LinkedIn has introduced on-demand video courses to teach advertisers how to use LinkedIn ad tools. The courses cover the basics including an introduction to LinkedIn Ads, how to use LinkedIn ad targeting, and reporting and analytics for LinkedIn ads. The announcement comes as advertisers differ on their opinions of LinkedIn ads’ effectiveness, saying success is often achievable for niche industries.

The course platform offers custom paths for media planners versus those who run ad campaigns and is meant to help both beginner and intermediate advertisers.

In the announcement, Renee Lowe, Customer Marketing Manager at LinkedIn says that, when done correctly, LinkedIn advertising works: “Lead generation forms on LinkedIn drive 5X more conversions than landing pages and you’re 6X more likely to convert audiences when they see both brand and acquisition messages on LinkedIn.” The courses are free and self-paced.

Why we care. For businesses looking to advertise on LinkedIn, the platform has historically been hard for marketers to use. That, plus the lack of results for many advertisers has made using LinkedIn ads a hard sell. Others claim that once they were able to figure it out, they’ve seen success for themselves and their clients. 

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Sitecore, the CMS and e-commerce platform, has announced that it has secured $1.2 billion in private capital investment to support a rapid growth plan. The company described it as the largest ever capital investment in the martech space. CEO Steve Tzikakis, who joined Sitecore from SAP just five months ago described it as “unprecedented.”

Sitecore saw record revenues over the last three quarters, as businesses challenged by the pandemic sought to kick-start or refine their digital commerce strategies. McKinsey, for example, has reported that consumer and business digital adoption vaulted five years into the future in the space of eight weeks. Sitecore will celebrate its twentieth anniversary this year.

Why we care. We’ve been talking all year about how important it has been for businesses generally, and especially businesses that were not previously digital-first, to develop their digital strategies. E-commerce has become a must-have for industrial verticals nobody would have predicted a year ago. Clearly, investors are betting heavily on players in the e-commerce space, and we think that will continue.

The past 10 months or so have given PPC pros a crash course in adaptability, ingenuity and nimble marketing. But the tumult of the past several months may be a hidden blessing.

With the right tools, PPC pros can set the strategy for automations to follow when unexpected shifts happen. Here are three lessons from 2020 for a banner 2021.

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Dharmesh Shah, Hubspot founder and CTO, hit the nail on the head with this LinkedIn post about being an introvert on the new social media app Clubhouse. The conference-call-focused platform seems to be a hit with search marketers, though, as I’m seeing more SEO- and PPC-focused calls pop up. What do you think?

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“There is a steep and competitive growth curve in the new normal! If you are not getting the message out UNIQUELY, you will fall behind and that’s not good for your future.” Steve Gould, founder and CEO, CoGoBuzz.