LinkedIn Campaign Workflow

General

This article outlines the campaign workflow for setting up and activating LinkedIn campaigns, which entails:

• Syncing LinkedIn campaigns and campaign groups with a Flight Control campaign.
• Configuring your decisioning logic to toggle ads on and off on LinkedIn.
• Generating and rendering ads based on the campaign logic.
• Publishing ads from Flight Control into LinkedIn under the specified campaigns.
• Collecting insights and analytics, which are then utilized in cross-channel dashboards.

Note: Flight Control doesn't serve LinkedIn ads directly. Instead, it generates all possible ad variations for each ad group in advance, publishes the ads to the LinkedIn campaign, and toggles ads (on/off) in real time to perform dynamic creative optimization (DCO).

Supported Ad Types & Specifications

You can use the following ad types for LinkedIn campaigns:

• Single Image

Supported ad placements

• Feed (Mobile & Desktop)
• Audience Network

Supported ad-type specifications

LinkedIn supports these ad-type specifications for Single Image ads:

Attribute	Specification
File Type	JPEG PNG GIF
Max. File Size	5 MB
Image Ratio	1.91:1 (horizontal, desktop, and mobile) Minimum: 640 x 360 pixels Maximum: 7680 x 4320 pixels Recommended: 1200 x 628 pixels 1:1 (square, desktop, and mobile) Minimum: 360 x 360 pixels Maximum: 4320 x 4320 pixels Recommended: 1200 x 1200 pixels 1:1.91 (vertical, mobile only) Minimum: 360 x 640 pixels Maximum: 2430 x 4320 pixels Recommended: 628 x 1200 pixels

Supported objectives

• Brand Awareness
• Website visits
• Website conversions

Supported metrics

• Impressions
• Clicks
• Conversions
• Conversion Rate
• Cost

Note: Data is a day behind.

User Permissions 

• You need the Campaigns user permission to create or edit campaigns.

Prerequisites

• Integrate with your LinkedIn account.
  • The person setting up the integration must have Admin access to the LinkedIn advertising account and the LinkedIn company page used for advertising.
  • Important: The LinkedIn integration should be refreshed on an annual cadence due to a token expiration on LinkedIn.
• The LinkedIn campaign group and campaign within LinkedIn Campaign Manager should be in a non-draft status. We recommend setting these to the "paused" state.
• Ensure there is a blank placeholder/draft ad created within the LinkedIn ad account campaign - this placeholder ad should be deleted after completing the Publish step outlined in this article.
• Have creatives stored in your account's Creative Library that apply to your social campaign type.

LinkedIn Campaign Workflow 

Once you've started a new campaign by clicking Create from the Campaigns page and selecting LinkedIn as the campaign type, follow the steps below to set up and activate your LinkedIn campaign in Flight Control.

At a high level, the setup process follows the steps outlined in the campaign header:

1. Configure General Campaign Settings.
2. Sync LinkedIn Campaigns with Flight Control.
3. Set Up the Campaign Logic.
4. Generate and Render Ads.
5. Publish Ads.
6. Activate the Campaign Version.

Detailed Campaign Setup and Activation Workflow

1. General Campaign Settings

The Campaign Homepage is the first step of the campaign, where you can: 

1. Add a campaign description.
2. Select any premium services.
   • Note: The Weather Service isn't available for LinkedIn campaigns.
3. Add campaign tags for reporting purposes.

2. Sync LinkedIn Campaigns with Flight Control

1. Navigate to the Campaigns step of the workflow in the campaign header. This is where you can connect your Flight Control campaign to the LinkedIn advertising account.
2. Click Add.
3. Select a LinkedIn ad account.
4. Select a LinkedIn campaign group.
5. Click OK.
   • This process can take a few seconds. Once finished, all connected LinkedIn campaigns will be displayed.

3. Set up the Campaign Logic

1. Go to the Campaign Logic step in the campaign header.
   • This is where you can configure your decisioning logic to toggle ads on and off on LinkedIn.
2. Add and connect decision cards to your campaign card as needed for your strategy:
   • Product Selection Card - This card selects a product from a product feed to display in an ad using a specified selection strategy.
   • Content Selection Card - This card selects a content item from a content feed to display in an ad using a specified selection strategy.
   • Condition Card - This card conditions by one or more attributes (usually ad sets/groups) and selects which card output and creative to use for an impression.
   • Schedule Card - This card lets you perform campaign actions like dayparting and other date/time ad-serving specifications.
   • Distribution Card - This card generates multiple ads for each ad set/group based on the number of card outputs used. The social media platform optimizes the ad serving between these ads using their personal optimization methods.
   • Creative Cards - Each creative card represents one or more ads that will be created for the social platform. Social campaign creatives come from your account's Creative Library.
3. Open the Creative Card Settings pane to customize each creative. See the table below for information on fields in LinkedIn campaign creative cards:

Field	Description
Ad Name	Allows you to define the name of the ad that will be created. If nothing is inserted, the creative name will be used. Note: A 255-character limit exists.
Image Name	This will populate the image name uploaded to LinkedIn media library as well as the alternate text field in the LinkedIn ad. Note: A 300-character limit exists.
Landing Page	Lets you choose the source for the ad's landing page. You can enter a URL to use by selecting Insert Manual Link.
Landing Page URL	Lets you enter a URL to use as the ad's landing page. Note: This field only displays if you selected Insert Manual Link for the Landing Page field.
Introductory Text	This populates the introductory text in LinkedIn. Only one introductory text field is available per creative card. Note: A 600-character limit exists.
Description	Lets you enter an ad description. Note: The ad description will not be visible in most scenarios and will only appear for a small portion of LinkedIn members, such as those viewing it on the LinkedIn Audience Network (if enabled). Note: A 300-character limit exists.
Headline	Lets you enter a headline for the ad. Only one headline field is available per creative card. Note: A 200-character limit exists.
Call to Action	Use this to display a button or link in the ad that represents the desired action for the user. Select from the following list of predefined CTAs (or use macros): Apply Download View quote Learn more Sign up Subscribe Register Request demo Join Attend Unlock full document

Tip: You can copy and paste cards from one campaign to another within the same account using Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V (Windows) or Command + C and Command + V (Mac). Only cards that are relevant to a specific campaign type can be pasted in the campaign map. If the creative for a duplicated creative card doesn't exist in the target account's Creative Library, the creative will be added.

Step 4: Generate and Render Ads

Once the campaign logic has been set up without any errors, the Generate Ads icon on the far right section of the header will become highlighted.

You must now generate all possible ad variations (outcomes) from your campaign map logic:

1. Click Generate Ads within the campaign's header to start the process of generating ads. Once ads have been generated, the system will automatically start rendering the ads.
   • You'll be directed to the campaign's Ads step once ads start generating.
2. Review your rendered ad variations within the Ads table.
   • Note: These are simulated social media previews. Minor preview discrepancies may exist before publishing ads to a social media platform.
3. Optional. Update ad variation elements individually or in bulk as needed (examples: primary text, headline, and CTA changes).

Note: The campaign logic will be locked once ad generation begins. Changes made to the campaign's feeds or creatives won't affect the campaign unless you click Generate Ads again.

5. Publish Ads

Once all ads have been automatically generated, the Publish icon on the far right section of the header will become highlighted, indicating that ads are ready to be published.

1. Click Publish to upload the generated ads to the LinkedIn platform. This will bring up the Publish Ads window, where you can:

   Review the number of ads being published, updated, or deleted between the last version and the current version being published. Choose whether to pause all ads from the previous version or keep them running until the new version activates. Decide whether to permanently delete or simply turn off ads marked for deletion in the connected social media account. Choose whether the campaign version should activate automatically after ads are published, with options to enter a custom version name and description. Schedule a future activation time and determine what happens if ads fail to publish or are rejected by the social platform. Select how you want to activate the campaign: Once the first ad is approved (Recommended) Once all ads complete the review process, and at least one is approved Only if all ads are approved Click Publish and Activate or Publish, depending on the previously selected activation settings.

   2. Await the "published" status for all ad variations in the Ads step.
      • Note: Campaign version actions are disabled while ads are being published to social media platforms.

If publishing is successful, all ad variations in the Ads step will display a "published" status, and their social media platform ad IDs will populate. At this point, Flight Control uses actual social media placement renderings for creative previews.

Ads published to social media platforms are paused until you activate your Flight Control campaign, which is outlined in the last step of the workflow.

Delete the blank placeholder ad that was created within the LinkedIn campaign before proceeding to the next step.

Note: Editing of published ads isn't currently supported. Publishing updated ads will delete the existing ads and replace them with new ones.

6. Activate the Campaign Version

Once ads are successfully published, the Activate icon on the far right section of the Header will become highlighted, indicating that the campaign version is ready to be activated.

To activate the campaign version:

Click Activate in the campaign Header. The Activate Ads window will be displayed. Optional. Enter a custom version name. Optional. Enter a version description. Select the Set time for future activation  checkbox and enter a day and time for the version to activate on. To cancel the scheduled activation, click the "x" symbol of the Scheduled Activation badge in the campaign header. You can then click Activate to initiate or reschedule activation. Select how you want to activate the campaign: Once the first ad is approved (Recommended) Once all ads complete the review process, and at least one is approved Only if all ads are approved Click Activate.

The activation process entails LinkedIn reviewing each creative, and the campaign can remain in an "activating" status until LinkedIn completes the review, which could take some hours.

The campaign version will be activated and "locked" by default after activation occurs. Once a campaign version is activated, Flight Control will begin serving ads on LinkedIn, toggling ads on and off according to your campaign map configurations.

Important: Once your campaign is running on the social platform, you must make changes to Flight Control-related ads directly within Flight Control, not the social platform. Otherwise, unintentional changes and data overwrites may occur.