by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, November 14, 2017

LinkedIn Marketing Solutions has created a way for businesses to solicit people for their information through ads on the social network.

The task expands on the company’s Lead Gen Forms capabilities to Sponsored InMail, and introduced a new Dynamic Ads format that allows members to download content, making it easier for them to generate and search for leads.

Making it easier for businesses to collect quality leads directly from the LinkedIn platform should in turn improve conversion rates and drive higher return on investments, Vasudha Mithal, senior product manager at LinkedIn, wrote in a post.

Now there are two versions. Both versions of Lead Gen Forms work in a similar way, but there is one main distinction. The Sponsored Content version is limited to LinkedIn’s mobile app, while The Sponsored InMail version can run on both mobile and desktop.

Lead Gen Forms for Sponsored InMail will roll out this week for all customers and will work in the same way as the original Sponsored Content version.

Marketers can generate leads and enable content downloads — such as the download of an ebook or white paper — directly from the ad unit.

The leads from the Lead Gen Forms for Sponsored Content or Sponsored inMail will become available through LinkedIn’s Lead Gen Forms in Campaign Manager self-serve tool or through third-party CRM systems DriftRock, Marketo, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Oracle’s Eloqua and Zapier.

LinkedIn will report the number of leads, completion rates, and the average cost per lead to businesses for each campaign.

Businesses also can ask custom questions on both the Sponsored Content and Sponsored InMail versions of Lead Gen Forms. Marketers can include up to three custom questions created by the advertiser. Brands can ask people who are filling out the form to answer multiple choice questions, or ask people to type in an answer that is up to 100 characters long.

MediaPost.com: Search Marketing Daily

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