The Expert’s Guide to LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads 

LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads are a native advertising product launched by LinkedIn in 2023. Unlike traditional ad formats, these ads promote posts from real people – such as leaders, influencers, or industry experts – straight into the LinkedIn feed.

Here’s an example of a LinkedIn Thought Leader Ad:

Put this way, Thought Leader Ads may not sound like a big deal, but they’re shaking up social media advertising by offering what other ads often lack: Authenticity.

They perform well too: According to LinkedIn, Thought Leader Ads have a 1.7x higher click-through rate and a 1.6x higher engagement rate than other single-image ads.

Other studies point in the same direction, showing that people are 3x more likely to trust content from individuals (as opposed to fully-branded content).

A higher trust level from the audience is a great argument to include them in your strategy, but there’s more than that.

Visualize them as a fresh way to promote content – anything from an executive’s hot take to a picture of your office dogs hanging around – and make it feel like a natural part of the LinkedIn experience.

Instead of interrupting the scroll, Thought Leader Ads engage users with relevant, personal, effective content.

How to recognize LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads

Thought Leader Ads are not as obvious as other formats, but they’re easy to spot once you know what to look for.

The first sign that you’re seeing one is the “Promoted by” label.

These ads are subtly marked with a “Promoted by” label and the hyperlinked name of the company promoting, which appear beneath the name of the person whose post is being promoted.

This label is different from the one identifying regular LinkedIn Ads, which only read “Promoted”.

While the label is the only true way to identify Thought Leader Ads, you’ll also notice that they never include any additional commentary or narrative framing by the advertiser.

This practice is (understandably) not supported, and the content in Thought Leader Ads is always promoted “as is” to uphold and protect the original context and tone of the post.

How LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads work

First of all, there are two types of thought leader ads:

• From your employees: This does not require a partnership label.
• From a third-party creator: If they are being compensated for their content, they must toggle the partnership label first.

This can sound a bit confusing, so let us set the record straight:

• A thought leader is an ad format.
• A partnership post is a post feature.
• A thought leader ad can also be a partnership.

Below is an example of a thought leader ad that doubles down as a partnership between a content creator and, in this case, LinkedIn:

Regardless, setting up a Thought Leader Ads campaign is easy and only requires three steps.

First, you’ll have to determine your LinkedIn campaign objective, which can be either Brand Awareness or Engagement (your goal and the content you wish to promote will help you choose between these two).

No other campaign goals are available for these ads.

Second, you’ll need to identify the content to promote and request permission from the poster/creator.

Important: While the request permission must be asked through LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager, certain conditions (such as how much you’ll pay the creator for their post) are set privately in an arrangement between both parties.

Third, promote! Once the post you wish to promote is approved, use the Sponsored Content platform to select it and launch your campaign.

Other than these, here are other aspects to know before creating a Thought Leaders Ads campaign.

Whose content can you use in LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads?

You can promote anyone’s posts as long as you get permission and they’re 1st or 2nd-degree connections.

In addition, you can also promote posts from employees of your company.

For some reason though, LinkedIn member posts that have been shared to a LinkedIn group can’t be promoted as Thought Leader Ads.

What type of posts can be promoted in LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads?

Some, but not all types of LinkedIn posts can be used in Thought Leader Ads.

The types of posts that can be promoted are text-only, single image, native video, articles, and newsletter posts. You can also share third-party links.

The ones that can’t be promoted include documents, polls, multi-image, reshared, and “celebrate an occasion” posts.

Can you add CTAs to LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads?

Short answer: No.

Long answer: Nooooo – these are meant to be authentic, and CTAs can kill that mood.

LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads best practices

LinkedIn has shared a few best practices for Thought Leader Ads in the past, to which we’re adding our advice below.

First of all, if you find a great post that you believe would fit your brand narrative or campaign, add the creator of such a post as a LinkedIn connection.

This will allow you to see more of their content and is also a requirement in case you want to promote their content down the line. When searching for members to boost in the ad creation tool, LinkedIn limits the search to 1st or 2nd degree connections.

Second, consider having key creators and employees turn the “auto-approve” feature on.

Third, promote new content. Sure, there are some evergreen gems out there, but fresh content is often aligned with current conversations, trends, and events.

Fourth, save posts that you like. If you want, create a spreadsheet with links and all – you’ll be building a source of creative assets that you can promote.

Finally, ask your thought leaders about the organic performance of their posts before promoting their content. This will give you a reference in terms of metrics so you can measure impact afterward (such as profile visits).

As a bonus tip, we recommend you experiment with a LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads budget.

There’s no fixed formula to refer to here – as it happens with influencers, members whose content you promote will have different rates for lending their content for promotion.

Benefits of using LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads

Here’s what makes Thought Leader Ads stand out and deliver unique advantages:

• Seamless feed integration: They blend into LinkedIn’s natural flow, and are nearly indistinguishable from the content that users already consume.
• Reduced frequency: Thought Leader Ads appear less frequently in the feed than standard ones, which helps preserve the quality and exclusivity of the content being promoted.
• Content repurposing: This format allows companies to repurpose past collaborations with thought leaders and influencers, extending the reach and lifespan of content.
• No targeting and reach constraints: The targeting mechanism is similar to traditional LinkedIn ads, allowing advertisers to specify criteria such as job titles, industries, and company size to reach desired professional groups.
• A huge content marketplace: The possibility to promote virtually anyone’s content expands the options for advertisers – almost every regular post is now a potential ad.

LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads reporting and metrics

As with other ad types in LinkedIn, you’ll have to head on to the Campaign Manager to see how your Thought Leader Ads perform.

So far, there are only two engagement metrics that are counted for these ads:

• Member follows: When a LinkedIn member follows the original creator of the sponsored content through the ad.
• Member profile clicks: When clicking the thought leader profile through the ad.

As you can see, the fact that these are the only available metrics for Though Leader Ads limits these to brand awareness and engagement campaigns (also important – you can’t add call-to-action buttons to this type of ads). Of course, this doesn’t mean you can’t promote an offer. Make sure to use UTMs in a link you share in the caption or comment to see the full impact of your campaign.

How to integrate Thought Leader Ads with other LinkedIn ad products

Given the limitations of LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads (such as not being able to add CTAs to them), it’s important to understand how to integrate them into your LinkedIn ad strategy.

While our approach depends on a series of factors, here’s what we recommend considering.

First, complement with Sponsored Content, aka other types and formats of LinkedIn advertising such as single image, carousel, and video ads.

These must be aligned with both specific goals and your overall strategy.

For example LinkedIn Message Ads for direct engagement.

After raising awareness, you can directly send follow-up Message Ads to users who engage with your Thought Leader Ads. Here you can include access to exclusive content or a tailored offer to what was mentioned or displayed in the Thought Leader Ads.

The fundamental idea here is to avoid seeing Thought Leader Ads as a standalone, do-it-all advertising product for your campaigns.

They’re innovative and feel natural, but it’s important to combine them with other LinkedIn ad products to reach your goals.

Final thoughts: Seeing LinkedIn content with new eyes

Authenticity in social media is a common narrative these days, so it’s nice to see a platform develop products that give room to more authentic content and interactions.

The real test, though, lies in the broader implications of this innovation.

For example, we can’t help to wonder if LinkedIn will make it easier for brands to connect with content creators through, say, a dedicated space.

Right now, the lack of such a feature has resulted in the emergence of specialized agencies that match influencers with brands specifically for Thought Leader Ads.

In other words: If you want the best possible content to launch one of these campaigns you either do the heavy lifting yourself or have an agency do it for you.

Still, this is a breeze of fresh air in the social media advertising landscape. And if you need help with LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads, contact us.