Episode 484: How Thought Leader Ads Turn LinkedIn Content into Revenue

Anthony Blatner | 00:00
I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, so I spend a lot of time thinking about how you can sell via social networks, specifically LinkedIn. For me, it’s about selling on LinkedIn, selling through social networks, getting that word of mouth out there, getting referrals, and doing that primarily through LinkedIn.

Bob Woods | 00:19
Welcome to the Making Sales Social podcast, featuring the top voices in sales, marketing, and business. Join Brynne Tillman, Stan Robinson Jr., and me, Bob Woods, as we bring you the best tips and strategies our guests are teaching and using so you can leverage them for your own virtual and social selling. Brynne, welcome to the show.

Brynne Tillman | 00:41
Welcome back to Making Sales Social. I’m Brynne Tillman, and I’m thrilled to have Anthony Blattner with us today. He is the founder of Speedwork Social, a LinkedIn Ads agency that helps B2B SaaS companies attract better customers and build strong, sustainable pipelines. He’s one of only nine LinkedIn Certified Marketing Experts in the U.S. and among the top 30 nationwide. He’s also a LinkedIn Learning instructor and the host of LinkedIn Ads Radio, where he shares insights from managing high-performance campaigns for SaaS and professional services companies.

Anthony brings deep experience in campaign strategy, creative, retargeting, and lead nurturing, and has helped hundreds of companies optimize and scale their LinkedIn advertising. Anthony, welcome to the program.

Thanks for having me, Brynne. I’m excited to be here.

I’m excited to have you. We haven’t done a lot with LinkedIn Ads, so I’m sure our listeners are on the edge of their seats. Before we jump into your genius, we ask all of our guests the same first question: What does making sales social mean to you?

Anthony Blatner | 01:58
I think it’s about selling the way people buy today. Based on everything you read in my intro, I obviously spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, so I think a lot about how you can sell via social networks, especially LinkedIn. For me, it’s about selling on LinkedIn, selling through social networks, getting that word of mouth out there, getting referrals, and doing that with LinkedIn for the most part.

Brynne Tillman | 02:25
I love that. Terrific. Let’s jump in. I’d like to start by talking about your book and your work, which emphasize smarter adoption of social selling. Adoption, to me, is the number one challenge companies face, so I love that we’re going to talk about that.

How does adoption of social selling and paid media work together, and what shifts are you seeing right now in how SaaS companies use thought leader ads to support their sales process?

Anthony Blatner | 02:57
Thought leader ads have definitely been one of the biggest shifts in LinkedIn advertising over the last year or two. It’s a relatively new feature, and it allows you to run ads as boosted posts. You can boost posts from people rather than just company page posts or ads.

This creates a new way of running ads from a person rather than just a company, and we’ve seen across the board that these perform much better than company page ads. It makes sense—people engage with people more than companies, especially on LinkedIn. No one is there to read ads; they’re there to learn from other professionals.

If your boosted posts help people learn from professionals, that’s why they’re on LinkedIn in the first place. These ads get read and consumed at much higher rates, and they’re cheaper to run. Performance metrics are better across the board.

The challenge with adoption is that boosting a post from a person requires having strong content from that person. For some founders, that’s easy. For others, especially in larger companies, it can be more challenging to identify the right person or create content in a format that will be effective consistently.

It’s easy to get one or two posts out, but turning it into an ongoing, repeatable process is harder. The biggest adoption challenge is getting good content from your people on a regular basis, then turning that into ad creative by boosting it. That’s the process we help companies work through. The biggest shift is the increased usage of thought leader ads on LinkedIn.

Brynne Tillman | 05:10
I love this. I’ve clicked through a few times but haven’t pulled the trigger because it can feel overwhelming, which is why you’re so successful at helping people do this.

Part of my challenge—and I do this for a living—is knowing whether I’m boosting the right content that will convert. When you’re doing this for individuals, which is very different from a company page, how do you help design the right content for the right audience to generate ROI?

Anthony Blatner | 05:56
That’s the question. Designing content for boosting can be nuanced. At a basic level, you can scroll through LinkedIn and get a feel for what formats are working, but if you’re putting ad dollars behind it, you need to be intentional.

You want content that draws the right interest and leads to the right next step. Across the board, case study posts work very well—posts like “How I helped XYZ company achieve XYZ result.” That naturally attracts similar companies that want the same outcome.

These posts shouldn’t be too short or too long. They need enough substance to explain the process and results, followed by a clear next step, such as “DM me,” or a link to learn more, request a demo, or contact you.

The key is teaching, not showing off. People use LinkedIn to learn from other professionals. If your content delivers real value, people will read it. From there, you invite them to take action.

One nuance with boosting is that LinkedIn only shows the first two lines of text. Those lines are critical. They need to clearly call out your target audience or state exactly what the post is about. Vague openings kill performance.

Typically, organic best practice is not to include links in posts, but if you plan to boost the post, it’s okay. A good strategy is to post without a link, get organic reach, then three or four days later edit the post to add the link and boost it. Once boosted, the algorithm doesn’t penalize links.

One more tip: when you attach an image to a boosted post, that image becomes clickable to the link, which can drive additional traffic.

Brynne Tillman | 10:00
That wouldn’t happen in a regular post, right? Normally, clicking an image just opens the photo.

Anthony Blatner | 10:12
Correct. In a regular post, clicking the image just opens it in photo view.

Brynne Tillman | 10:16
So that clickable experience only happens for people seeing the sponsored version? It doesn’t change the organic post?

Anthony Blatner | 10:49
Exactly. The organic version stays the same.

Brynne Tillman | 11:47
What does the sponsored experience look like to the audience? Does it scream “sponsored”? Is it in their inbox?

Anthony Blatner | 10:49
It looks very similar to a normal post in the feed. The only difference is that instead of a timestamp like “six hours ago,” it says “Promoted by” with your company page name. It’s subtle, and most people don’t notice it.

Otherwise, it’s your profile photo, name, headline, and post. This is actually helpful because you can run posts for months without them looking outdated.

Brynne Tillman | 11:47
Are you paying for views or clicks when you boost content?

Anthony Blatner | 12:01
You can bid by impressions (CPM) or by engagement. We usually recommend bidding by engagement because thought leader ads get high engagement, which leads to better pricing and more link clicks.

Engagement includes clicks, likes, or expanding the post. LinkedIn will give you a recommended bid range, but thought leader ads often outperform averages, so you can usually bid well below the recommendation and still get strong results.

Brynne Tillman | 13:04
That’s great to know. If you’re planning to boost, it makes sense not to worry about the algorithm and include the link.

Anthony Blatner | 13:40
Exactly.

When building your audience, don’t use the boost button on the front end of LinkedIn. Go through LinkedIn Campaign Manager and build a proper campaign. The front-end boost option is very limited.

Once in Campaign Manager, LinkedIn targeting is very strong. You can target by industry, company size, revenue, and job titles. You can also upload a target account list if you know exactly which companies you want to reach.

From there, you can layer job titles and segment by persona, industry, or decision-maker type. You can then match specific posts to specific audiences, ensuring the right content reaches the right people.

Brynne Tillman | 16:12
The more you drill down, does that end up costing more?

Anthony Blatner | 16:19
It can. It depends on budget versus audience size. If you’re trying to push a lot of budget to a small audience, you’ll have to pay extra to squeeze enough reach out of that audience.

Anthony Blatner | 16:42
You have to bid more to make sure you’re consistently winning the auction for that audience.

Brynne Tillman | 16:51
So the answer is: it depends.

Anthony Blatner | 16:53
Exactly. If you’re pushing too much budget to a small audience, you’ll have to bid higher and pay more. On the flip side, if your audience is too large, you risk reaching the wrong people. There’s a middle ground.

When I’m building campaigns, it depends a lot on budget, but I typically like to have between 30,000 and 100,000 people in a campaign. If it’s larger than that, I look for ways to segment by industry or job title. If it’s smaller, I know it will be a slower campaign or require higher-than-average spend.

Brynne Tillman | 17:44
Out of curiosity, what about boosting events? If we’re hosting an event, how does that perform?

Anthony Blatner | 17:56
Events are great. One of the most natural use cases for thought leader ads is when you’re hosting or speaking at an event. You can say, “I’m speaking at this event—register here to learn A, B, and C.” That’s a very natural post to boost because it links directly to the event page.

Right now, you can boost image posts, video posts, text-only posts, and link posts. You can’t boost document posts or the event tile post itself. If LinkedIn auto-generates the event tile, you need to remove it, upload the event header image manually, and then boost the post. LinkedIn is supposedly rolling out native event boosting soon, but for now, that workaround works well.

Brynne Tillman | 19:32
That’s very good advice. You’ve worked with hundreds of SaaS and professional services brands. What patterns do you see in companies that consistently win with campaigns—not just boosted posts, but long-running campaigns? Is there a funnel structure?

Anthony Blatner | 20:10
Across the board, it comes down to having a strong offer for a very distinct audience. Don’t try to reach everyone. Be specific about who you want to reach and what you’re offering them.

For most SaaS companies, that offer is a demo or free trial, but don’t just call it a demo. Nobody wants “a demo”—they want value. Think about repackaging it as a value-forward offer, like a free analysis or assessment. When people hear “demo,” they know it’s a sales call, so focus on what they’ll learn or gain instead.

Equally important is audience targeting. Don’t target every industry or every job title. You want a focused group that will actually care about your offer.

Brynne Tillman | 21:54
There’s often a challenge between sales and marketing alignment. With boosted thought leadership, how do you help companies align sales teams with marketing so the content matches sales outreach?

Anthony Blatner | 22:26
Alignment is critical. On the targeting side, start with the same target account list sales is using. Upload that list into LinkedIn Ads so both teams are reaching the same companies and job titles.

On the content side, marketing can create initial templates, and sales reps can personalize them in their own voice. You don’t want copy-and-paste posts from multiple people—it looks unnatural. Sales reps should rephrase and personalize the content.

Boosting sales reps’ posts can actually be powerful. If that rep is going to take the sales call, having their post appear in the prospect’s feed beforehand creates a warmer introduction. Sales teams usually love this increased visibility.

Brynne Tillman | 23:49
Is there any integration with Sales Navigator? There used to be one years ago.

Anthony Blatner | 23:58
Surprisingly, no. It’s been in beta multiple times and never rolled out. It’s a head-scratcher because syncing Sales Navigator lists directly to ads would be the most natural integration imaginable.

Brynne Tillman | 24:22
There was a time when marketing could do that, and then it went away.

Anthony Blatner | 24:35
You can do it indirectly through Salesforce or HubSpot if you have top-tier Sales Navigator. You can push lists into both Sales Navigator and LinkedIn Ads that way, but it’s strange you can’t do it directly within LinkedIn.

Brynne Tillman | 25:04
That is silly. This has been great. Is there a question I should have asked that I didn’t?

Anthony Blatner | 25:17
We covered a lot, but I’ll add more about funnel strategy. The case study post is usually the top of the funnel. Once someone engages or visits your website, you can retarget them with additional content—videos, posts from you or your team, anything that builds familiarity.

Then, a second retargeting stage is where you introduce the offer post. At that point, they’ve seen you at least twice, so you can be more direct with demos or consultations.

At the bottom of the funnel, I like using conversation ads. After someone has seen your content a few times, it’s appropriate to reach their inbox with a direct message offering a demo or consultation.

Brynne Tillman | 27:02
That’s wonderful advice. I’m sure many sales and marketing leaders are realizing they need to explore thought leadership ads. How can they get in touch with you?

Anthony Blatner | 27:33
You can find me on LinkedIn—I’m the only Anthony Blattner there—or visit speedworksocial.com. We offer free LinkedIn Ads audits, where we review your account and provide recommendations you can use right away.

Brynne Tillman | 27:57
Thank you so much for your insights and advice. And to all of our listeners, when you’re out and about, don’t forget to make your sales social.

Bob Woods | 28:22
Thanks for watching. Join us again for more guests with marketing, sales training, and social selling strategies that will set you apart. Subscribe for the latest episodes of the Making Sales Social podcast, available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and other platforms. Visit our website, socialsaleslink.com, for more information.