LinkedIn gives you many different opportunities to increase your revenue. You can post content and attract customers by establishing thought leadership. You can ask for testimonials and recommendations from your network to earn the trust of prospects. You can also use LinkedIn to connect with more people and start building relationships with them. All of these methods are free.

But if you want to get better results by investing money into your LinkedIn marketing efforts, there are several avenues for you to choose from. For example, LinkedIn Premium gives you access to different features that will help you generate leads.

LinkedIn Marketing Solutions is what the site offers to marketers and business owners who want to run ads on the social networking platform.

With LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, you can boost your content and promote them across different devices. This way, you can reach your target audience whether they are on mobile, desktop, or tablet. According to LinkedIn, this should help you “drive awareness and leads in the world’s most viewed professional news feed.”

LinkedIn Marketing Solutions highlights the best aspects of LinkedIn: the large user base, and the presence of influential professionals. You can use ads to reach your target audience on LinkedIn.

Setting up a campaign is easy: It only takes a moment to create a Campaign Manager account. Through Campaign Manager, you can set a budget and select your goals. LinkedIn gives you complete control over your campaign’s timeline, so you can use it strategically.

After creating your Campaign Manager account, you can start setting up your campaign. First, choose your campaign objective. These are the three objectives you can choose from: Awareness, Consideration, and Conversion.

Awareness refers to increasing brand awareness. Consideration refers to website visits, video views, and engagement. Conversion refers to lead generation, website conversions, and also job applicants. Choose the objective that is most similar to your own marketing goals. The goal you choose will determine the rest of your campaign creation experience.

Next, you will select your targeting criteria: this is the part where you determine your ad campaign’s target audience. There are over 20 audience attribute categories to choose from, and these filters will help you reach the right people.

Attribute categories include: company name, company size, member schools, member interests, member groups, job title, job seniority, skills, and more. No matter what ad type you choose, the target audience selection process works the same way.

If you can identify the best targets for your ads, you will have a much more successful campaign and you will enjoy better engagement. Choosing the right targets will also lead to higher conversion rates.

After choosing your target audience, the Campaign Manager will let you choose your preferred format for your LinkedIn ad. There are four different types of ads for you to choose from: Sponsored Content, Message Ads, Dynamic Ads, and Text Ads. You can also go for a mix of all four.

Sponsored Content is a type of ad that appears directly in the feed of your target audience. They come in three different formats: video ads, single image ads, and carousel ads.

Message Ads, as the name suggests, lets you reach your prospects on LinkedIn Messaging. You can use this to start meaningful conversations, build professional relationships, and ultimately convert your prospects into paying customers. Sending direct messages helps spark immediate reactions.

Dynamic Ads are for when you want to personalize your ads to suit your target audience. There are three types of Dynamic Ads: Follower Ads, Spotlight Ads, and Jobs Ads. Follower ads promote your LinkedIn page to attract new followers. Spotlight ads put a spotlight on your newest product or latest event.  Jobs ads help you find top talent in the sea of LinkedIn members.

Finally, there are Text Ads: simple but compelling ads that attract the attention of your target audience. Text ads can be pay-per-click (PPC) or cost-per-impression (CPM).

Once you’ve chosen your preferred ad type, you can set your budget and schedule.

Cost per send or CPS is used for Message Ads campaigns. You will pay for each message that is successfully delivered to your target audience.

For action-oriented campaigns, cost per click is often used. For brand awareness campaigns, the cost per impression or CPM model is often used.

After selecting the right option for your campaign, you will enter a daily budget, a total budget, a suggested bid, a start date, as well as an end date. Take note that you can cancel your campaign any time, regardless of the end date you choose.

LinkedIn’s auction system for bidding rewards engagement, which means you can win an auction even if you are not the highest bidder.