14 Powerful LinkedIn Thought Leader Ad Strategies Worth Testing

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Alejandro Perez

Everyone knows that B2B buying has changed. 

People trust people more than they trust companies, making thought leadership ads more important than ever before. 

If you’re looking to use thought leader ads in your LinkedIn ad strategy but aren’t sure how to get started, this article is for you. 

Here are 14 thought leader ad plays and examples you can test. 

Let’s jump into it! 👇

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Play #1: Announce new product features, integrations, and partnerships

🔑 to success: Trust your audience. Target the experts and speak to them like they’re experts. Show them all the cool things they’ll be able to achieve with your product. 

Example 1: Dreamdata

LinkedIn thought leader ad by Marie-Claire Silfer discussing LinkedIn Ads with an infographic comparing a sales funnel before and after using LinkedIn Intent Data

Example 2: Gong 

LinkedIn thought leader ad by Amit Bendov, CEO and Co-Founder at Gong.io, promoting Auto-MEDDICC, an AI-powered deal-checking tool.

Example 3: UserGems 

LinkedIn thought leader ad by Blaise Bevilacqua discussing the importance of signals in outbound sales strategies.

Example 4: Dreamdata

LinkedIn thought leader ad by Steffen Hedebrandt, Co-founder at Dreamdata.io, discussing the benefits of using LinkedIn’s new Conversion API

Play #2: Highlight the main problem your product solves + the solution it provides

🔑 to success: After prospects read your content, they should be able to clearly articulate the problem your product solves + the solution it provides. If they can’t, you need to simplify your messaging. 

Example 1: Apollo

LinkedIn thought leader ad by David Malpass, SVP of Marketing at Apollo.io, emphasizing the importance of automation in sales.

Play #3: Highlight a case study featuring your own company

🔑 to success: Show how your team is using YOUR tool to reach YOUR goals – your company can serve as its own case study. 

Example 1: UserGems

LinkedIn thought leader ad by Courtney Huggins Rives, ADR at UserGems, discussing the challenges of keeping up with changes in buying committees

Example 2: Apollo

LinkedIn thought leader ad by Leandra Fishman, Chief Revenue Officer at Apollo.io, emphasizing the importance of making a good first impression during sales calls.

Example 3: Sendoso

LinkedIn thought leader ad by Junior Lartey from Sendoso, advocating for personalized sales strategies.

Example 4: Salesloft

LinkedIn thought leader ad by Jordan LeuVoy, Enterprise Account Executive at Salesloft, discussing the benefits of Salesloft’s Rhythm workflow for sales efficiency.

Play #4: Highlight a case study featuring one of your customers 

🔑 to success: Clearly articulate how you’ve been helping an existing customer achieve their goals. 

Example 1: Lavender 

LinkedIn thought leader ad by Taylor Johnson, Account Executive, highlighting an email training session conducted on April 2nd with the team using Lavender.

Example 2: Loxo 

LinkedIn thought leader ad by Matt Chambers showcasing Loxo’s recruitment benefits and first placement success.

Play #5: Generate buzz before attending an in-person event

🔑 to success: Use an ABM list of attendees or ABM list of companies + key job functions to make sure you’re getting in front of the right people. 

Example 1: HockeyStack

LinkedIn thought leader ad by Canberk Beker about HockeyStack’s participation in TECH WEEK by a16z.

Play #6: Stay top of mind after an event

🔑 to success: Have an attendee post a recap after an event so that your brand is staying top of mind in the following weeks. The idea isn’t to push your product, but to keep raising awareness within key accounts. 

Example 1: Sendoso

LinkedIn thought leader ad by Katie Penner praising Sendoso’s dedication at the Arizona event.

Play #7: Promote your own event

🔑 to success: Have your event speakers announce their participation on their personal pages and boost the posts to increase overall reach. This is a win for the speakers and for your company – speakers will feel supported and your event will get more registrations. 

Example 1: Gleanin 

LinkedIn thought leader ad by Karin Hausmann promoting ACTIVATE 2024 marketing event.

Example 2: Gleanin 

LinkedIn thought leader ad by Penny Brazier discussing her talk at Activate event marketers conference.

Play #8: Promote an upcoming webinar

🔑 to success: Clearly highlight the value of the webinar for your audience – what will they learn by attending? Make sure to tag the speakers to generate more interest. 

Example 1: Sendoso 

LinkedIn thought leader ad by Kacie Jenkins on AI-driven outbound marketing success.

Example 2: Copy ai 

LinkedIn thought leader ad by Kyle Coleman on AI solutions for GTM strategy improvement.

Example 3: DoWhatWorks

LinkedIn thought leader ad by Andres Glusman promoting a partnership between DoWhatWorks and Amplitude for a webinar.

Play #9: Promote your newsletter

🔑 to success: Keep it simple & highlight what people will get out of subscribing. 

Example 1: Motion 

LinkedIn thought leader ad by Reza Khadjavi introducing creative strategy newsletter Thumbstop.

Play #10: Celebrate customer wins

🔑 to success: Highlight customers when they win an award or achieve something big. This strategy provides social proof to help with prospecting efforts, but it’s also a great retention play, as it makes existing clients feel supported. 

Example 1: Sendoso

LinkedIn thought leader ad by Katie Penner celebrating Blue Yonder’s ABM Program win.

Example 2: Lavender

LinkedIn thought leader ad by Will Allred highlighting Trinity Nguyen’s success with Lavender.

Play #11: Demo different use cases of your product

🔑 to success: Have a senior leader – from your own company or one of your customers – educate prospects on how they can use your product to achieve their business goals. 

Example 1: Dreamdata 

LinkedIn thought leader ad by Steffen Hedebrandt demonstrating LinkedIn Ads Engagement insights.

Example 2: Clay 

LinkedIn thought leader ad by Michel Lieben showcasing Clay’s AI formula generator for prospecting.

Example 3: Clay

LinkedIn thought leader ad by Michel Lieben explaining Clay’s AI agent for competitor analysis

Play #12: Share long-form content with insights that your ICP would be interested in

🔑 to success: Don’t tell everyone how great your product is – instead, show them the insights they could have access to if they used it. Also, make the content industry-specific. For example, content about conversion impact or email subject lines in B2B SaaS will be much more powerful than content about conversions or email in general. 

Example 1: HockeyStack

LinkedIn thought leader ad by Canberk Beker analyzing product experiences in B2B SaaS conversions.

Play #13: Provide practical advice based on insights from your platform

🔑 to success: Don’t provide generic advice that people have heard many times. Instead, give advice that your ICP may find surprising, and always back it up with data from your platform. This strategy is powerful because potential buyers will be grateful for the thought leader’s recommendations AND they’ll also relate the thought leader’s content to your organization (and hopefully be interested in learning more). 

Example 1: Lavender

LinkedIn thought leader ad by Will Allred on optimizing CTAs in cold emails for better engagement.

Play #14: Leverage social proof from existing customers

🔑 to success: Promote content from respected customers within your target industry highlighting the use cases and overall impact of your product.

Example 1: UserGems 

LinkedIn thought leader ad by Brian LaManna celebrating a swift deal closure using UserGems.

Example 2: Clay

LinkedIn thought leader ad by Fabian Herhold featuring Claygent AI bot for data-driven copywriting.

Putting LinkedIn Thought Leader ads into action

If you’re excited about thought leadership ads and want to start running them right away, here’s what I would recommend:

1. Find a few people at your organization that would be great thought leaders. They don’t need to be influencers with 50K followers – they simply need to have a deep understanding of your product and your ICP (bonus if they also enjoy writing).  

2. Once you’ve selected your thought leaders, choose the top 3 strategies from this playbook that you’d like to begin with. I don’t recommend starting with all 14 strategies at once, since that could get pretty overwhelming. 

3. Have your thought leaders post a few times per month and boost their content to your ICP.

That’s all you need to get started. 

P.S.

If  you’re starting out with thought leadership ads, I recommend using the engagement objective to build your retargeting audiences in a cost-effective way. 

And if you want a complete masterclass on LinkedIn ads objectives, ad types, and bidding strategies, I highly recommend checking out this article by Ali Yildirim. 

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Alejandro Perez
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