How LinkedIn Ads Is Supporting The Virtual Events Trend

10/26/21

Chances are by now you’ve either organized or attended an online event you might not have prior to the pandemic.

In LinkedIn’s Best Practice Guide for Events, they mention…

  • 65% of B2B marketers are planning to reallocate some or most of their live event budgets to online events due to Covid-19.
  • The types of online events marketers are either promoting or executing themselves have expanded in variety in the last year-plus.
  • Companies are choosing virtual now more than ever for everything from community-building events like panel discussions, interviews and Q&As to workshops, product launches, and full-fledged conferences.

In the midst of that, LinkedIn has come alongside to support this trend with new products and features on their platform that support the promotion and hosting of online events.

This of course makes a ton of sense for their platform because event marketing is great for mid-funnel lead generation. You might even find that 10-20% of the companies that attend your event become new clients. It can be well worth the effort.

Driving Awareness with LinkedIn Events

Once you create an event on your LinkedIn company page, you can then use Event Ads to expand awareness and drive more attendees.

If you choose, you have the option to use LinkedIn Live. That allows you to live stream to your audience and it will notify attendees automatically when you go live.

To use the feature, you do need to leverage one of LinkedIn’s integrated third-party broadcast tools that allow you to stream to an event page.

You can utilize third-party streaming software other than LinkedIn Live as well. Once you integrate one of the third-party broadcasting tools, you can paste the live stream link into the Broadcast field in the event. This allows you to broadcast with streaming tools like Zoom, Webex or OBS.

You do have the option of using a registration form to collect names and emails from people who sign up for your event. This will likely cut down on the number willing to attend, but can be more valuable in the long run as you are able to work those leads.

If you’re promoting a ticketed event, you can add a link to an external website. Make sure to make it ultra-clear that attendees need to have a ticket.

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Mike Fleming

Mike Fleming is a Director of Paid Media at Granular, and has been managing PPC accounts of all kinds for over 10 years; with a strong emphasis in Analytics and Conversion Optimization. He’s a respected digital marketing blogger and speaker whose articles can be found on industry blogs like SEMRush.com and SearchEngineGuide.com. He also contributed to a published book called The Best Damn Web Marketing Checklist, Period!. Mike enjoys playing, writing and recording music, playing basketball and investing. He resides in Canton, Ohio with a girl who threw a snowball at him one day…then married him.