions in 90 days from LinkedIn by targeting medical professionals who worked at medspas with specific job titles, industries, and age ranges. They wanted to focus on personnel who make the purchasing decisions, so they excluded certain job titles and attributes that did not apply to ensure the message was delivered to their ideal audience.

Industries represented in the AirTite ad campaign performance:

LinkedIn: Ideal for B2B Marketers

Equipment manufacturers marketing niche products to businesses have the best opportunity to reach the target audience through LinkedIn advertising. No other channel enables the precision at which LinkedIn can deliver messages to individuals based on their industry, company, position, or interest. While it is a top-of-the-funnel tactic, tracking through Google’s newest interface, GA4, enables marketers to better track buyer journeys and attribute conversions back to the original traffic source. So now more than ever the effectiveness of LinkedIn advertising can measure and track the progress of the tactic at your organization. With its low expense and the ability to set a daily budget, LinkedIn could be the best marketing channel for equipment manufacturers and B2B marketers.

WebStrategies is one of the country's leading advertising agencies for manufacturing. We plan social media strategy for manufacturing companies and can help if you'd like to add LinkedIn to your lead-generation tactics.

Contact us to help your B2B marketing generate more revenue.

Additional Resources

Social Media Advertising

Manufacturers Marketing Resources

Webinar: Digital Advertising for B2B