LinkedIn has this week launched a new ‘Conversation Ads’ option, which essentially enables you to add clickable CTA buttons that your email recipients can choose from in-stream, making your Sponsored InMails more engaging, and more interactive, which could help to drive better results.

As you can see in this example, with Conversation Ads, you can add direct action CTA buttons into your Sponsored InMails – or ‘Message Ads‘ as LinkedIn now calls them.

Among the various options, your in-message CTAs can be things like:

• ‘Visit website’
• ‘Register for Webinar’
• ‘Sign up for newsletter’
• ‘See case studies’
• ‘Sign up for demo’
• ‘Learn more
• ‘Tell me more’

You can add several CTA buttons to each of your messages, giving your recipients more ways to respond.

As explained by LinkedIn:

“Conversation Ads build on our current Message Ads offering (formerly Sponsored InMail), and feature a “choose your own path” experience that lets you create full-funnel campaigns with multiple customized calls-to-action, like product education, webinar sign-ups, and ebook downloads.”

The concept taps into the compulsion of choice in order to prompt increased action. Reach out with a singular offer and you might not connect with an individual user, but by offering various, optional responses, you expand the potential of engagement. Various psychological studies underline the value of choice in this respect – but don’t offer too many options. The paradox of choice suggests that with too many variables to consider, response rates dip.

Of course, there are limitations on how many CTA buttons you can add in already, so this is less likely to be an issue with Conversation Ads, and with more people engaging with messages on the platform (LinkedIn says that messages sent on the platform have quadrupled in the last five years), it could be a good option to consider.

In testing, LinkedIn says that one brand saw drove a 5X higher click-through rate with Conversation Ads.

If the option sounds interesting, LinkedIn has provided an in-depth rundown of how to create a Conversation Ad campaign here, while it’s also running a live-stream info session on the new option and its benefits next month.

In addition to this, LinkedIn has also published a collection of message templates to help formulate more effective Conversation campaigns, if you need.

Certainly, it looks to have more potential than generic InMail campaigns of the past, and it could provide another way to get users tapping through, with each option moving them into a different stage of your funnel for future outreach.

Conversation Ads will be rolling out globally in public beta over the next few weeks. You can learn more about Conversation Ads at the LinkedIn Marketing Solutions website.