New LinkedIn tool gives marketers professional data about their audiences
Professional network LinkedIn is launching LinkedIn Website Demographics, a reporting tool that pulls professional data from LinkedIn’s 500 million members so marketers can see what types of professionals are coming to their websites.
LinkedIn has a new analytics tool.
This, in turn, lets brands develop better targeting and content for [their] campaigns, according to LinkedIn. Featuring an 'easy-to-read interface' under a new tab at the top of LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager tool, Website Demographics lets users filter their site visitors by eight professional dimensions, including:
- Job title
- Industry
- Job seniority
- Job function
- Company
- Company size
- Location
- And country
According to Sudeep Cherian, director of global product marketing at LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, this is the first time LinkedIn is letting marketers layer professional traits from LinkedIn onto traffic for different parts of their websites.
What’s more, a LinkedIn rep said Website Demographics is superior to other analytics tools because it provides marketers with “high quality data from people’s LinkedIn profiles, which is often more accurate since people have a professional mindset on LinkedIn.”
Website Demographics also allows marketers to see if they have attracted new pools of prospects to their sites.
“For example, let’s say you run marketing for an IT business and traditionally target US-based technology executives,” reads a LinkedIn blog post. “Looking at your Website Demographics dashboard, you discover that EMEA-based healthcare executives are visiting a product page more than you imagined. Equipped with this knowledge, you can adjust your marketing strategy to target this newly discovered audience.”
Website Demographics also allows users to filter by date range to understand whether a recent campaign boosted traffic among desired audience segments.
“With these insights, you can craft new marketing content designed to better resonate with that audience,” the blog post continues.
LinkedIn also noted Website Demographics provides insight while respecting member privacy.
Cherian said no personally identifiable information is shared via Website Demographics and LinkedIn only shows a percentage of page views – not total unique visitors – for an approximation of trends and to show who at a broad level is coming to the site and engaging with the brand.
LinkedIn noted a key challenge for B2B marketers in particular is understanding whether they have created the right content for the right people.
“Imagine if you no longer had to guess if your marketing reached the right audiences,” LinkedIn said of Website Demographics. “Instead, you could see who visited your website and then create content that engages them even better.”
More than 220 companies tried out Website Demographics in June and Cherian said feedback noted the biggest benefit was truly understanding what’s happening on brand websites and who is visiting them.
In a statement, Bhanu Chawla, head of digital strategy at cloud-based talent and learning management company Cornerstone OnDemand, said: “Website Demographics is giving us some really useful insights about the different segments of our international websites. It’s helping us clearly understand if we’re reaching the right audience with our web marketing strategies and also providing clarity about our web audiences throughout the entire customer lifecycle.”
Website Demographics is a free tool. Cherian said LinkedIn aims to roll it out to its global audience in the next two weeks.