Have you heard of Sponsored InMails on LinkedIn? No? 🤔 We'll give you an inside look on how to attract applicants via LinkedIn Sponsored InMails, so you can get started with it yourself... 👨🏻🍳
Using LinkedIn to recruit candidates is no longer fresh news. The social media platform has already become a favorite among recruiters. The most well-known (and obvious) ways to attract candidates to your open position are: posting your job on your LinkedIn page and just waiting to see if your connections will share your post, scouring LinkedIn yourself in hopes of finding your ideal candidate, or sponsoring your job post. These options are often time consuming and can be expensive. For Sponsored Content you sometimes pay up to 4 to 5 euros per click. What!? 💸
Instead of using one of these mainstream ways, you should aim to attract candidates via LinkedIn Sponsored InMail, for example, which is definitely a sympl favorite.😍
Sponsored InMail is the paid counterpart of the well-known InMail (regular emails you get in your LinkedIn inbox). It’s a tool that allows you to send ads as InMail to your target audience, even when they are not part of your network. Because you can define your own target group, you are sure to reach the right candidates. Also, your target group only receives your InMail when they are online, which ensures a high open rate of your InMail.
Unfortunately, the recipients cannot simply reply to your message. However, they can click on the “call-to-action” button that you can include in the message or click on a hyperlink in the InMail. And best of all: the prices are (fortunately) a lot lower than the Sponsored Content ads. Namely, you pay 0.80 to 2 euros per message sent. Not bad, right? 🤩
To set up a Sponsored InMail campaign, go to the Campaign Manager via LinkedIn.com/ads or by going to your LinkedIn profile. Then, create a new campaign and select Sponsored InMail as the ad format.
For the layout of your campaign there are some guidelines you need to follow, like the maximum number of characters in your mail.
When choosing your target group, it is best to be as specific as possible. Since it’s about costs per send, you don’t want to send mails to less suitable candidates. You can target based on job, education level, experience and region. 📌 Suppose you want to recruit candidates who have studied communication, live in Antwerp and have at least 2 years of experience as a public relations manager. You can then indicate these criteria, one by one, in Campaign Manager.
You can also target your website visitors. Instead of the Facebook Pixel, you need the LinkedIn Insight Tag. It matches the people that visit your job page with their LinkedIn profile. Once you have 300 matched people, you can use it as a matched audience.
You are probably not the only one looking for, say, a public relations manager. That’s why LinkedIn requires you to bid for your Sponsored InMails. The InMail from the recruiter with the highest bid will be sent to the appropriate LinkedIn user. 🥇 In addition, you can set a budget per day. For example, you tell LinkedIn that you don’t want to spend more than €20 on ads per day.
Sponsored InMails are best sent from a public profile with a profile picture. This way, you increase the chances that your recipient opens and reads your sponsored InMail (and hopefully clicks on the link to your job page).
Lookalike targeting (like Facebook ads!) is also possible on LinkedIn. Based on your matched audience mentioned earlier, you can create a lookalike audience. 👯♀️ Another option is to check “enable audience expansion” in your targeting. This ensures that profiles that are similar to your target audience are also included in your target group. Suppose you want to recruit candidates who do ‘online advertising’, LinkedIn will then also include people who do ‘interactive marketing’ in your target group. This way, you will discover new high-quality candidates who might be the perfect match for your open position.
Hopefully, we were able to warm you up to the LinkedIn Sponsored InMail. Once you have mastered this handy tool, your recruitment strategy will undoubtedly go to the next level! 🚀 Are you ready to attract applicants via LinkedIn Sponsored InMail?