LinkedIn’s NewFront pitch was part ad updates, part ‘swagger’

At their second-ever NewFront on Monday evening, the execs at LinkedIn attempted to do the (nearly) impossible: make B2B marketing cool.

“LinkedIn is showing up with some swagger in the market,” Matthew Derella, VP of LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, told Marketing Brew the day after the presentation, which was closed to the press.

As part of the effort, his team is emphasizing LinkedIn’s creator partnership opportunities, live-event tie-ins, and cross-platform targeting capabilities, while also underscoring the measurable benefits of LinkedIn campaigns.

“Part of what we’re advocating for for marketers is to make sure that you’re not wasting your precious media investment on vanity metrics,” Derella said. “We believe that the real power of partnering with LinkedIn is that we can drive real outcomes for you, that matter to your CFO, that matter to your board, that help you grow your company.”

Get create-ive

This year’s pitch builds on LinkedIn’s approach to its NewFront last year, but this time at a larger scale: Deralla said attendance of the presentation was up by about 4x, and 24 hours later, he’s been “pleased with the customer reactions.” The platform is using the NewFronts period not only to have conversations with buyers, but also to announce new features and inventory like Top Voices 360, LinkedIn’s “most premium creator sponsorship offering,” Derella said.

Top Voices 360 lets brands sponsor content from popular LinkedIn creators like Corporate Natalie and Sue Bird, both of whom are new to the platform’s roster of show hosts, Derella told us. The expanded list of creators was selected based on the most engaging topics on LinkedIn, like the intersection of sports and business, he said.

BrandLink, LinkedIn’s video ad platform, which was a focal point last year, serves as the foundation for Top Voices 360, and it received some upgrades ahead of this year’s presentation, including:

• The option to bundle BrandLink video ads with ads for live events hosted by publishers, letting sponsors promote the events and continue conversations around them after the fact;
• The addition of several new global publishers to the BrandLink program, giving brands access to pre-roll inventory against their content;
• And a partnership with Stripe to streamline the process of paying creators.

BrandLink revenue was up almost 200% in Q4 of last year compared to Q3, according to Derella, who said that feedback from existing advertisers in the program led to its expansion.

Off-platform

Derella also touted LinkedIn’s recent partnership with The Trade Desk that allows marketers to buy LinkedIn CTV ads programmatically or through LinkedIn’s campaign manager. More than 90% of LinkedIn members watch ad-supported CTV content, he said; the partnership allows brands to more easily target and re-target those users with campaigns across both platforms.

Between new creator content, ad-tech tools, and its own ad campaign that started running this week—called “Cut the Bullspend”—the team at LinkedIn is aiming to position the platform as the go-to place for video content for B2B marketers, many of whom are Gen Zers, Deralla said.

“They’re not [using] the old playbooks of downloading whitepapers,” he said. “You need to be on the short list [of customers] from the beginning, and that means you have to have a really strong brand that people recognize.”