LinkedIn turned itself into a business-to-business display-ad powerhouse, capturing 47% of B2B digital display spending in 2024, according to eMarketer. Now it wants to take on connected TV.
On Wednesday, LinkedIn announced a range of new video features targeted to its B2B advertising client base. Notable among the expansion are new capabilities being added to the company’s connected TV ad offering, which was introduced in partnership with NBCUniversal 13 months ago and allows U.S. and Canadien B2B advertising clients to reach decision-makers via premium streaming video content.
Previously known as LinkedIn Premiere, the social network’s CTV Select offering has now added Paramount streaming inventory to its portfolio. With that offering, brands can “run campaigns served exclusively on a single publisher’s streaming portfolio with fixed pricing” – which now means they can combine LinkedIn’s professional audience data and Paramount’s streaming inventory. Meanwhile, the addition of VAST tag capabilities (Video Ad Serving Template), powered by Innovid, allow B2B marketers to use existing video assets and repurpose creative within the Innovid platform to run CTV ads targeting LinkedIn’s audiences. According to LinkedIn, this streamlines delivery of high-quality assets across CTV screens.
LinkedIn is also partnering with Sprinklr to implement the first use of the social network’s CTV API, enabling advertiser clients to create, edit and manage their CTV campaigns.
Back in October, in partnership with MAGNA Media Trials, LinkedIn published a 33-page report supporting its belief in CTV’s advertising efficacy for its B2B clients. The research found that 94% of the LinkedIn audience, which touted 1.1 billion users worldwide as of the end of January, watches, to some degree, connected TV with ads. The report also determined that B2B advertising on CTV platforms was viewed by audiences as being just as, if not more, appropriate versus blogs or news websites.
“With our LinkedIn CTV Ad campaign, we were able to do something every marketer wants to do but is very hard to do —unlocking full-funnel performance with demand generation and lead generation at the same time,” said Jonathan Vu, VP of marketing, media and sponsorships for ServiceNow, delivering a product testimonial on behalf of the social network.
Other video-related features being introduced by LinkedIn include First Impression ads. Designed to maximize single-day effectiveness, this new offering guarantees a client’s full-screen, vertical-video ad will be the first one targeted users see on any given day, and in any given country.
Reserved Ads, meanwhile, place sponsored content including thought-leader essays and single-image ads in the first ad slot in targeted user feeds, increasing impressions, attention and recall beyond day one.
LinkedIn also announced a partnership with Adobe Express in an effort to streamline and simplify video ad creation for its smaller business clients.