When talking about Demand Generation and un-gating your content on LinkedIn, Lead Gen Form Ads tend to get booted out of the conversation.

This is usually because many advertisers solely use Lead Gen Form Ads to promote content offers.

Though that’s a great use for them, advertisers are leaving money on the table if that’s the only thing they’re using them for.

So what’s the benefit of using LinkedIn Lead Gen Form Ads? What other types of offers can you promote, aside from content?

Let’s hit it!

WHY USE LINKEDIN LEAD GEN FORM ADS?

The biggest reason for using LinkedIn’s Lead Gen Form Ads is because they create a seamless experience for the user.

For example, rather than pushing prospects to your website or landing page, they can stay right on the platform, convert, and then return to scrolling through their feed.

Not only that, but most personal information can be auto-populated, pulled from users’ LinkedIn profiles.

Another reason to use Lead Gen Form Ads is because they usually result in higher conversion rates in comparison to leading to a website or landing page.

One caveat with this, though, is that, because Lead Gen Forms are so easy to fill out, users can occasionally forget they even did it.

This often results in higher conversion rates and lead volume, but lower lead quality.

That said, you can combat this by sending regular email updates regarding the offer(s) users opt in for.

OFFERS TO PROMOTE (THAT AREN’T JUST CONTENT PIECES)

LinkedIn’s Lead Gen Form Ads are useful for promoting something—anything—of value in exchange for contact information.

However, we too often limit ourselves to promoting strictly content offers, like checklists and guides.

There are so many other ways this ad format can be leveraged. Here are just some ideas:

• Webinar registrations
• Newsletter signups
• Exclusive offers (beta tests, early access, limited time deals, etc)
• Access to exclusive online communities (via Slack, Discord, etc)
• Demo requests and free trials

ADDITIONAL TIPS

Still not convinced? Here are a couple more cool things you can do with Lead Gen Form Ads:

1/ Qualify prospects through your form

One of our clients had a hard time generating qualified leads because their biggest qualifier was net worth, but net worth isn’t one of the native targeting options on LinkedIn.

So we qualified prospects through a Lead Gen Form.

We did this by creating a custom question on the form that asked for Net Worth, with a dropdown that housed a few pre-built responses.

The result was a slightly higher cost per lead, but lead quality improved dramatically!

2/ Create Matched Audiences to retarget later

You have a couple of different options here:

You can retarget those who have opened a Lead Gen Form and you can retarget those who have submitted a Lead Gen Form.

This is helpful because you can retarget those who have clicked, but haven’t converted, and promote a different offer to encourage them to convert, for example.

You can also retarget those who have already converted and push them further along your marketing funnel.

THERE’S MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE

LinkedIn Lead Gen Form Ads are getting a lot of flack nowadays but it’s only because it’s tied to the misconception that “lead generation is dead.”

The truth is, there’s much more you can do with Lead Gen Form Ads that doesn’t involve gating a piece of content.

We outlined some ideas here, but this is not an exhaustive list.

In what other ways have you used LinkedIn’s Lead Gen Form Ads? Comment below!

PS: You could pour in the massive amounts of time and money required to learn, optimize, and scale LinkedIn Ads on your own. Or you could pass it off to an expert with 12 years and $150M+ of experience in the platform.

Our data-driven approach to ads management, combined with our proprietary tools, allow us to confidently optimize and scale your LinkedIn Ads faster and more efficiently than any other agency, in-house team, or digital ads hire.

Interested? Consider booking a discovery call with us. We’d absolutely love the chance to get to work with you!

Written by Eric Jones

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