LinkedIn Adds Capabilities to Events Pages

LinkedIn today released several updates to the Virtual Events platform it introduced in May. The updates are geared toward helping companies grow attendees, collect leads, and boost reach with ads and retargeting capabilities.

They include new organic discovery features like personalized event recommendations in My Network tabs and a new weekly Events digest email. When companies post evenst on their Pages, LinkedIn will automatically notify followers who are most likely to attend.

To help companies capture leads from events, they can now include free registration forms for events, collect the names and emails of people who signed up, download lists from event pages and send them thank-you emails, and upload lists to CRM systems andshare them with sales teams.

Companies can now also run Sponsored Content Single Image Ads alongside organic posts to promote events, include event URLs as the destination in campaigns, and see how ads perform against a new set of event-specific reporting metrics, like the total number of registrants and views and clicks on the ad that led to event registrations.

Users can then retarget prior event registrants, creating custom target audiences in Campaign Manager based on those who have responded to other LinkedIn Events.

"Stay tuned for more updates in the coming months, including advanced event analytics, a new Events Ad format, and attendee networking options that help capture the magic of in-person events," Ajay Datta, director of product management for LinkedIn Events, wrote in a blog post. "Until then, we can't wait to see the events you host on LinkedIn."