September 23, 2020
Microsoft Advertising launches LinkedIn profile targeting in Canada for search marketing.
In 2016, Microsoft acquired LinkedIn for $26 billion. Two years later, Microsoft Advertising released a BETA (U.S. only) within their search platform that allowed advertisers to utilize LinkedIn data to augment their online presence and/or narrow their targeting capabilities towards business professionals. The LinkedIn targeting parameters included job function, industry and company.
On September 4th, 2020, Microsoft fully released this feature across several countries, including Canada.
Incorporating LinkedIn data for Microsoft’s search network is an incredible advantage for B2B advertisers – it helps them narrow in on their target audience in order to build brand affinity and improve campaign performance.
For instance, there are many high-volume search queries that may be applicable to consumers and business professionals. As a B2B advertiser, it may not be worth choosing these keywords in a search campaign as serving ads to the wrong target audience may cause poor performance, which can lead to an increase in undesirable costs. Instead of B2B advertisers avoiding these high-volume and relevant search queries, they can now confidently apply LinkedIn data to reach the appropriate audience while serving relevant content.
Although Microsoft Advertising has a lower market share than Google across all devices (5.04% mobile & desktop market share and a 19.04% desktop market share), it would be a missed opportunity for B2B advertisers not to take advantage of this highly-effective targeting tool – quality always trumps quantity.