Targeting an Audience on Linkedin

With LinkedIn, you're targeting a quality audience in a professional context. Market to influencers, decision makers, and executives who act on new opportunities.

Combine targeting criteria to build your ideal persona: IT decision makers, C-level executives, prospective students, small business owners, and more.

by Linkedin copywriters

Of course if you are a B2B org and you want to hit the right audience then at first glance the social media gigantica Linkedin is an obvious choice. 

It is claimed and sounds right to me, that people take a lot more care with their profiles on Linkedin than say snapchat or twitter. You're not hiding behind a persona with Linkedin, your profile is probably accurate. I feel this in turn is why they demand generally higher CPC than their counterparts such as Facebook Advertising. It means that although you might pay double the cost per click if you get things right then that click is going to amount to more. So with the theory we should be seeing higher conversion rates for Linkedin to justify this apparent higher cost.

The Ultimate Audience

The OOTB targeting can be done across 4 broad classifications: 

1. Company
   Company name, Company size, Industry, Followers, Connections
2. Experience
   Job title, Job function, Job seniority, Years of experience
   
3. Education
   Schools, Institutions etc
4. Interests and Identity
   Age, Gender, Location and perhaps skills (It's a little too easy to skill yourself up IMO!)

4 Steps to Advertising to your Audience on LinkedIn