Finally, we have a tool that provides a deep dive into audience reach on LinkedIn campaigns. Better still, it can flag any potential issues early on, rather than relying on topline data such as CTR and CPM to inform our decisions. It’s LinkedIn’s new Audience Penetration tool.
Now, assuming you’ve got this far, I’ll take that you’re interested in learning more! Well, I’m here to help with that!
How audience penetration is calculated?
LinkedIn says it’s the amount of reach against the estimated audience size. To put it simply, the formula is:
(Total Reach / Target Audience Size) = Penetration Rate
Penetration Rate: The percentage of the target audience reached, calculated by dividing the number of impressions or engagements by the total audience size. For example, if we had an audience size of 500,000, with a reach of 100,000, this would equal a 20% audience penetration (100,000/500,000).
What can I use audience penetration data for?
Audience penetration can measure the efficiency and relevance of your campaign. There are two main use cases:
1. Budget:
If audience penetration is low, it can reveal your budget is struggling to compete against other ad accounts targeting the same attributes.
For example, a university could look to target postgraduate students to enrol for the next academic cycle. This can include targeting subject areas for continuing students or job titles for those in work looking to upskill. You might also want to target this campaign across all priority areas, for example, the whole UK.
Including all of these audience attributes covers all bases, and your content will reach your desired audience! Right?
Unfortunately, this is never the case. If audience penetration is low, it could mean that your budget is being spread too thin. Using this metric, alongside demographic breakdowns on the platform, can state which sectors, job titles, subject focus, etc. are worth pursuing or not. This leads me to my next point…
2. Audience Targeting
As covered above, the audience penetration tool is a great way to determine who engages with your content. For example, if we look at the company industry breakdown for a campaign:
From this, we can see that the majority of impressions are coming from Higher Education, which is a great sign for a Higher Education campaign!
But, if you look deeper into who within Higher Education companies are engaging with the content:
It tells us that the majority of people within universities who are seeing the ads, work within a research capacity. If your campaign was focused on student recruitment, this is not likely to be your target audience. Therefore, exclude as appropriate, so that your budget is being spent efficiently and towards the right people.
Where can I find the tool?
I can already picture all the hands being raised in the room! Don’t worry, I already know the question on all of your lips: How can we add this to our ads manager?
Adding this to your platform metrics overview could not be easier. Let me show you how to do it:
- Go to your Advertise tab on LinkedIn Ads Manager, and select “Columns”
2. Click on Customize Columns
3. Search for “audience penetration” and select the metric. Then, create a customised column
You should now be able to see the breakdown for this within your platform overviews.
How can I add this to my existing reporting?
Now, we have a tool that tells us how much of our target audience has been reached. What if I told you that it could also amplify your other topline metrics?
Here are a few other commonly used metrics that the audience penetration tool can help bolster, as well as improve from a reporting standpoint:
1. Cost Per Mille (CPM):
CPM is a great way to measure the competitiveness of your budget alongside audience penetration. If your audience penetration is low but CPM is high, it can be a sign that your campaign is regularly being outbid at auction time, limiting the reach of your ideal audience.
2. Cost Per Click (CPC):
CPC also helps map out the competitiveness of your audience targeting. A high CPC with low audience penetration could indicate a competitive auction, raising costs. On the other hand, a low CPC and high audience penetration can reassure your audience is worth pursuing, especially at a cheaper price.
3. Frequency:
The average number of times an account sees your ad on their feed. High frequency with low audience penetration could suggest over-serving ads to a small segment, potentially leading to ad fatigue and wasted budget.
Learn More
Ultimately, ensuring your budget and targeting are nailed, will only result in greater success for your campaigns.
Want to learn more? LinkedIn has provided a guide on how to use delivery metrics to measure the success of your campaigns.
Make sure to visit our website for more platform insights in the future!
