Hasta La Creative!

If you’re looking for a job or to hire an employee, LinkedIn is the leader by a mile. But LinkedIn is evolving. The professional social network is pivoting toward digital advertising and lead gen with the recent launch of a digital ad network. This has b-to-b marketers excited, and for good reason. LinkedIn’s arrival in the space represents a strong move that could influence the programmatic revolution in a big way. But before b-to-b marketers shift the lion’s share of their budgets to LinkedIn, they should ask if LinkedIn’s closed approach is best.

With a massive user base and deep data to draw on, LinkedIn could be a hero in a strong field of b-to-b data companies that already includes standouts like Hoovers, Salesgenie, and Marketo. LinkedIn, more than any other company, has the potential to marshal the b-to-b programmatic market, return premiums to publishers, and deliver precision and collaboration to targeting. On paper, LinkedIn has everything it needs to succeed in this space, but in practice there are pitfalls ahead, because lasting revolutions in technology cannot live inside a silo.

When LinkedIn bought Bizo, a b-to-b ad technology and data firm, one of its first moves was to discontinue Bizo Data Solutions, which provided business data to publishers and marketers. And while LinkedIn now provides the ability to market outside its network across the web, marketers aren’t able to layer first-party data on top of LinkedIn’s data, which limits the ability to self-initiate traditional programmatic media buys.

Continue reading at AdAge.com