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Case study
SOFACOMPANY · Design furniture for homes, hotels and workspaces, Europe

52 conversions and 24 sample box requests from LinkedIn Ads in 16 months.

SOFACOMPANY designs sofas and furniture, and sells to hotels, workspaces, architects and interior designers. We ran its LinkedIn Ads from the first creative tests to campaigns aimed at chosen target companies, which clicked at more than three times the rate of broad industry targeting.

  • 16 months
  • LinkedIn Ads
  • Europe
Services provided
  • LinkedIn Ads
  • Strategy and targeting
  • Ad copy
  • Image, video and text ads
  • Lead forms and retargeting
  • Monthly reporting

Who we targeted

1Audience

  • Hospitality and co-working buyers
  • Architects and interior designers
  • Chosen target companies
  • People who engaged with earlier ads

A list of chosen target companies gave the best results by far.

2Industry

  • Hospitality
  • Co-working spaces
  • Architecture and interior design

Images of hotel lobbies and rooms worked best for the hospitality audience.

3Company size

  • Chosen target companies

Picked company by company rather than by size band.

4Job titles

  • Architect
  • Interior designer
  • Interior architect
  • Hotel manager

Naming the job title at the start of the ad text lifted click-through rates.

5Countries

  • DKDenmark
  • NLNetherlands
  • DEGermany
  • SESweden
  • NONorway

Countries the sample box requests came from. Ads ran in English.

The numbers

Target company campaigns clicked three times as often.

Results from the LinkedIn campaign data and reports over 16 months.

52

Conversions

From campaigns aimed at a list of chosen target companies.

24

Sample box requests

Interior designers, architects and stylists in 5 countries asked for the free sample box.

2.03%

Click-through rate

On target company ads, against 0.63% for industry targeting.

7,564,329

Impressions

In the first three reports alone, with 6,990 clicks.

Target companies vs industry
52conversions from ads to chosen target companies, against 2 from industry targeting

We compared campaigns aimed at a list of chosen companies with campaigns aimed at whole industries. The target company ads were more relevant to the people who saw them, clicked more than three times as often and brought in almost all the conversions.

Industry targeting · 2 conversions0.63%
Chosen target companies · 52 conversions2.03%

Click-through rate per campaign type, as tracked by LinkedIn.

ChallengeReach the professionals who furnish other people's spaces

SOFACOMPANY wanted more business from professionals: hotels, co-working spaces, architects and interior designers who choose furniture for their clients' projects.

That is a narrow group on LinkedIn, so every ad had to speak to them directly.

The goal: find the ads this audience responds to, build a warm audience, and turn interest into requests.

SolutionTest everything, then focus on the companies that matter

We tested image, video and text ads against two audiences: hospitality and co-working, and a broader group of design professionals. Industry-specific images, such as hotel lobbies and rooms, improved results by 237%, and text ads with emojis did 87% better.

A Christmas greeting to the warm audience reached 13,752 people at a 1.68% click-through rate. Later we offered a free "Showroom in a box" sample kit through LinkedIn lead forms.

Finally we built campaigns aimed at a list of chosen target companies and gave them the best performing ads.

Impact52 conversions from the right companies

The target company campaigns reached a 2.03% click-through rate, more than three times the 0.63% from industry targeting.

They brought in 52 conversions, against 2 from industry targeting.

The sample box offer added 24 requests from interior designers, architects and stylists in five countries.

How we helped

What we did, and when

From the first creative tests to target company campaigns.

  1. Month 1

    Strategy and targeting

    Two audiences, hospitality and co-working and a broader design audience, with image, video and text ads tested side by side.

  2. Month 1

    Launch

    The first report showed 1.96 million impressions and 1,621 clicks, at about 1.5 times the LinkedIn average click-through rate.

  3. Months 2 to 4

    Testing and optimisation

    Text tests, job titles at the start of the ads, emojis in text ads, a Christmas greeting at 1.68% and the first retargeting campaigns, with 645 website clicks.

  4. Months 5 to 16

    Results

    24 sample box requests from five countries, and target company campaigns with 52 conversions at a 2.03% click-through rate.

Month by month

Click-through rate up from 0.53% to 0.67% by month two.

Ad clicks and full video views, from the first three reports.

Ad clicks and full video views

All campaigns, by reporting period.

Ad clicksFull video views
  1. 1,6216,336
    Month 10.53%
  2. 2,0572,650
    Month 20.67%
  3. 3,3123,606
    Months 3 and 40.65%

How we count. Month 1 is the first month ads were live. Impressions, clicks, click-through rates and full video views come from SOFACOMPANY's first three LinkedIn Ads reports. The first two cover about a month each and the third about six weeks, labelled Months 3 and 4. The 7,564,329 impressions and 6,990 clicks are the sum of those three reports. Comparisons with the LinkedIn average are as quoted in the reports. Conversions and click-through rates for target company and industry campaigns are as tracked by LinkedIn and reported in the final report. Sample box requests are lead form submissions for the free sample kit, leaving out test entries.

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