LinkedIn’s expanding its sponsored articles ad option to sponsored newsletters, providing another way for brands to generate leads from their LinkedIn content.

The expansion comes at a time when LinkedIn newsletters are seeing significant growth in the app, making it a valuable consideration for getting your brand in front of more people within your sector.

The Evolution of Sponsored Content on LinkedIn

LinkedIn initially launched sponsored articles back in January, enabling brands to both promote and gate their posted content in the app. Sponsored newsletters are essentially the same thing, with newsletters created by a company page also able to be boosted to attract more sign-ups.

If you’re creating a newsletter within the app, you can now use it as a broader lead generation tool, providing more ways to expand your reach and generate more information for your future outreach.

Leveraging Popular Newsletters for Brand Visibility

The next step would be sponsoring newsletters that already exist and connecting with a broader audience by partnering with popular creators in the app to enhance your brand presence. This capability is coming soon.

LinkedIn Help

“Only newsletter articles authored by a company and part of an organic Company Page post can be sponsored. Member-authored newsletter articles can’t be sponsored but this capability will be available in a future release.”

LinkedIn also says that sponsored newsletters will be available in brand awareness and engagement campaigns and can be created via the “Content Library” in Campaign Manager. Sponsored newsletters can also be boosted to maximise reach.

Newsletter Engagement on the Rise

LinkedIn’s seen a 47% increase in engagement with newsletters in the app over the past year, with more than 184,000 newsletters now being published. This indicates a strong interest among LinkedIn users in receiving periodic updates from people and pages in the app, presenting a significant opportunity for brands.

Key Benefits of Sponsored Articles and Newsletters

Sponsored LinkedIn articles and newsletter articles are written on LinkedIn and have a LinkedIn URL. Sponsored articles can be posted by a Company Page as an organic post or as part of a thought leader ad from a LinkedIn member. Sponsored newsletter articles can only be posted by a Company Page as an organic Page post.

The benefits of sponsored LinkedIn articles and newsletter articles are numerous, including bringing content closer to your target audience and improving the time to market your content. However, it is important to know that LinkedIn is gradually releasing sponsored newsletter articles, and you might not have access to them yet.

Only newsletter articles authored by a company and part of an organic Company Page post can be sponsored. Member-authored newsletter articles can’t be sponsored yet, but this capability will be available in a future release. Additionally, sponsored newsletter articles currently only support the brand awareness and engagement campaign objectives.

Understanding the Mechanics

Sponsored articles are individual, standalone, long-form content on various topics, whereas sponsored newsletter articles are part of recurring, serialized newsletters on LinkedIn that members can subscribe to. Currently, there are some differences in the features available for sponsored articles and newsletter articles.

Sponsored articles can be sponsored as a single image ad for brand awareness, engagement, and lead generation campaigns using the Content Library in Campaign Manager. You can also boost them through Company Pages. During campaign creation in Campaign Manager, you can promote articles from thought leaders in the LinkedIn members tab and promote Company Page articles through the Company Page tab.

Boosting Newsletter Articles

On the other hand, sponsored newsletter articles can be sponsored as a single image ad for brand awareness and engagement campaigns using the Content Library in Campaign Manager. You can also boost them through Company Pages. Some considerations to be aware of when using sponsored articles and newsletter articles include that if multiple Company Page posts link to the same article or newsletter, the Content Library only shows the first post that linked to that article or newsletter. Subsequent posts linking to the same article or newsletter are filtered out of the Content Library.

Considerations for Sponsored Content

All sponsored LinkedIn articles and newsletter articles will include a Promoted tag at the top of the ad to indicate the post is sponsored. LinkedIn articles sponsored under the lead generation objective will have a default Unlock article call-to-action button. When clicked, a lead form opens in the feed. Upon completing the lead form, a member will have full access to the LinkedIn article. However, sponsored articles using the lead generation objective aren’t yet supported by the LinkedIn Audience Network.