Facebook Ads vs. LinkedIn Ads: Strategic plan, differences and types

Table of Content
Contrasting Facebook ads with those on LinkedIn
Audience
Ad formats
Focusing techniques
What about the benefits of LinkedIn's targeting?
Cost
Analytics
Revisions
Followers
Visitors
General
Likes
Reach
Visits
Posts
Video
People
What's the verdict between Facebook Ads and LinkedIn Ads?

Many digital marketers ask whether Facebook Ads or LinkedIn Ads are better for their company. You might think Facebook because it has more users (against LinkedIn's 550+ million users, Facebook has 2.2 billion+ active users). Does the size of the platform itself, however, define which is superior? No.

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Although Facebook and LinkedIn have certain similarities, they each have different functionalities and the ability to reach particular audiences.

Because there isn't a clear-cut solution, this article won't state one platform is "superior." Depending on your brand and marketing plan, you can choose the platform that will work best for your campaigns. Additionally, it's critical to understand the key audience, ad formats, targeting, pricing, and analytics capabilities that each platform provides.
    Contrasting Facebook ads with those on LinkedIn

Audience

Due to the fact that Facebook is frequently used to interact and communicate with friends and family, Facebook ads frequently target audiences who are of a personal nature. Since its users are more engaged in professional networking, seeking guidance on career-related issues, and working with like-minded individuals, LinkedIn is acknowledged as having a more professional target audience.

Therefore, LinkedIn is probably a better place to use for advertising if you're an agency wanting to increase your brand recognition among other industry leaders or provide B2B goods or services like Royalty Rewards does below:

But if you run an online store and offer products to customers, Facebook can be a better place to reach your target market.

Smallwoods, an online retailer, advertises on Facebook to potential customers, providing a discount on their wood-framed signs:

In conclusion, due to the professional character of the site, LinkedIn Ads are typically better for reaching B2B markets whereas Facebook Ads are better for B2C brands.
 

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Ad formats

Because both LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms and Facebook Lead Ads (with Instant Forms) offer lead generation options, LinkedIn and Facebook Ads are comparable. In both situations, the advertisement has a lead capture form that potential customers can fill out. The lead capture form is displayed on the platform as soon as a user hits the "Download" call to action in the advertisement:The form is (largely) pre-populated with data that users have previously shared with the social network in both samples, LinkedIn above and Facebook below:
 
It's also important to note that customers can change the pre-populated contact details if necessary.
After they submit the form, you have the option of sending them directly to content, a thank-you page, or your website.
However, a significant drawback of this lead generation method is that post-click landing sites are replaced by the associated forms on both platforms. Because of this, marketers pass up the chance to give prospects a distinctive, tailored post-click landing page experience.

Other similar ad types on LinkedIn and Facebook include:

• Link
• Image
• Video
• Mail (LinkedIn InMail Ads and Facebook Messenger Ads)
• Carousel

For differences, Facebook has a few more advertising 
options. It offers unique, interactive ad formats, such as:

• Slideshow
• Playables
• Canvas (now known as “Instant Experience”)
• Collection
• Stories

People can subscribe to a gainz box right from the Facebook Stories advertisement, which offers a fullscreen, immersive experience.


Focusing techniques

Both social networks offer retargeting features and capabilities to target audiences that resemble a certain base audience. In order to locate users with comparable interests, demographics, and behaviours on Facebook, "Lookalike Audiences" employs a base audience (current email database, list of leads, people who already consume your content, etc.). A similar term on LinkedIn is "Audience Expansion". (Note: Based on this test, Facebook's Lookalike Audiences outperform LinkedIn's Audience Expansion.)

Compared to LinkedIn, Facebook has a number of other benefits. It lets advertisers match ad content to a highly targeted audience by combining real data (such as demographics, geography, etc.).

You can target users based on their hobbies and other psychographics in addition to demographics. However, due to Facebook's data privacy issues, the business deleted all of its third-party data for marketers, which was crucial to roughly 50% of the targeting possibilities. This implies that advertisers will no longer be able to base their advertising efforts on factors like consumer behaviour, in-market audiences, household income, and more.

Additionally, Facebook Ads have sophisticated intelligence capabilities because your campaign may improve itself for better outcomes. Once the advertisement is published, Facebook reviews your criteria and decides how to show it based on the patterns of users who have seen and clicked on it. For instance, if a specific segment of your target audience is converting the most, Facebook will automatically optimise your ad so that it continues to appear for that segment and others like it.
What about the benefits of LinkedIn's targeting?

The ability to conduct account-based marketing is one of LinkedIn ads' main benefits. In contrast to Facebook, all of LinkedIn's data comes from within the company's own social media platform. People describe themselves professionally when they sign up, including their job title, industry, company name, company size, etc. Because of all the pertinent information, advertisers utilise that information to target bigger firms, higher-level job titles, etc.


Cost

Compared to LinkedIn, Facebook has a substantially lower cost per click. The median CPC for Facebook Ads is the lowest of the four major social networks at $0.51, while the median CPC for LinkedIn Ads is the highest at $5.61.
The cost of LinkedIn Ads is not always excessive. That information just demonstrates how highly valued those clicks are, as higher-priced leads on LinkedIn are often higher-quality leads with a higher return on investment. In fact, a study found that compared to Facebook, ad clicks on LinkedIn are 500% more likely to result in high-quality leads.


Analytics

Three categories make up LinkedIn Analytics are: 


Revisions

A table displaying information about your most recent updates, including specifics (audience, impressions, clicks, interactions, followers acquired, engagement, etc.)
A graph displaying daily trends in the number of organic and sponsored views received by your updates
A chart displaying the volume of clicks, likes, comments, and shares your article received throughout both organic and paid campaigns.


Followers

• The sum of followers (updated only once per day)
• Organic subscribers
• Gathered supporters
• Following statistics (seniority, industry, job function, company size, etc.)
• Trends in followers over time
• Your following in comparison to other businesses

Visitors

• pages visited
• Clicks on career pages
• a distinct visitor's demographics

Similar performance-tracking analytics are available through Page Insights on Facebook. The seven categories of Facebook's analytics are as follows:

General

• Total and fresh page likes over the previous 7 days
• Post reach: the total number of distinct individuals who saw your posts.
• Engagement: the total number of distinct visitors to your page.

Likes

• Page likes Total page likes during a 28-day period, one for each day.
• Online likes: Unlikes minus new likes
• Where there were page likes: The total number of times your page was liked, broken down by location

Reach

• Post reach: Paid and organic reach breakdown
• Engagement that is favourable: Likes, comments, and shares
• Negative interaction: hiding, marking as spam, and disliking
• overall reach the Total number of users who received any service from your page

Visits

• Visiting pages and tabs: How many times each of the tabs on your page was opened
• External referring sources: number of visitors who arrived at your page via another website

Posts

• Shows when your fans are online and engaged with your Facebook post.
• Posts Type: Based on average reach and engagement, this metric identifies the effectiveness of various post types.
• Top Articles from Pages You Follow: Displays the interaction with posts from other pages you're following.

Video

• The number of times your films have been viewed for at least three seconds
• thirty-second views how many times your films were watched for at least 30 seconds
• best vids Most videos are watched for three seconds or longer.

People

• Your Fans: Displays information about the sexes, ages, places they live, and languages they speak.
• People Reached: Displays who have received your post in the last 28 days.
• People Engaged: Displays the last 28 days' worth of likes, comments, shares, and other interactions with your page.

What's the verdict between Facebook Ads and LinkedIn Ads?

The most effective solution will vary depending on the audience you're trying to reach and the platforms they use. LinkedIn and Facebook Ads give advertisers a means to connect with consumers in a way that has never been possible in the past, whether they are marketing a webinar, a cutting-edge technological advancement, or a limited-edition clothing line. LinkedIn focuses on more professional targeting, such as job titles, industries, or even where you work, whereas Facebook mostly employs demographic and interest-based targeting to target consumers.