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LinkedIn accelerates its pitch to B2B marketers with AI-powered ad tools


LinkedIn may be digging deep into the pockets of mainstream brands these days, but it’s not neglecting the juice of its advertising business. B2B companies are still front and center in its newest market.

Specifically when it comes to his own Accelerate AI campaign tool. Unlike offerings from Google and Meta, this tool is designed with B2B marketers in mind.

As LinkedIn VP of Product Management Abhishek Shrivastava explained, “B2B marketers have to figure out how to incorporate their own needs into existing B2C tools.”

Digiday caught up with Shrivastava to explore how Accelerate is both similar and different from other solutions, his broader plans for advertising, and whether or not the news about LinkedIn aspiring to TikTok is too good.

Earlier this year, Accelerate, LinkedIn’s answer to the black box AI tool, officially launched globally to all video advertisers after being in a testing period. This initially included a small group of North American advertisers during the initial launch in October 2023, expanding to around 50% global rollout in beta until the official global launch in October 2024. Despite this expansion, the tool is still in beta. on LinkedIn. Or as Shrivastava put it, “We have to go through many iterations to get it right.”

And there’s good reason to be cautious, with an estimated $18.34 billion in digital ad spending planned this year. eMarketer. With more digital-savvy marketers now controlling budgets, ad dollars are flowing to the platforms they believe will deliver the best results. LinkedIn believes Accelerate will help it maintain its place at the front of this front in B2B advertising.

“LinkedIn has made a big effort over the last five years to encourage more frequent and interesting posting in a more social environment, and if there was enough inventory, this kind of automated tool could help attract advertisers unfamiliar with the platform. ” said Jamie MacEwan, principal analyst at Enders Analysis.

Accelerate’s pitch is not too dissimilar to its counterparts on the B2C side; it is a promise of efficiency and transparency.

“[On Accelerate] When AI does something for you, it tells you what data is driving that change or the recommendation it’s giving you,” Shrivastava said. “Number two, it gives you insight into what’s really working.”

So, for example, if a customer says (hypothetically) they saw a 42% reduction in cost per outcome, Accelerate can tell the marketer what really made the difference,” explained Shrivastava. “Whether it was audience, creatives, placement or anything else in the campaign.”

As MacEwan said, what counts is removing as much friction as possible for advertisers. “Whether they should trust the KPIs from any of these black boxes is another matter, and sophisticated advertisers are wise to maintain internal media mix and econometric modeling to measure long-term performance themselves,” he said.

While marketers have limited control over how goals are met, they can verify results with their own measurement tools, similar to other platforms.

“The AI ​​will do all the work for you, and you have the ability to review every single piece of work that the AI ​​has done for you,” Shrivastava said. “And you have to click a button to say, ‘yes, I’m accepting that and going ahead with it.’

In the early stages, Accelerate focused on two goals: website visits and lead generation, along with a single display ad format. Fast forward to this product he also incorporated brand awareness, website conversion, video views and new formats including document ads.

According to LinkedIn’s own data, campaigns created with Accelerate saw a 42% lower cost per action compared to classic campaigns on the platform.

“A lot of smaller companies, as well as larger ones, are finding a lot of value in this in terms of the results they see being driven by this product,” Shrivastava said.

Part of this value lies in the speed of Accelerate. By cutting campaign creation time from 15 hours to just five minutes, it gives marketers a faster way to reach hard-to-reach B2B decision makers. For businesses of all sizes, it’s less about catching up and more about leveling the playing field.

“The entire product vision is focused on how to make B2B marketers more successful, more productive, achieve the results their businesses need, and demonstrate those results back to colleagues in the company. Everything is in that context,” Shrivastava said.



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