LinkedIn Unveils Conversation Ads

LinkedIn today introduced Conversation Ads to help marketers personalize their engagements within messaging apps.

Conversation Ads allow potential customers to choose their own paths, such as viewing webinars or downloading ebooks. They build on LinkedIn's current Message Ads offering (formerly Sponsored InMail). Users can create full-funnel campaigns with multiple customized calls to action that are only sent to currently active LinkedIn members.

Conversation Ads include a variety of options to help users serve more personalized content based on where prospects are in their customer journeys. And they can be used with other features, like Lead Gen Forms and Conversion Tracking. They are designed for real-time engagement, which means messages can only be sent when prospects are active on LinkedIn and in the right mindset.

"By turning ad engagements on LinkedIn from one-sided messages to two-sided conversations, Hired saw a big uptick in quality candidates entering the system," said Chase Gladden, growth marketing manager at Hired, in a statement. "The clickthrough rate was almost five times higher than what we'd seen previously, which goes to show the level of engagement is pretty wild when you're able to provide multiple opportunities to click."

Conversation Ads will be rolling out globally as a public beta to all advertisers in all languages, over the next few weeks.