LinkedIn Adverts vs. Google Adverts: A 30-Day Comparative Evaluation

In a 30-day experiment, we pitted LinkedIn Adverts towards Google Adverts to see which platform provides the perfect worth for our promoting spend. Listed here are the outcomes.

Promoting Context

The objective of this promoting initiative is to drive web site engagement for our software program product, Bionic for Businesses, which is SaaS software program utilized by promoting businesses for media planning and media shopping for.

Given the B2B nature of this marketing campaign, it appears LinkedIn can be a very good platform for promoting. I used to be curious to know the way LinkedIn Promoting performs towards Google Adverts.

Though we’ve run advertisements on LinkedIn many instances over time, that is the primary time we’ve completed a rigorous side-by-side comparability. Due to the massive variations between the platforms in advert codecs, viewers focusing on, and different components, it might by no means be a really apples-to-apples comparability. Nevertheless, we did our greatest to create a fair enjoying discipline.

Right here’s a deep dive into our findings from our advertisements that ran for 30 days from September 21, 2023 to October 20, 2023.

Spend Overview

For this experiment, we created two campaigns every with a $10,000 funds. Right here is how a lot we really spent in the course of the analysis interval:

LinkedIn Adverts: $8,367.08

Google Adverts: $8,720.16

Whereas the funding was practically related for each platforms (with Google Adverts being barely greater by about $353.08), the outcomes had been fairly distinct.

Impressions: Amount vs. Price

LinkedIn took the lead with nearly double the impressions (32,658) in comparison with Google Adverts (17,218). Nevertheless, it’s not nearly amount. The Price per 1000 Impressions (CPM) on LinkedIn was $256.20, considerably decrease than Google Adverts’ CPM of $506.46. (Conspiracy concept: Google’s astronomical CPM might be why it’s inconceivable to report on CPM of their advert shopping for platform.)

This means that LinkedIn was more cost effective when it comes to viewers attain. Nevertheless, it’s necessary to notice that each of those platforms are much more costly than different platforms on a CPM foundation.

Engagement: Clicks and High quality

Google Adverts stole the present when it got here to engagement.

Google generated 608 clicks which led to web site periods, which is greater than thrice the 179 periods from LinkedIn. Furthermore, the distinction in cost-effectiveness of those engagements was stark. The price per session on Google Adverts ($14.34) was a fraction in comparison with LinkedIn’s ($46.74).

Moreover, the standard of engagement was greater on Google Adverts, with customers spending a median of 37 seconds, nearly double LinkedIn’s 20 seconds.

The engagement price additional illustrated this distinction. Google periods achieved a 51.31% engagement price whereas LinkedIn got here in at 23.46%. In our case, engagement price is outlined because the share of periods that lasted longer than 10 seconds, had a conversion occasion, or had 2 or extra display or web page views. In different phrases, periods the place they didn’t instantly bounce.

Conversions: The Final ROI Metric

The conversion metric was maybe probably the most telling.

LinkedIn Adverts, sadly, couldn’t drive any conversions. Though we’ve by no means been “crushing it” with our promoting, it’s extraordinarily uncommon to get shut out on conversions. It makes me surprise what sort of site visitors is coming from LinkedIn.

In distinction, Google Adverts produced 21 conversions, costing a median of $415.26 per conversion. Though this value per conversion could appear excessive, we love this consequence. It’s considerably higher than the objective we’ve got set based mostly on our economics. Backside line, we’ll do that all day lengthy.

Our Key Takeaways

Here’s what we realized from our experiment:

1. Effectivity in Spend: Google Adverts supplied extra bang for the buck when it comes to clicks, engagement, and conversions.
2. Engagement High quality: Google Adverts’ site visitors was not solely greater in quantity but additionally superior in high quality, evident from the engagement time and price.
3. Conversions: Google Adverts was the clear winner, making it a better option for these specializing in ROI.
4. Visibility and Attain: If the objective is model visibility and maximizing attain, LinkedIn’s greater impressions at a decrease CPM make it a contender.

If conversions and engagement are the first objectives of your media plan, Google Adverts is the clear winner right here. Nevertheless, for campaigns specializing in model visibility amongst professionals, LinkedIn nonetheless has its deserves.

Because of this take a look at, we shifted our advert spending from LinkedIn Promoting to Google Promoting. Nevertheless, we’ll maintain testing LinkedIn to see if we will get it to work.