It can be a struggle to stand out in a crowded market and turn casual browsers into loyal customers. We get it! But we’re also here to give you a solution to this problem – LinkedIn ads that attract a high-value audience and then nurture them with a hyper-personalised email journey.
Here, we’ll give you the tools to be able to market your e-commerce business, while building relationships and still making those sales!
There’s a reason why LinkedIn ads and personalised ecommerce email marketing journeys are your next secret weapons. There’s a current misconception that LinkedIn can only be used for corporate sales; however, we’re here to break that stigma.
LinkedIn ads are actually a goldmine for B2C ecommerce, too, especially for products with a specific professional or enthusiastic target audience. LinkedIn holds unique targeting capabilities that allow you to find high-value customers, for example, by job title, industry or company size.
For example, if your business sells sustainable home goods, you can begin to target people who work in environmentally conscious industries.
While LinkedIn ads are a great way to acquire more business, taking your new customers on a personalised email journey is the best way to create and maintain trust and loyalty, as this is where you can move from a transactional mindset to a more relational one. This is where you can develop a more personal channel with your customers and create your own digital real estate.
This is the point at which you’ll define your dream customer. You need to remember that you can’t target customers without a clear picture of who you’re looking for. You can then begin to discuss a detailed ‘buyer persona’ based on professional demographics and any relevant interests related to your product or service.
Next, you’ll begin to craft your ad strategy and will end up with a robust LinkedIn ad campaign. The best type of ads for e-commerce marketing include sponsored content, video ads and lead gen forms. Here are the positives and negatives of each LinkedIn ad format:
Sponsored content ads are the most common type of LinkedIn ad and can appear natively in the user’s feed, blending in with regular posts and can also include images and carousels. Sponsored content has more of a native feel and comes across as more of a regular post.
Also, sponsored content ads are a great way of being able to share valuable content, such as blog posts or case studies, helping you establish your brand as a credible expert in your field. Sponsored content can also be paired with lead gen forms to capture information from interested prospects directly within the LinkedIn platform.
Unfortunately, there are also negatives to using sponsored content. For example, the cost-per-click (CPC) on LinkedIn is usually higher than on other platforms. So, you’ll need to ensure that you have a big enough budget to be able to see worthwhile results.
Also, the click-through rates for sponsored content ads are often lower on LinkedIn when compared to other social media platforms due to the audience being more professional and with a less casual mindset.
LinkedIn video ads can be used to capture the attention of the audience in the form of storytelling. Naturally, videos are more engaging than static images and can also lead to higher engagement rates. Videos help you convey more complex messages, showcase your product in action and share customer testimonials in a more visually compelling way.
Also, videos allow you to make a stronger impression, being more memorable than text-based ads, which is great for building brand awareness. Similar to this, video campaigns will often result in more qualified leads as they offer more in-depth education for the audience before they click.
Videos, however, can be more expensive and time-consuming to create compared to static images or text–based ads. They can also have lower CTRs compared to other platforms, despite the lead quality being higher. Creating videos, while versatile, also means that you need to adhere to certain best practices, like adding in subtitles, to ensure their success.
Lead gen forms can be used with both sponsored content and sponsored message ads, allowing users to submit their information with a single click without having to leave LinkedIn.
Users are able to convert with only a few clicks as the forms are pre-filled with the user’s LinkedIn profile data. This is especially useful on mobile, and because of this, there is a more seamless user experience associated with lead gen forms.
Also, the information collected with lead gen forms is collected directly from a user’s profile, making the information accurate. This way, you’re able to acquire valuable data, such as their job title and company. Lead gen forms are the most efficient way to gain leads.
However, you may lose out on website traffic, as the conversion now happens on LinkedIn rather than on your website. Also, you’ll have limited customisation opportunities with LinkedIn forms, which limits your ability to fully control the user experience and to build your brand’s identity.
Remember that you need to ensure the content for your ads speaks directly to your audience’s professional identity or their aspirations. This includes using high-quality visuals, too. With e-commerce marketing, your main goal is to get the email addresses of your prospects and not necessarily to gain a click to your product page. Lead gen forms are the best way to do this.
Your next step will be to segment your audience based on the information you acquired through LinkedIn. You can also use LinkedIn’s built-in targeting options to build a highly specific audience before anyone sees your ads. You can target your ads specifically for certain job descriptions, seniority function, industry and company size, or skills.
As well as this, you can segment your audience based on behaviour and interests, such as specific groups, users who have shown interest in specific topics, or through website retargeting by using matched audiences to target people who have previously visited your website or engaged with your content.
You can also segment your audience by using custom questions on your form. You can do this in the following ways:
Ask a qualifying question: you can use a question that will help you determine if a certain lead is a good fit for your business.
Identify pain points: Ask your audience what their biggest challenges are, as this gives your sales team valuable insights for their outreach.
Use multiple-choice questions: these are usually easy to answer with one click, which can help you segment them without causing form abandonment.
Once you have segmented your audience into specific groups in whichever way makes more sense to your company, you’ll need to begin nurturing those prospects with a personalised email journey.
Okay, so you have a juicy email list, so what next? The in-between period from a successful LinkedIn ad to an email journey is probably one of the most crucial parts of the customer journey, as this is where the magic happens.
Behavioural triggers
Next, you should be looking to set up automated email sequences that are based on the actions that your prospects take. For example:
Welcome emails: Here’s where the saying ‘first impressions count’ needs to be taken into consideration. Here, you can set the tone with a series that introduces your brand and that tells your story. Abandoned cart emails: Here, you can capitalise on using personalisation to remind them of any items they’ve left in the cart.
Follow-up emails: By sending follow-up emails, you’re able to build loyalty with your clients. Think about sending product care tips, ‘hot-to’ guides or personalised recommendations for complementary products. Re-engagement emails: For the times when you have prospects or clients who haven’t engaged in a while, you can send personalised ‘we miss you’ emails.
Something to consider when implementing a personalised email journey for your clients is to use data to make your emails feel more one-to-one. You can do this by analysing the purchase history of your clients and using this to give them product recommendations.
Also, take into consideration adding social proof to your campaigns. This can include reviews from other customers that are in a similar professional field, or user-generated content (UGC).
It is important to take into consideration the tools needed to make a personalised e-commerce marketing email journey work. For example, using a CRM or marketing automation platform that can integrate with your e-commerce store, as well as LinkedIn, will help with a seamless approach.
This will act as the central nervous system to your e-commerce marketing campaign. Here, you’ll build your email campaigns, design your automated journeys and manage your contact lists. If you want to take creating personalised email journeys seriously, you’ll need a platform that has specific features, for example:
This will give you the ability to create complex and multi-step workflows. Also, make sure that you use a visual journey designer that allows you to set triggers throughout the email journey, such as when a customer abandons a cart or when you get a lead from a specific LinkedIn ad. You can then automate the follow-up messages.
By using an email campaign that is able to resonate with your customers, you’ll be able to trigger emails that are relevant to the actions of your customers. This can include viewing a product, adding a product to their basket, or making a purchase. Here, you can also include product recommendations.
As mentioned above, being able to segment your audience is one of the best ways to personalise your customers’ email journeys. This way, your emails can be as personalised as needed, basing your segments on things like purchase history, browsing behaviour and demographic data collected through lead gen forms.
To be able to personalise the email journey of your customers, you need to understand them as much as possible. A CDP or a CRM is what you can use to make this possible. For example:
Unified customer profiles: CDPs will help you collect data from your different sources (website, email campaigns, social media ads and any offline interactions) and combine it into a single comprehensive profile for each customer.
Behavioural tracking: A suitable CRM will also be able to track a user’s behaviour across your website, such as which pages have been visited, the products they clicked on and how much time they spent on each page. This data will support you in creating targeted email campaigns.
Advanced audience segmentation: now, you can go beyond basic segmentation and can create micro-segments that are based on a combination of behavioural, demographic and professional data. For example, you could create a segment for “first-time purchasers who are marketing directors in the technology industry.”
Now, you’ll be able to add on an extra layer of personalisation to your emails that makes the email journey stand out that much more.
AI-powered product recommendations: These can be used to analyse a customer’s behaviour and to recommend products that customers are likely to buy.
Dynamic content: With a tool like this, you’ll be able to change the content of an email based on the information of the recipient.
Survey and feedback tools: This way, you can gain a better understanding of your customers.
One thing that is for sure is that you simply cannot put all your eggs in one basket. Integration is extremely important if you want to implement a killa, personalised email journey for your customers.
Essentially, you need to ensure that your LinkedIn ads feed into your CRM, which can also be connected to your email automation platform. So, the data that you collect from customer actions from your website should flow back into your CRM, which can then trigger a more personalised email journey for your customers. Think of it as a circular process where each bit of data informs the next step in the customer’s journey.
There are key metrics that you should be looking at to better understand the impact of your ecommerce marketing campaign. For example, when looking at LinkedIn, it’s best to keep track of click-through rates, cost per conversion and lead quality.
When looking at the data from your email campaign, you should be keeping an eye on open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates and the average order value. Once you have these metrics, you can also then measure the ROI of your LinkedIn ads by tracking conversions that came from the email campaigns.
Okay – there’s a lot to digest here, so let’s recap on the main key points. The first step will be to decide on the type of LinkedIn ads you want to use. Once you have created your ads (we recommend using lead gen forms as they are more likely to draw in traffic), you need to decide which audience you want to target and how you want to segment the data you have received.
The next step of your campaign is to personalise email journeys for your prospects and customers. Find out what their pain points are and figure out a way to solve them for them. Also, be sure to create follow-up emails to keep your audience hooked.
One of the most important things to remember is that integration is king! Make sure all of your platforms feed into one another so that you have an endless loop of triggers and information that can inform your next steps.
Lastly, make sure that you analyse your metrics so that you know what to work on! After all, you want to take your prospective clients on an engaging eCommerce marketing journey, from the top of the funnel, right to the bottom!
For your next e-commerce marketing campaign, be sure to get in touch with our friendly team of experts at Assisted. Get in touch today on 01788 288020.
We know how to do this stuff!