Earlier this year, LinkedIn added ‘Lead Gen Forms’, a new ad offering which enables advertisers to more easily collect information from users, with the data auto-populated based on their LinkedIn profile.

The lead gen option has proven to be both popular and effective - according to LinkedIn:

“Marketers have seen strong campaign performance with Lead Gen Forms, reducing their average cost per lead by more than 20%.”

Given their success, LinkedIn has this week announced that they’re expanding their lead gen options to two of their other ad tools – Sponsored InMail and Dynamic Ads.

The process is fairly straight-forward, and will no doubt increase the effectiveness of both. First, on Sponsored InMail - LinkedIn says that while the average open rates for Sponsored InMails are ‘commonly above 40%’, prospects do tend to drop off because of the extra step required to fill out a form on a landing page.

The addition of lead gen forms for Sponsored InMail will eliminate this problem – as you can see in the below GIF, the new process will enable advertisers to collect prospect data - including a name, email address, job title, company name, etc. - direct from their LinkedIn profile.

In addition, LinkedIn's also allowing advertisers to add in up to three custom question fields for more context (though those fields obviously can’t be auto-populated).

As per LinkedIn:

“In our beta tests, advertisers using Lead Gen Forms for Sponsored InMail saw their mobile conversion rates increase by an average of 3x when compared to standard landing pages.”

Those numbers are definitely worthy of attention – if you’re running a Sponsored InMail campaign with a view to building your email list, the lead gen option could give your campaign a huge boost.

For Dynamic Ads, which use a users’ profile information to provide a more customized ad experience, the addition of lead gen forms will also make it easier for brands to build their lead listings.

LinkedIn says that Dynamic Ads deliver 2x higher click-through rates than standard display ads, and the addition of streamlined lead generation – including the preview option for content magnets – adds another element to the process.

Automated lead generation processes like this can greatly improve the response rates, as it’s far more inviting for the user to simply click a button than it is for them to have to fill in the relevant info themselves. Gating quality content is much more inviting through this process, which could help businesses build out their email listings in a more efficient, effective way.

Worth a look for anyone looking to reach prospects via LinkedIn.

The Dynamic Ads lead gen format is available from today, while Lead Gen Forms for Sponsored InMail will be rolling out in the coming weeks.