5-Minute Crash Course to LinkedIn Video Ads (A 2024 Guide)
Contents
LinkedIn is a professional networking platform with over 1 billion users in 200 countries and regions. Its unique user base makes it a valuable resource for businesses looking to connect with professional audiences at scale. The variety of ways to reach your audience means you can be quite creative and choose from formats like Single Image, Carousel, Message, and more.
With 82% of marketers finding the platform has brought them better results than other channels, LinkedIn can be powerful for B2B brands. Pairing it with creative video ads can fully leverage its ability to engage and convert.
Video is a highly engaging and shareable media format popular on many social channels. Even a fairly simple Bannerbear-generated ad like this can interest viewers as they scroll down their feeds:
But to get the best results, you should be producing content optimized for the targeted platform and audience. This mini-guide will help you produce LinkedIn video ads that hook viewers and entice them to see what else you have to offer. Let’s dive in!
LinkedIn Video Ad Overview
Videos bring sight, sound, and motion to users’ LinkedIn feeds and can be a fantastic way to engage them in every stage of the sales cycle. Your campaigns can be tailored to:
- Build brand awareness
- Drive consideration
- Generate conversions
Having a clear objective allows you to target the right audience at the right moment in their buyer journey.
LinkedIn offers Sponsored Content options to feature video ads on your page or showcase them in a prominent spot…
…but you can also use Direct Sponsored Content to route them to the feeds of a specific target audience.
There are many options for video ad customization—it’s just a matter of deciding what aligns with your goals while meeting the expectations of the platform.
Ad Specifications
LinkedIn provides a detailed list of recommendations to help you design video ads optimized for their platform. We’ll sum them up below:
Design Specifications
| Recommendation | |
|---|---|
| Video File Type | MP4 |
| Video Sound Format | AAC or MPEG4 |
| Recommended Frame Rate | 30 fps |
| Ratio | 4:5, 9:16, 16:9, 1:1 |
Text Recommendations
| Recommendation | |
|---|---|
| Ad Name (Optional) | 255 characters |
| Headline | 70 characters |
| Introductory Text | 150 characters |
Technical Requirements
| Requirement | |
|---|---|
| Video File Size | 75 KB (min) - 200 MB (max) |
| Video Duration | 3 seconds - 30 minutes |
| Minimum to Maximum Width | 360 pixels - 1920 pixels |
| Minimum to Maximum Height | 360 pixels - 1920 pixels |
| Minimum to Maximum Aspect Ratio | 9:16 (0.563) - 16:9 (1.778) |
Each video ad must have a landing page URL of up to 2000 characters and include a call to action, which may be one of the following:
- Apply
- Download
- View Quote
- Learn More
- Sign Up
- Subscribe
- Register
- Join
- Attend
- Request Demo
You can visit LinkedIn’s Video Ad Specifications page for the full list of recommendations.
Best Practices
There are endless ways to produce an informative and engaging ad that makes your brand stand out. Ultimately, you want to produce something that grabs attention and serves a purpose, which may be to inform, invite, or demonstrate. This means thinking like a viewer and providing them with value from the start.
Since the approach you use depends on your objectives, there is no one “right” way to run a great video ad. However, here are a few best practices that may increase your chances of success:
Prioritize Mobile
The majority of engagement with LinkedIn video content takes place on mobile devices, which means you should be creating content that caters to this tendency. Some ways to do this are:
- Using video dimensions optimized for mobile
- Adding subtitles
- Grabbing attention within the first 6 seconds
- Ensuring headlines and captions aren’t overwhelming on small screens
Catering to mobile users can significantly increase engagement because they are less likely to be discouraged by poor dimensions or overwhelming text.
Don’t Rely On Sound
A common user behavior shared by both mobile and desktop users is keeping the sound off when watching videos. If your ad’s message relies on audio, there’s a big chance that most viewers are missing it completely or scrolling past without interest.
Adding transcriptions to your videos improves viewers’ comprehension and retention, boosts the probability of viewers completing the video, and increases accessibliity to hearing-impaired viewers. And it’s an easy addition that doesn’t require much manual work at all!
Track Your Results
A clear, quantifiable look at ad performance helps you decide where your budget should be going. There are many ways to track results on LinkedIn, such as:
- Tracking conversions in the LinkedIn ads manager
- Collecting qualified leads by adding Lead Gen Forms to Sponsored Content Ads
- Analyzing performance by comparing metrics such as video views, video watch time, clicks, impressions, and social actions
- Understanding your audience with campaign demographic tracking
The insights you gain from thoughtful reporting will contribute to higher quality ads, better representation of your brand, and efficient use of resources.
Create More Than One Ad
Running 4-5 ads in a campaign can give it more exposure and allow you to make adjustments for highest performance. You can even break up longer ads into smaller segments, which can be shared in sequence to reveal which parts are the most enticing to viewers.
If you’re tracking your results, you’ll be able to see which ads are performing better and what seems to be the common denominator. Over time, you can taper off spending on ads that aren’t yielding the results you desire and focus on the ones that do.
Diversify Ad Formats
Remember that it isn’t just about the video (even though a big part of it is!). In the same way that running several video ads can increase exposure, diversifying ad formats can help you appeal to viewers who scroll past videos.
LinkedIn offers a variety of ad formats, including single image, carousel, message, text, document, and more. You can diversify placements, specify budget, and target the most appropriate audience for each item. The insights you gather over time will help with this. You may find a certain demographic to click through to your video ad landing page, while another prefers carousel ads.
Convert a Professional Audience With LinkedIn Video Ads
Video ads can help your brand stand out on users’ feeds so that you can meet your marketing goals. While following technical specifications and best practices can increase your chances of success, remember what your primary goal is: to appeal to your ideal viewer.
A deep understanding of your audience will help you design LinkedIn video ads that leave a lasting impression and drive leads. And if you want to use Bannerbear to produce dynamic videos following an ad template, here are some guides to get you started:
👉 How to Automatically Merge Video Clips, Voiceovers, and Subtitles with Bannerbear
👉 How to Generate News Summary Videos for Your Publishing Site
👉 How to Auto-generate Unique Video Banners with Pexels Stock Footage
