• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, April 4, 2024

LinkedIn, Microsoft's business-networking site, has entered the connected TV (CTV) ad business. NBCUniversal joins as an initial partner to give business-to-business brands a way into CTV.

The expansion into CTV from in-stream video ads running on its site will help advertisers get business message in front of the 1 billion LinkedIn members. Through LinkedIn's Connected TV offering, the ads are delivered only on immersive large-screen TV devices.

LinkedIn Campaign Manager gives advertisers access to LinkedIn CTV, with ads streaming across publishers including Roku, and Samsung Ads. DoubleVerify is chartered with measuring brand safety.

Some 94% of B2B marketers shared with LinkedIn they find it challenging to measure the success of campaigns. So, after the campaign launches, customers can measure the ads and make more strategic decisions about future CTV campaigns with native reporting in Campaign Manager, like Performance Summary Report, Revenue Attribution Report, Conversions API and the latest CTV Brand Lift test using metrics like reach, conversion rates and video completion rates.

In addition to native reporting, LinkedIn is collaborating with iSpot for advanced audience measurement and Kantar for objective brand lift studies, to help customers better assess the reach of their campaigns against target audiences.

LinkedIn collaborated with publishers and ad exchanges such as NBCUniversal, Paramount, Roku, and Samsung Ads to secure and leverage ad inventory.

The company secures inventory via 1:1 Private Marketplace deals made directly with CTV media rights owners, and does not deliver on any inventory through the open market.

Accessing the inventory means LinkedIn will work with CTV exchanges, supply side platforms (SSPs) such as Microsoft Monetize, formerly Xandr.

The agreement supports B2B marketers through LinkedIn's first-party data, but the company declined to say whether or not that includes data from Xbox, Microsoft Bing or Copilot.

There are no plans at this time to build a streaming app for Roku or Samsung TV, but a LinkedIn spokesperson said the company always explores ways to improve the customer experience.