Whether you sell homemade candles or life insurance, there are countless ways to grow a business. But just as your product or service is unique and has its own audience, many business growth tools are best-suited to certain types of companies. If you're a B2B company that sells your products or services to other companies, you’re probably using LinkedIn to stay informed about your industry and to stay in touch or network with clients, but did you know that LinkedIn can be a fruitful advertising platform as well? From sponsored content to text ads, there are plenty of ways to get in front of your target audience on LinkedIn. But one of the most powerful methods is LinkedIn Lead Generation Ads, because it gathers sales data from potential customers in a professional online ecosystem where they’re only thinking about business and networking. In this piece, we’ll provide some helpful tips on how to use LinkedIn Lead Generation Ads to grow your business.

LinkedIn’s Lead Generation Ads direct users to fill out a form that you’ve created. The fields in this form can be simple (Name, Email Address, Phone Number—LinkedIn will autofill these fields using info from the user’s profile) or a bit more involved (“What are you looking for in a project management software?” “How much are you willing to spend on such a piece of software?”). LinkedIn collects these responses and allows you to download them for an easy list of leads.

But achieving the perfect balance of quantity and quality leads is a bit more complicated. Here are some things to keep in mind as you plan and execute your LinkedIn Lead Generation Ad campaign. Here are 5 easy ways to use LinkedIn lead generation ads for business growth:

1. Targeting by Niche - LinkedIn offers a huge number of targeting options for your lead generation ads. It might be tempting to cast a wide net with a broad targeting by industry or location, but keep in mind that messaging is not one-size-fits-all. If you try to appeal to a wide range of people, you might find that your messaging resonates less or that you have to water down your message for more mass appeal. The solution to this is micro-targeting or creating different campaigns with different messaging for specific job roles, companies, or groups on LinkedIn. This is certainly more work, but the results will be worth it.

2. Choosing the Right Message - As mentioned above, the more niche you can get with your audience and messaging, the better the chances are that it will resonate with them. As you develop each campaign, think about who you’re speaking to. What role do they occupy in the company? What pressures does that role come with? Where are they in the sales funnel and how can you help them in that step? Think back to conversations you’ve had with customers (and especially those who chose not to partner with your company) about what they liked about your offering or where it fell short. Addressing all of these in one simple, concise sales message can be difficult, but keep in mind that your messaging can evolve over time. Try A/B testing in your campaign or reach out to peers for their opinions.

3. Providing Great Incentives - Most users won’t spend their time filling out a form just because—you’ll see much better results if you incentivize their participation. Consider what a potential lead in your industry might find useful; think about where they are in their sales journey when they might be considering your product or service, and what role the person making those decisions might occupy. Many ads incentivize with a downloadable infographic, whitepaper, or other asset. The benefit here is twofold, as you are simultaneously incentivizing leads and getting your sales tools in front of more prospective customers.

4. Setting Your Budgets and Bids – As with many forms of online advertising, LinkedIn’s Lead Generation Ads allow you to run a campaign with as little as $10/day investment, but that’s not advised. For best results, plan to spend at least $45/day per campaign, because LinkedIn has a relatively high CPM rate (cost-per-thousand ad impressions) as compared to other ad networks. That means you’ll have to spend more per day to get enough volume to generate the clicks and leads you need to see results. LinkedIn will suggest a bid for your ad (how much you are willing to pay per click), which is a nice starting point, and you can adjust from there based on results.

5. Monitoring, Optimizing, and Adjusting - These online ads aren’t set-it-and-forget-it. You’ll want to closely monitor your campaign results in LinkedIn’s ad manager tool to identify stumbling blocks and opportunities. Over time, you’ll hone in on the targeting, messaging, and budget that delivers the best results.

Now that you know how to use LinkedIn Lead Generation Ads to grow your business, it’s time to build your campaign, create your first ad, adjust the targeting, and watch the leads roll in!