Let’s get this straight.
What’s the main goal of your landing page?
To gather information about your prospects.
But, how about if you could have your forms straight on your LinkedIn ads?
In this guide, we take a look at how to create LinkedIn lead gen forms and how you can leverage them for maximum growth.
What are LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms?
LinkedIn lead gen forms are ads that have forms built into them.
Instead of using an ad to direct your prospects to your lead capture forms on your website, you can start grabbing leads from LinkedIn itself.
Why Use LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms?
The beauty of LinkedIn lead gen forms is they allow you to have your form on the LinkedIn ad itself minimizing the number of steps that you a prospect has in giving you their information.
It’s an ad type that’s built for automatic conversions.
It’s Easy
If you just want to run a quick campaign for your company page and you don’t have a website or anything fancy set up, LinkedIn lead gen forms are a quick way of collecting leads off of LinkedIn itself.
The Leads are Verified (Somewhat)
The great thing about these forms is that they are powered by LinkedIn so most of the fields are prepopulated from information from the source itself. You get free enrichment built into what you do!
You Can Download Your Leads
At any point during the campaign, you have the option to download the leads that you have and do with them as you wish.
Prospects Can Visit Your Website After the Form is Completed
You can add a link for them to get to your website after they fill up your form. This allows you to continue their marketing journey and provide them with extra information that will help the nurturing process and hype them up before you first touch base with them.
How to Create LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms (Steps)
The first thing you want to do is to sign into LinkedIn campaign manager.
On the left-hand side, click on “Assets” and then select “Lead Gen Forms”.
Click on “Create form”.
Add the form name, select the language of your prospects and write your headline.
You can choose to add offer details, but keep this section short.
Add your privacy policy URL or text if you want to. This is important as it shows that you’re respectable when it comes to handling your prospect’s information.
Now comes the fun part, you can start selecting what fields you want to collect.
However, just because you can collect information about them, stop yourself from clicking on everything, it makes you look shady.
You will also have the option to create three custom questions, use them wisely or not at all. The goal is to make things as short as possible.
Add a confirmation message once they’re done with filling up your form, and make sure that you’re leading them to a landing page on your website.
Lastly, you have hidden fields if you want to use them to track responses.
Now all that’s left for you to do is to click on “Agree & Create” and you’re good to go!
Technical Specs According to LinkedIn
Form Name: 256 characters
https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/success/ads-guide/lead-gen-forms
Landing page URL: 2000 characters
Offer Headline: 60 characters
Offer Detail (optional): 160 characters
Privacy Policy: 2000 characters
Call-to-Action: 20 characters
Confirmation Message: 300 characters
Tips for Using Lead Gen Forms
Track Your Data
We won’t go into intense detail regarding this here. However, you need to track the data that your form is generating.
You can check out your campaign status using LinkedIn’s campaign manager. This will allow you to see what works and if you should tweak your campaign accordingly.
Don’t overload the form
One of the reasons we like LinkedIn lead gen forms is the fact that they are already pre-filled. Now if you want to add more fields that’s up to you, but remember your goal with forms is to make the prospect’s journey an easy one.
This means removing as many barriers to entry as you can.
The fewer the fields, the lesser the distraction.
As of the time of this writing, they allow 3 custom questions. If you can keep it to 1, do it.
Think About Your Copy
Your marketing copy is still the most critical part of your entire ad campaign.
However, determining if it works is tricky.
You want to run an A/B test, get as many eyes on it as you, and continually tweak it until you get your desired results.
Read more: LinkedIn Personal Branding Tips: 15 Things To Give Your Profile an Edge
Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile
You want to make sure that all your profiles on LinkedIn, whether it be your company profile or your personal one are optimized. Your prospect might want to check out your company after they see your form.
Everything has to be designed to convert.
Caveat: Organic Still Wins in Our Books
Never go full-blast with your ads and neglect your organic LinkedIn campaign.
Organic campaigns and paid ads always work hand-in-hand in bringing in traffic for your organization whether it be strictly on LinkedIn or on your website.
It’s true that succeeding with organic campaigns is a little more difficult than the ease of paid ads, but you can build a lot of traction with organic content. On the plus side, running an organic campaign costs a fraction of paid one.
Most of BAMF’s clients who rely solely on organic marketing campaigns have found a lot of success in the fields of thought leadership and lead generation, and they have found their following to grow more when things are handled organically.
Caveat: You Still Need to Lead Nurture
Here’s the thing.
Just because you have forms embedded in your campaign itself doesn’t mean you’ll get a lot of leads coming in.
You still need to nurture leads and this always starts at the brand awareness stage.
The technique for getting folks to signup with you is to build a little rapport.
It’s like dating.
You want to ask for their number right away.
But, sometimes you have to make an effort o get to know them first.
Not every first line is going to work unless they’re on the lookout for someone.
So build credibility, and nurture your leads, regardless if you have a LinkedIn lead gen form.
Takeaways
Now that you know how to create LinkedIn lead gen forms, you’re ready to go right?
Not quite.
Ad-powered lead gen forms are not the be-all and end-all in terms of LinkedIn ads.
And, just because you have them doesn’t mean you can rely on them for all your lead generation needs.
They are just a small part of your overall unified campaign.
A tool in your toolkit.
You still need to create a bigger strategy to drive in leads.
