LinkedIn introduces lead gen ad offerings

LinkedIn has just come out with a new product that it hopes will bring leads to advertisers. Called LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms, the objective of the product is to give marketers the ability to collect quality leads across all devices, be it a mobile phone or a desktop. With these forms, LinkedIn promises “high-quality leads from your Sponsored Content campaigns by removing the main barrier to mobile conversion: making someone complete a clunky contact form on a smartphone.”

With over 500 million users of the professional network, LinkedIn hopes that this can give business actionable information without barriers. Once these ads are clicked, LinkedIn profile data will automatically be populated in an in-app form that can be instantly submitted, saving the trouble of typ(o)ing on a phone.

Those who advertise with this product will get a comprehensive lead record that includes the person’s name, contact information, company name, seniority, job title, location and other useful data to translate those leads into information useful to the marketer. This helps, of course, with an up-to-date LinkedIn profile, so it also means that marketers will likely get more accurate information.

After the form is submitted, an in-app “thank you” page will be sent to the user with a redirect that goes to your website for them to learn about you and your offering.

LinkedIn says a pilot program involving 50 companies exceeded their cost-per-lead (CPL) goals, and also led to lower CPLs compared to other campaigns. The companies participating in the pilot also found the quality of the leads more valuable due to the professional audience and accurate contact information associated with each lead.

There’s more to come with this product launch. Lead Gen Forms will be available for Sponsored InMail campaigns later this year.