LinkedIn offers businesses a great way to connect with decision makers, sales reps, and executives in a variety of east-to-operate options. Connecting with your target audience allows your business to directly market its message to those who will impact your bottom line. Each of the advertising options offered by LinkedIn provides you with an affordable and flexible way to connect with your target audience, whether you want to grow your network, increase exposure to your company’s landing page, generate leads or recruit new employees.

Here are a few of the available options business owners have to use when advertising on LinkedIn.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising

A self-service advertising solution, PPC campaigns allow LinkedIn users to create and place ads on page locations and on highly viewed pages. Using the campaign settings, you can select which LinkedIn members your ads appear to and can filter by gender, age, geography, industry, job function, job title, company size, company name or LinkedIn group. Your ads will then be displayed prominently at the top of the page for these individuals as a text ad, while a full size ad with an image will appear along the right sidebar.

Content Ads

Similar to the shifting billboards you see along the highway that display alternating images, content ads allow businesses to display multiple ad messages in one sidebar panel. Advertisers can display four advertising messages in different formats, so you have multiple chances of catching a user’s attention. You can display your company’s YouTube channel, for example, on one panel while also displaying your Twitter feed in another. You can mix and match mediums to create highly interactive ads that offer everything from podcasts to stylized images to white paper downloads. This makes content ads a great way to reach multiple audiences with only one ad.

Content Ads Using SlideShare

As a social media platform that appeals to professionals, it shouldn’t come as too big a surprise that presentations make an excellent way to connect with LinkedIn members. Using the platform’s SlideShare website users can post PowerPoint presentations, articles, documents, infographics and other original content. Any content you post on SlideShare can also appear on your business’ LinkedIn profile. Overall, SlideShare offers a great tool for sharing your business’ best content with a target audience in need of professional insight.

Sponsored InMail

LinkedIn’s InMail provides users the ability to establish connections with each other so they can continue to grow their network. Because of the personal nature of the typical use for InMail, that platform doesn’t really lend itself to marketing. Sponsored InMail, however, allows LinkedIn members to deliver highly pertinent messages directly to their target audiences.

Sponsored InMail messages are tailored with extensive marketing copy on a landing-page that’s co-branded, one ad unit, and a call to action. Messages from Sponsored InMail always appear at the top of a users inbox, thereby improving visibility and increasing the open rate.

You have the opportunity to craft messages personalized to the specific target audiences whose attention you’re trying to capture because you can target any aspect of the member profile when sending a Sponsored InMail Message. Because of this, Sponsored InMail Messages have a much higher click-through nrate than the typical email marketing campaign with an average open rate of 20 percent and a 20 percent click-through rate.

Social Ads

Using Social Ads on LinkedIn make an effective way to encourage members to share messages and recommend your company’s product or services. Social Ads use the same targeting options as other LinkedIn advertising tools but they allow you to leverage social proof throughout the LinkedIn community. Receiving an endorsement from a trusted a contact ranks as great way to add credibility and impact to your company’s message.

The variety of social ads offered by LinkedIn is designed to capitalize on the way members use the LinkedIn platform to share information and ideas. Social Ads simplify the process of allowing users to share updates and insights and endorse your company.