Gaining deeper insights into your target audience on any ad platform is always beneficial. Contrary to popular belief, there’s no such thing as excessive information. A powerful tool I’ve found to be surprisingly underutilized is LinkedIn Website Demographics. Located within the LinkedIn Campaign Manager, this feature provides a breakdown of your ad traffic based on profile targeting parameters such as job function and company size.
This tool unveils invaluable data that can be leveraged to construct stronger campaigns, refine existing ones, and maximize your budget. Yet, as previously noted, it remains largely undiscussed. This post seeks to rectify that, empowering you to achieve superior performance from your LinkedIn campaigns.
Excerpt from our LinkedIn Advertising Guide
Specifically, let’s explore three key ways to harness the data from LinkedIn Website Demographics to optimize your campaign’s effectiveness:
- Comprehend, segment, and refine your target audiences.
- Pinpoint high-performing audience segments to prioritize.
- Enhance existing LinkedIn ad campaigns.
Unveiling Ideal Audiences with LinkedIn Website Demographics
While we often believe we possess a strong grasp of our target audience, it’s crucial to understand how the platform perceives them. Our assumptions about their seniority level or job function might differ from LinkedIn’s classification. Therefore, aligning our understanding with LinkedIn’s perspective is vital for constructing effective prospecting campaigns.
To access this data, navigate to the LinkedIn Campaign Manager. In the upper section of the top navigation bar, you’ll find a link to the Website Demographics section.
Here, you’ll find user information from your website, meticulously categorized by LinkedIn targeting options. Let’s delve into this feature and uncover its full potential.
Analyzing Website Visitors by Job Function
LinkedIn Website Demographics presents the percentage of page views on your website segmented by Job Function. This reveals whether your ads resonate more with sales teams, business development personnel, or other departments. By understanding the job functions of your audience, you can tailor your ad copy and messaging for optimal results.
Pixel-Based Segmentation
In the previous “B2B site” example, you’ll notice the data reflects “all visitors.” However, a dropdown menu allows you to refine the audience based on your website pixel users. If the desired audience isn’t listed, you can conveniently create it directly within this view.
Comparative Audience Analysis
Beyond segmentation, this tool empowers you to compare audiences. Adjacent to the audience dropdown, a “Compare to website audience” dropdown lets you select a second group for simultaneous viewing.
With your second audience selected, you can discern the differences in their compositions through dual-color bar charts. This feature is particularly valuable for identifying high-performing or inherently valuable audiences. By understanding their representation on LinkedIn, you can craft targeted campaigns to prioritize these groups.
For instance, the image above compares a “converting users” list to a general page visitors list. The analysis reveals a significant portion of conversions stemming from the Business Development Job Function group, while the Support group exhibits a considerable number of page views but no conversions. This insight suggests excluding the Support Job Function from future campaigns.
Customizing Views with Date Ranges
To further personalize your analysis, a date range picker in the upper right corner of the LinkedIn Website Demographics interface enables you to select from predefined periods or define custom timeframes.
This customization proves particularly beneficial if you’ve implemented changes to branding or other acquisition channels, as the composition of these audiences can fluctuate significantly across different time periods.
Expanding Analysis Beyond Job Function
LinkedIn Website Demographics transcends job function analysis, offering breakdowns based on criteria such as job characteristics, company size, geography, and more.
Leverage these additional parameters similarly to the job function comparison. This allows you to uncover insights such as which company sizes demonstrate the strongest performance, ultimately informing your ideal audience selection.
Leveraging LinkedIn Website Demographics for Individual Campaign Data
Once you’ve identified your target audiences, you can launch precisely targeted LinkedIn ad campaigns. However, the utility of LinkedIn Website Demographics doesn’t end there. It also allows you to analyze demographic data for specific campaigns, gleaning insights for performance enhancement.
To utilize this feature for a particular campaign, simply select the checkbox next to the campaign name and click the “Demographics” button in the top navigation. This unveils a view similar to the main demographics interface, albeit with a few key distinctions:
- Firstly, audience comparison is unavailable as each campaign has a single target audience.
- Secondly, and most importantly, this page presents a broader range of statistics, focusing on the performance of each segment within the campaign. This is where invaluable insights into your LinkedIn campaign’s performance and optimization strategies surface.
Typically, the page defaults to displaying top-level metrics for Job Function. As illustrated in the image above, you’ll gain visibility into Impressions, Clicks, Average CTR, Conversions, and Conversion Rate for each Job Function.
It’s worth noting that the Impressions, Clicks, and Conversions might not always sum up to the campaign’s total figures. LinkedIn employs a “reporting minimum” to safeguard user privacy. If your campaign has 15 conversions but only 12 are reflected in the report, it suggests that the remaining conversions are distributed too thinly across other values for LinkedIn to disclose.
Similar to the general demographics section, you can adjust the date range for your campaigns and select alternative display options.
Optimizing Ad Performance with LinkedIn Website Demographics
Armed with an understanding of the data accessible through LinkedIn Website Demographics, let’s explore its practical application.
My optimization approach using this tool involves reviewing the performance of the specific targeting criteria employed. Given that LinkedIn occasionally restricts exclusions based on dissimilar targeting options, it’s crucial to ensure you’re analyzing actionable data.
Therefore, if my focus is on Job Function targeting, that’s where my analysis begins. Conversely, if I’m targeting based on Job Titles, that becomes my focal point.
The insights gleaned from LinkedIn Website Demographics guide you in either excluding low-performing segments or creating new campaigns to hone in on high-performing groups.
Think of this as akin to any other advertising platform where prioritizing and effectively communicating with top-performing audiences amplifies your chances of converting them into customers.
Unleashing the Power of LinkedIn Website Demographics
Numerous avenues exist for optimizing LinkedIn campaigns, ranging from bid strategies and ad copy adjustments to audience refinement before or after launch by concentrating on crucial demographics. Leverage the LinkedIn Website Demographics tool to ensure you’re not just reaching the right audience but also the most receptive one. Here’s a recap of this powerful tool:
- LinkedIn Website Demographics grants you insights into LinkedIn ad traffic to your website, segmented by your chosen LinkedIn targeting criteria. This enables you to:
- Segment your audience based on job function, company size, geography, and more.
- Compare audiences to identify your highest-converting groups.
- Delve into deeper metrics within each job function for individual ads.
- Gain a clearer understanding of who interacts with your LinkedIn ads to refine your campaign targeting and messaging.