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ABM and LinkedIn: How partner programs changed the game, with Liz Demers

About 20 years ago, LinkedIn started as a platform for members to find their next career move and for recruiters looking for talent. Today, LinkedIn is a global destination for more than 830 million professionals to discover peer insights, industry news, career training, business connections, and more.

What began as a professional networking platform has evolved to be a huge branding opportunity for companies and individuals alike, and now, LinkedIn is central to many business’ marketing strategies. According to the Content Marketing Institute, 97% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn as part of their content marketing efforts. 

Liz Demers, senior partner manager at LinkedIn, joined our podcast host, Mike Burton, SVP of data sales & co-founder of Bombora to share her experience being a part of LinkedIn’s success. 

Click here to listen to the full conversation with Liz. And never miss an episode of The Intent Data Exchange by following us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, our website, or anywhere you get podcasts.

Building LinkedIn’s partner program

LinkedIn members come to learn, share, and get inspired. They are decision-makers, influencers, and leaders — exactly the people marketers and advertisers want to target. 

“As we grew, we saw that LinkedIn’s first party data and the way customers were using it, was the perfect place for account-based marketing,” said Liz, who spearheaded the account-based marketing (ABM) partner program launch. 

Building and nurturing relationships is central to a successful ABM program. But a truly sustainable marketing program relies on the presence of robust technology and partnership expertise too.

Initially started as a standard channel business for marketing solutions, the LinkedIn Partner Program is now a global community of technology and service providers selected for expertise, innovation, and quality. Each in a class of their own, LinkedIn has partners for every advertiser’s need, like content creation, audience insights, reporting, and more. Today, 1 in 5 marketers on LinkedIn use a LinkedIn partner to meet their objectives.

“Our channel business and our partners are now a solid pillar of the LinkedIn marketing solutions business at this point and seen as a major lever for growth,” said Liz. “In the past year alone, our partners that are integrated with LinkedIn has grown over 40%.”

LinkedIn’s partner program allows marketers to connect with an audience expert, like Hubspot, Adobe, or Bombora, to orchestrate ABM efforts more strategically on LinkedIn. With a partner, marketers are able to reach the right people who make buying decisions more easily and drive more qualified leads. And in turn, LinkedIn partners are able to grow their business and share their capabilities with the biggest brands across every industry.

“There are a number of ways for companies to integrate with LinkedIn,” said Liz. “But from an ABM platform perspective, we do see the vast majority of use cases around using data to efficiently identify target audiences, segment them, and use them really easily in LinkedIn campaigns.” 

"It is incredibly powerful what our partners are bringing to the table and how they're illuminating the value that LinkedIn is bringing customers."

Liz Demers, Senior Partner Marketing Manager at LinkedIn

Bombora Company Surge® and LinkedInABM platforms and B2B sales and marketing vendors effectively allow campaigns to be fed directly onto the LinkedIn platform from across the sales and marketing ecosystem. “It’s making campaigns smarter. It’s making campaigns more impactful, and we’re seeing great traction,” said Liz. Bombora has been a LinkedIn partner for a few years and the Bombora Company Surge® and LinkedIn integration easily allows marketers to know which accounts are motivated by which messages. For clients like Hushly, the combination of Bombora and LinkedIn has yielded 54.5% lower CPM rates, to go along with a 79% reduction in CPC.

“As a startup, every dollar needs to be maximized and that’s especially true for a bootstrapped startup that’s profitable and hasn’t taken any venture funding,” said James Kessinger, Chief Marketing Officer of Hushly in a case study story. “It’s not about making every dollar count. It’s about accounting for every dollar and placing big bets on things that work to get outsized returns. That’s why we chose to move all in with LinkedIn and Bombora. You can’t argue with data.”

Related resource: The 5 best tips to get proven results with Intent data

Throughout the years, LinkedIn has changed the way professionals connect with each other and it continues to be a powerful marketing tool for any business wishing to create brand awareness, engagement, and generate leads from a highly targeted audience. Bombora is excited to see how LinkedIn’s technology evolves and where takes its partners and members.

Click here to listen to the full conversation with Liz. And never miss an episode of The Intent Data Exchange by following us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, our website, or anywhere you get podcasts.