LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms:

Best Practices Handbook

2

Content

• Preparing For Launch

• Content and Form Creation

• Bid, Budget, and Audience

• Reporting

Preparing for Launch

Sponsored

Content

Image (1200 x 627px)

Introductory

Text(150 Characters)

Assets Needed to Begin

1

Lead Gen Form

Offer Headline(40 characters)

Offer detail(2 lines of text,

~70 characters)

Privacy Policy

URL (required)

Thank you page

“Thank You” message(155 characters) URL for

members to visit after

submission

2 3

To create the updates and create the

forms:

You’ll need a company page admin to grant you DSC Poster

Access or Co Page Admin Access on the company page

You’ll need campaign manager or account manager access within

the Campaign Manager tool business account

Access Needed to Start a Lead Form Campaign

To download lead data:

You’ll need to be a company page admin or have a company page

admin grant you Lead Manager Access the same way they do

DSC poster access

Pilot advertisers will not need to regain access in their pilot account

Must start a NEW campaign in order to

select lead form capability as your objectives

Content and Form Creation

Content & Form Creation

Do not ask for too

much information

Less is more. 3-4 fields

is a good best practice.

If opens are high but

leads are low, it could

be that you have too

many fields. Put

yourself in the

member’s shoes.

Try not to include

fields requiring

manual input

Phone number and

gender, or fields that

may not be listed on a

member’s profile

already, require the

member to manually

type the information in

before submitting.

Members cannot submit

form with blank fields.

Content and Forms

cannot be edited after

they are saved.

If you need to make

changes to the content

or form, turn them off

and re-create.

You can duplicate a

form, make edits to it,

and then save the new

form template.

Rotate 3-4 ads evenly

Share same SC

frequency cap so

having 3-4 variations is

ideal.

Start by rotating evenly

before optimizing for

CTR.

Make sure images and

copy are relevant

throughout

As member clicks from

the update through the

form, make sure the

messaging is

consistent.

Test different forms and

find what works best for

you

Be direct. Make sure

messaging matches

the CTA.

Keep in mind lead

forms are bottom

funnel. Be upfront with

the value the member is

getting by giving their

information.

Previewing your ad and

form

Note that forms will go through

“review” in the same way that

sponsored content does today.

Under the “Ads” tab,

click “Lead Gen Forms”.

Click through to see the

creative, the form, and

“Thank You” message.

Bid, Budget, and Audience

Bid, Budget, and Audience

Bid competitively to

start

When launching your

first campaign, bid at

the mid to high end of

the suggested range

If campaign is

reaching daily

budget consistently,

optimize the set up

Increase daily spend

and/or lower bids for

more cost efficiency

Start with a broad

audience and

optimize based on

the persona you’re

seeing the most

interest from

Make sure daily

spend fits the size

of the audience you

are trying to reach

$100 daily spend on a

1M audience size will

not have an impactful

SOV

Save audiences as

templates

LinkedIn offers the

option to save

audiences from other

campaigns and use

them again in future

campaigns.

Duplicating a current

sponsored content

campaign into a lead

form campaign is

currently unavailable.

As a proxy use saved

audiences.

Reporting

Reporting

All Lead Metrics can

be found in the

leads tab of the

campaign manager

dashboard

Leads

Lead form opens

Lead form completion

rate

Cost per Lead

Total Spent

Attributing leads to

a specific update or

campaign

Click into the

individual campaign

in the CM tool and

break down the lead

data by update

Download a report by

ad performance or

campaign

performance per

month.

If using our lead

data CSV download,

be sure to download

data at least every

90 days as leads

will not be stored

for longer than that.

Reporting

Leads are included in the

drop down to show leads

by day

Demographic information

will be added for leads

by end of April

Reporting

Conversion tracking

cannot be used on

Lead Form

Campaigns but can

be tested in a

campaign

alongside.

Comparing cost per conversion vs. cost per lead

If testing the success of the lead form campaign versus

conversions on your landing page, run conversion tracking on

a regular sponsored content campaign at the same time.

Compare costs and quality.

CSV File Example

Why you will be reporting more clicks than opens

There is going to be a drop off from clicks to

opens. Here are the 3 click through scenarios:

1. Click on the logo <-- counted as a click,

not as an open

2. Click the update and member opens

form <-- counted as both a click and an

open

3. Click the social pill <-- counted as a

click, not as an open

All OPENS are CLICKS but not all CLICKS are

OPENS.

Understanding Clicks vs. Opens with Lead Form Campaigns

Click: to company

page

Click: to form

Bonus Information - Added Value Leads:

Viral Experience → If a member in the paid audience shares the

update, it will appear in their network’s feed as a lead gen form

update! Leads captured will be reflected in the CM tool.

Click: Social Pill