Posted by Ryan Farrell in Uncategorized
We all know how valuable our LinkedIn connections are.
Today I'm going to show you how to use Facebook Ads for LinkedIn retargeting purposes. In other words, how to take all of the valuable connections that you've built up in your LinkedIn network and use them to target a Facebook ad to that specific audience.
Why you would want to do this.
1. Integrated Approach.
Being in front of your prospects on multiple platforms and having multiple touch points will go a long way toward getting your prospects to do what you want. This integrated LinkedIn retargeting approach will combine your LinkedIn activity, LinkedIn groups, direct messaging, and status updates with the powerful Facebook Ad platform. This familiarity will increase your ads CTR (click through rate) and therefore drastically decrease your CPA (cost per action). Essentially you will get more leads for less money.
2. Precise Audience.
Your LinkedIn network should be comprised of your most valuable and important prospects. LinkedIn allows you to reach out and connect with pinpoint accuracy. You could find owners of car washes in Springfield, Illinois that are good at accounting and are in BNI. That’s some pretty serious targeting. We always say that, “You know your prospects are on LinkedIn…” Well, they are on Facebook too, but they are just a little harder to find. Having this precise list of potential clients/customers is too powerful to let it go to waste. Use this information to put another call-to-action in front of your prospects.
3. Establish Credibility.
While anyone can reach out to their connections on LinkedIn and run a Facebook ad campaign, there is a certain sense of credibility that you get when you are seen on both social networks, unobtrusively, in a short period of time. This strategy involves building a relationship and then reaching out directly on LinkedIn, then at the same time placing page post ads on the prospect’s Facebook newsfeed in a more subtle effort. The two tactics are meant to compliment each other, LinkedIn being a more personal message while Facebook being a more professional advertisement.
Alright, I’ve bought into LinkedIn Retargeting. How do I do this?
While LinkedIn retargeting via Facebook is very complex in theory, it is actually easy to implement. First you are going to want to download a csv file of all your LinkedIn connections. To do this you need to go to the “Export LinkedIn Connections” page. Then export your connections into a CSV file. Note: You might have to fill out a Captcha form.
Once you get your CSV file you'll need to delete everything but the email address column. This is the only information that Facebook will recognize, and in this case, is the only information that matters. Also this is your opportunity to remove any connections that you DO NOT want to be a part of your audience on Facebook. All of your email addresses should be in column A. Your spreadsheet should look something like this. 
We have officially gathered all the information that we need from LinkedIn. It’s time to take our CSV file and create a custom audience in Facebook’s Ads Manager and/or Power Editor (depending on which you use to create your Facebook ads). Once in the Ads Manager you want to create a “Custom Audience” from a data file.
Be sure to be specific when you name your custom audience so you know what it is when you are setting up your ad.
We are almost there. All you have to do now is select the correct audience in the “Custom Audiences” section when setting up the targeting for your campaign.
It is important to note that not all of your connections will be available to target on Facebook. This is for one of two reasons:
1. They are not on Facebook.
2. They used a different email for Facebook than they did for LinkedIn.
No need to worry though. Even though Facebook will only recognize some of your connections, the connections that they do recognize will be some of your most valuable prospects that can be reached at a fraction of the costs of other targeting options.
Also, it's important to realize that your ad should not try to directly sell these people. This is a continuation of the relationship building that you have been doing on LinkedIn. Offer some free content, a video series, a case study, etc.The important thing is that you get them to opt in to something free. From there you can score your leads, track who out of your connections may be interested, and then reach out.
For example, instead of immediately posting an ad offering your product or service, try offering up a free guide that is related to what you do and that is of interest to your prospects. Then take a look at every prospect who opted in for the guide, do a little research, and then try to get them on the phone or schedule a coffee. Give it a shot. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised on the quality of leads that come through.
Exactly what I was looking for.Thanks for sharing!