• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, June 7, 2023

LinkedIn features announced Wednesday ranging from messaging to multiple ad formats aim to help brands start a conversation and communicate directly with members.

The direct messaging feature called Pages Messaging lets LinkedIn members reach out to brands through a one-to-one message, which has previously only been available for member-to-member interactions, about topics like products and services, business opportunities and more.

Organizations will have a dedicated inbox to manage these two-way conversations and prioritize inquiries that matter most to their business.   

More than 63 million companies use LinkedIn Pages to join conversations, know and grow their audience and build an engaged community, and this new feature is LinkedIn’s latest step to continue improving the Pages experience. 

LinkedIn believes B2B marketers need to focus on creating memory recognition with future buyers. There are more than 930 million professionals across the platform.  The goal behind Pages Messaging is to help power a two-way conversation, so when a member has questions about a product or company, they can reach out directly to the brand through their Page.

Since reaching buyers at the right time is critical, LinkedIn also introduced multiple ad formats to help brands engage with buyers.

Marketers can tap In-Stream Video ads to scale campaign reach and connect with professional audiences across the LinkedIn network of publishers. These ads, which will appear on mobile or desktop apps and sites, will play at the beginning--pre-roll--and middle--mid-roll of long-form video content on trusted publisher sites across the LinkedIn Audience Network.

Whether brands want to start a conversation from their LinkedIn Inbox with Conversation Ads or by employee content with Thought Leader Ads, both generally available in July, LinkedIn will offer various formats, so marketers can reach their buyers at different stages of the buying journey.

Early performance indicators show that those participating in the Thought Leader Ad beta saw a 1.7x higher clickthrough rate (CTR) and 1.6x higher engagement rate compared to other single-image ads.