Podcast appearances and mentions of ryan macinnis

Die Länderspielpause hat den Adlern Mannheim gutgetan. Torhüter Felix Brückmann hat seine Erkältung auskuriert, Stürmer Ryan MacInnis meldet sich nach seiner Beinverletzung zurück. Im Spiel beim ERC Ingolstadt werden die Adler-Fans aber auch ein ganz neues Gesicht zu sehen bekommen: Der 17 Jahre alte Kevin Bicker steht vor seinem DEL-Debüt. Auch darüber spricht MM-Volontär Kai Plösser mit Sportredakteur Christian Rotter in der neuen Folge des Adler-Checks.

Fünf Spiele haben die Adler Mannheim seit der vergangenen Aufnahme des Adler-Checks, dem Eishockeypodcast des Mannheimer Morgen, in der DEL absolviert und vier davon konnten sie für sich entscheiden. Für die beiden MM-Sportredakteure Christian Rotter und Philipp Koehl steht beim Blick auf die Sigesserie fest: Die Blau-Weiß-Roten befinden sich auf einem guten Weg, Verbesserungspotenzial gibt es dennoch an einigen Stellen. Um diese Baustellen besser bearbeiten zu können, haben die Mannheimer in Ryan MacInnis einen neuen Spieler verpflichtet. Der US-Amerikaner trägt nicht nur einen großen Namen, sondern ist auch noch flexibel einsetzbar, wie Koehl nach seinem Trainingsbesuch bei den Adlern zu berichten weiß. Außerdem darf bei Rotter/Koehl der traditionelle Blick über die Bande nicht fehlen - und da dreht sich in dieser Episode alles um die deutschen NHL-Spieler Moritz Seider und Tim Stützle.

Dacheng Zhao and I worked closely together through some big product decisions during our time at LinkedIn. In this episode, we'll talk about what a successful relationship looks like between product management and product marketing, where other partnerships fall short, and lessons we learned together in launching LinkedIn's Product Marketplace - from changing our beliefs as we learned more about customer behavior to challenging assumptions that users found stars as ratings helpful when evaluating B2B products.

Ryan MacInnis is a former Boston Globe Journalist turned Product Marketing Leader with demonstrated success at enterprise companies like LinkedIn and Twitter, as well as zero to one technology startups in the artificial intelligence, real estate, and legal tech space. In his spare time, MacInnis is a fellow at NYU under the direction of Michael Posner, the former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor in the Obama Administration, researching the intersection of technology, automation, and policy on organizational structures and labor markets more broadly.Connect with Ryan:Ryan on LinkedInRyan on TwitterMade possible by:This show is brought to you by Recess.io. The platform for internal marketing communications professionals.

In this episode, Ryan and I go deep into the launch of LinkdedIn product pages, what it's like launching a new product in a remote world, and more.

Show Resources Here were the resources we covered in the episode: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryankmacinnis/ rmacinnis@linkedin.com twitter.com/rkmac LinkedIn Learning course about LinkedIn Ads by AJ Wilcox: LinkedIn Advertising Course Contact us at Podcast@B2Linked.com with ideas for what you'd like AJ to cover. Show Transcript: LinkedIn product pages just launched. And we've got some great news about what it means for marketers coming right up on the LinkedIn Ads Show. Welcome to the LinkedIn Ad show. Here's your host, AJ Wilcox. Hey there LinkedIn Ads fanatics. You may have heard about LinkedIn rolling out product pages since about the summer of 2020. We brought a friend of the show Ryan Macinnis back. And you might remember him if you listen to Episode 31. He is the Product Marketing Manager at LinkedIn who's over the products marketplace. He reached out to me a couple months ago and let me know about some really cool functionality that's coming to LinkedIn. And I had to keep it a secret from all of you. Sometimes we have to do hard things. And now we finally get to spill the beans about some really cool revelations with these new product pages. But first we highlight a couple reviews. Tom Tigwell from Great Britain says, "A trusted advisor. Without a shadow of a doubt, AJ is a trusted advisor for those interested in optimizing their LinkedIn ads to deliver high quality leads. Every podcast drops value and we appreciate your wisdom. Keep it up." Thanks, Tom. You are a total stud. And then we have Alessandra from Italy. She says, "Fantastico! Just what I needed to do a professional job in setting up a campaign for a customer. Great episodes, good insights and tips, useful resources, keep them coming. And I'm listening to all the episodes and taking notes, Grazie mille, as we say here, a thousand thanks. Alessandra from Italy." You're amazing. Hello, Alessandra, thanks so much for leaving such a kind review. And it's been a little while since I've been to Italy, but boy do I miss it. Everyone who's listening I want to feature you. So definitely go to whatever platform that you listen to podcasts on and give us a rating and review and I'll totally shout you out. Okay, with that being said, let's hit it. Ryan Macinnis is a Product Marketing Manager at LinkedIn over the products marketplace, which is a really exciting area of focus for LinkedIn. He's a marketer just like us. And we're excited to feature his insight. Ryan MacInnis, super excited to have you on again. Thanks so much for coming back. Thanks for having me. Oh, anytime. So obviously, we've had you on a previous episode, where we were talking about the Brand and Demand Playbook. Tell us what's new with you what's changed, and what you're working on now? Sure. So the Brand and Demand Playbook, which we launched back in September, was obviously a huge hit. And you obviously gave me the opportunity to talk about it here on your podcast. Since then, I've moved over from the sponsored messaging world where I was the product marketer for my first year at LinkedIn. And I've transitioned over to the pages team. So within the pages, ecosystem, all of the free tools that we know and love to help us expand our reach within our employee, community, or grow all of the advocacy work we're doing within our external facing communities. I joined that team at the end of last year, and I've been working on our new newest feature product pages. 3:08 Oh, yeah. So tell us first of all about product pages, what's LinkedIn's intent? And then how should we as marketers be thinking about how to leverage them and and be using them even already? 3:18 Sure. So product pages, at their core, are a new tab that companies will see that help them showcase the best of their products. And so for a long time, especially for larger companies, it's been really hard to separate your brand from your product. When you think about voice on a company page, company pages are top of funnel, maybe you're trying to share a response to something that's happening in the world or an update of what it's like to work at that company, there's really not a great place for you to spotlight and showcase products. And so if you think about product pages, this is our bottom of the funnel, pages offering, company pages, showcase pages, product pages, that give companies the ability to take all this work they've done growing their community organic community on LinkedIn, and channel that into product interest, and ultimately lead gen. That is our goal. So cultivating a product community and ultimately turning that interest into customers. And so I like to call it the digital storefront for your brand, which you know, it's kind of the greatest hits of all of your different assets on LinkedIn and on your website. So you can really showcase users that are using your product, rich media, how to use the product, as well as featured customers. Somebody like me is interested in using the product. I can see companies that aspirationally I'd like to be like and know, okay, directionally, they're using this tool to help them do what they do at that level. That's really exciting for me. So that's what it is. Our intent with it is to really give marketers one more tool in their tool belt, so they can take advantage of all of these things for free at the bottom of the funnel. And when you think about competitively smaller companies, it's really hard for them to stand out in the crowd when you're competing. In a market that has a really large incumbent, maybe you're in a noisy market, product pages are actually a great way to be discovered. So if you're a smaller company, in a space, like marketing automation, if you're looking at a competitor that has a really large following is really well known. That discovery aspect of seeing other products in that category gives you a fighting chance to be discovered and, and to showcase what you can offer to a prospective buyer. So that is our intent is to make it really easy for people who use the product to be advocates for it. And then people are interested in buying it or in the market have a really easy way to do that in correspond with the brand. And so that is some context of product pages. 5:40 Cool. Well, I don't think you'll find any marketer who's disappointed with this. This is obviously everyone wants leads, everyone wants more interaction for their products and services. So that's great. And just out of curiosity, because I know that the product pages have really been launching over here over the last few months, who's doing a really good job with their product pages. Who should we look at as an example or for advice? Yeah, that's a great question. And so first of all start with what the experience has been like over the past year. So we've really tried to understand what does it take to provide a new page that page admins find value in that marketers are really excited about, and make sure that we're doing it in a way that also members on LinkedIn, see as valuable. So at the end of last year, we shared that more than 10,000 products are now live, they have their own pages on LinkedIn. And it's really exciting. What we're doing now is we're rolling that out to new companies within the B2B software space. So that is a large amount of companies that you'll see over the next couple months, they're gonna get access to this. And so along the way, we've seen some really great examples, a couple that I mentioned, aside from LinkedIn campaign manager tool, which I know that you've left a review on, which was great, GitHub has a really great product page. Atlassian, generally, within their products that they have, I think they do a fantastic job. listing the ideal roles that are great fits for products, I think that's another highlight of product pages is when I land as a prospective buyer on a product page, I want to relate to the problem that this company or this product is solving, and to make me feel that I'm part of a community even if I'm not already a customer. So that's another good example. And I think Asana does a great job, from a project management perspective, another example of a noisy space, and then trying to find ways to really elevate your community to be advocates for you. I think those are three examples that I would highlight, Okay, we'll go check those out and see if we can build something similar. So from the perspective of a marketer, how do product pages help drive traffic and interest to us? Yeah, so product pages are one of the first things that you'll see if a company has one when they land on your company page. So it's really cool that this concept of a highlight reel, or most of what's new on your product page, or products are going to be one of the first things you'll see whether it's a company has added a new product page, or somebody left a new review. That is what gets surfaced pretty high up on someone's company page. So that's really exciting. In the long term, we're always looking for ways that we're going to drive additional sources of traffic to these pages. But I think in the short term, there are so many interesting ways that you can drive traffic to this page. We've had companies like Twilio say that they've actually included this in their internal employee advocacy platform, to say, "Hey, everyone, these are the tools that we work on every single day, we just got a product page, it's really cool. Share it on LinkedIn, tell everybody to go check out this product that you're really proud of." And so that's a really interesting way to drive traffic. And we've had other companies try to figure out how they can plug this into their LinkedIn ad strategy. So I know, that was one of the things that you and I talked about previously. But within even conversation ads, if somebody is going through that flow of evaluating whether or not they'd be a good fit for a product, it's a great way to keep them on LinkedIn without sending them to your website, and potentially losing that lead when they go to a different experience. So that's how marketers today I've been driving driving traffic to these pages. And like I mentioned, we're evaluating new ways to get more eyeballs on these pages as we roll it out more. 9:12 Oh, I love that. Just out of curiosity on the reviews because people can leave reviews. Is there an opportunity for moderating or responding to maybe like lower rated one? Yeah, it's a good question. Today, we're we're getting feedback from companies and how they'd like to interact with those who are leaving reviews. One of the things I'm personally most proud of is the very small amount of negative reviews or malicious reviews that we've seen on the platform. And I do think that there's an element of accountability that comes in your profile is tied to a person as opposed to maybe some anonymous individual that can speak differently when there's no accountability involved. And so we'll remove reviews if they're malicious and in any way they violate our terms of service, obviously or if they're false. So an example we use is, you know, LinkedIn doesn't work in New York, or there's just something that's not true. We have the tools to make sure that those are reviewed and removed if that's the case. And then we're working with page admins and marketers to understand how you'd like to respond. Do you want to be able to encourage people to upvote? reviews, make sure that the most helpful ones are first? Or would you like to go ahead and respond to the ones that are most pressing, maybe constructive, that can influence your product roadmap. So today, there's no opportunity to do that. But it's definitely something we're looking to do is to give these moderation tools an opportunity to be more involved and engaging with the community. Because at the end of the day, that's why people leave reviews because their customers, they're passionate about whatever that product is, or the problem that they solve. And we want to give marketers the ability to interact with them. 10:50 Oh, I love it. And then what about if we're marketing a certain product? Is there value in us? I think you said Asana sent out internally. Or maybe that was Twilio sent out internally, like, "Hey, everyone come in, like hop on the page and follow it." Is there value there in like, as many people as you can show that are using your product, or experts with it, to try to organically get more people seeing and exposed to the product? Is there like organic benefit there? Yeah, there's organic benefit in a really interesting and cool way. As somebody, we just rolled this out over the last couple months, this concept of being able to see who in your network is using a certain products. So if I were to go to JIRA, because I'm on the product team, I have a lot of product managers in my network, I think I have 113 connections that use JIRA in their day to day jobs. And so as a prospective buyer of JIRA, that makes me feel awesome, it makes me feel that I know that I've kind of come to the place where my network has told me, you know, this is a form of social proof and validation that we get when buying a car or asking a friend or recommendation on something. So when you get your network to share with customers, hey, we just launched this page, please go and you know, maybe add this product as a skill to your profile, it benefits you long term, because if a prospective buyer goes to that page, and sees that folks in their network, use that product that makes them feel a lot more comfortable, maybe presenting that product to their manager, or even bringing it on themselves to go ahead and become a customer. So there's a huge opportunity there. Oh, yeah. And I'm even thinking from an ads perspective. If someone wants to target let's say, Salesforce users. Right now, the way we have it is like Salesforce groups or Salesforce skills. It would be amazing in the future, if we had the ability to say, hey, let's target people who we know our users like they're certified users of the software. So I could definitely see how that could play into our ads targeting the future. So Ryan, before we hopped on, you were telling me about something that I thought was really exciting, which was lead gen forms on product pages. This is like being able to use the lead gen form function for something organic dealing with the company page, something that's not paid by ads. Tell us about this, like, how did you come to it? And how does it work? 13:07 Yeah, so as I mentioned earlier, product pages are great for bottom of the funnel conversion. But if you think about it from a buyer perspective, putting your website as the main CTA just feels like a lot of additional steps that someone would have to take to express interest. Like by being on a product page, you're showing a level of intent, where somebody as a marketer just would say, hey, this is pretty much as bottom of the funnel as it gets, if they go from awareness from a company page, or maybe they attended a webinar to now they're physically on the product page, looking at, you know, customer examples, and reading reviews like this is where we want to convert them. And so we were, in our mind thinking, if lead gen forms were on this page, the barrier to convert would be so low, that we would start providing a ton of value for a lot of these companies to start really promoting their product pages to start growing these communities a lot faster. And so lead gen forms on this page to your point, we've only had lead gen forms available through campaign manager for advertising platform, or if you're using it from an events perspective for from a registration point of view. And by having it on product pages, it's a really great way to expose a ton of marketers to something maybe they didn't have access to before. You know, maybe they maybe they're at a startup, they're at a company that isn't doing a ton with LinkedIn right now. They see this functionality, and it's a great way for them to say, product pages are providing a ton of great value for me today, what are ways that I can amplify this down the road, maybe I can put a product page as a carousel ad as somebody who's going through the experience of what does this page look like in the feed, or as I mentioned earlier on a conversation as if a sender is from a sales rep trying to get you to schedule a demo, and you know that maybe they're not going to do that within the first CTA product pages are a great way to evaluate that offer more. And then the Legion forum is just a great way to make sure that they within the LinkedIn ecosystem can take that action you want them to and you're still providing a ton of value while that barrier and that friction is very low. Great, are we going to have to have a campaign manager account? to set that up? Like, is that still gonna live within campaign manager? Or will lead gen forms be available right from the company page? 15:11 Yeah, they're gonna be available right from the company page. So you would be able to download leads, right from the admin view. And you'd be able to have a lead gen form behind one of your calls to action on a product page. So yeah, it's super easy. They're gonna even be able to download them right from the admin, admin view. And then you can upload them to your marketing automation software or your CRM. But we're essentially trying to make this as easy as possible and as transparent as possible, right. I'm a page admin, and I'm really excited about the team is doing it's so exciting to see leads are coming through a page, right? It's not something that you have to have a certain skill set to have access to what the lead gen number is, or a report that's generated, so it's going to be really accessible. Oh, and I'm assuming same partners, like you can still push right into your CRM. If you're Marketo, HubSpot, like those probably still use Zapier. Yeah, today, when we're launching lead gen forms, we're really focused on getting feedback. So today, the main functionality will be just the download capability. And from there, within our iteration of that, it will be working with partners to make this available within how it is today and campaign manager. But we wanted to find the lightest weight way to provide value. And just to start to build that behavior, where, you know, folks know that lead gen forms are a thing, here's what their value is, maybe somebody's never heard of lead gen forms on LinkedIn before, if they've only had a company page, and then from there, start to plug into the ways that they've used lead generation and other platforms. So that's the plan. 16:36 Yeah, that seems like such a no brainer, you're already getting leads from LinkedIn organically. And it's the same experience. Of course, you're gonna say, let me start wanting to promote some things that were added. Thank you. The other thing that I'll share that has been really cool for me to see is that many marketers, we talked to who managed company pages are different than those who run advertising campaigns on LinkedIn. So there's an opportunity for us to actually bring together marketers internally, to work on a shared objective, like if you think about historically, maybe the role of a company page or a showcase page, it's been around awareness, or it's been around trying to really grow a community at the middle to top of funnel. But a lot of these marketers really haven't had a way to contribute to a bottom of the funnel conversion metric like they would if you're running paid ads. And so we're seeing this really cool convergence, if you will, of personas within larger companies come together and actually collaborate and say, Hey, this is what what kind of messaging has worked really well on my ads, maybe you should use this in the description of a product page, or somebody who's built the product page says, Hey, we're really getting a lot of good traction on this page traffic point of view, you should think about promoting this in a piece of sponsored content or whatnot. So it's really been cool to see how those barriers have been knocked down even internally within these companies. Oh, yeah, that interplay? I mean, you're bringing marketing teams together, which is fantastic. Everyone should be doing that. And of course, I'm going to be curious about the interplay between product pages and ads. So how can we bridge those two worlds and be able to start promoting through campaign manager? I'm assuming because it's lead gen forms, there will be like a solid interplay between the two where you could maybe promote something that you've already been running organically or vice versa? How do we think about that? Yeah. So today, essentially, what the interplay is between campaign manager and product pages is using a product page like he would a website URL. In the early days of product pages, we're focused on two things. One is getting it to the scale that we can provide value, not only to companies but to members on LinkedIn. And then in the second act of this, trying to understand how we can make it even easier to amplify these pages. So I like to talk about the grocery store analogy, because I spent four years of my life working at a grocery store, where you want to make sure the grocery store is stocked before you go ahead, and you try to get people to even come. And then you open the doors when you're ready, you think okay, this has things for everyone. And then before you start to hand out flyers, you want to make sure that the grocery store is at least successful. And so well, I used to work for a grocery store that did flyers. So the flyer example might not be prominent anymore. But then from there, billboards, flyers, that sort of thing. So that's what really focuses product pages is today, we're working with a lot of marketers to view that URL as a way that they can plug into it, like a website URL, like they're doing a conversation ads, carousel ads, things like that. And then the other thing that's really cool about product pages, too, if you were to go to a product page and hit the share button, you can actually share that product page in the feed. So there's a little caption that will come up a little preview screen about that product. And it's a great way for you even organically as a company to share the things you're really excited about. But to answer your question. That's where we're focused on first is trying to get people excited about the organic offering, then making sure that there's a really easy way to think about how they would promote one through campaign manager and then from there, evaluating Let's figure out where we go from there. 20:01 And that seems to me like just such a no brainer when when I'm saying, Okay, do I spend all this time sending a request over to it to build me a new landing page or app, let's just send them to the existing product page on LinkedIn. Lincoln's already made sure this looks good on both desktop and mobile, it has everything I want. It's got, you know, customer stories and ratings. And all that definitely seems like a shortcut for marketers to start sending right there. And when can everyone expect to have product pages for their companies? What does that roll out look like? Also super excited if there's anything you can share about when some of these capabilities will kind of creep into campaign manager. And as advertisers can start to look forward to them? Yeah, I can't share anything on the campaign manager front, but you'll be one of the first to know when i when i do have more information on that. But what I will say is that we're starting very slow with product pages, because as I mentioned, we want to make sure we get the experience, right. So over the summer, we conducted a ton of interviews, we rolled out an alpha and a beta, just trying to make sure that the page was as we would call it, the greatest hits of your company, we want to make sure that it's kind of the skinny version of your website, so that it has everything you want, that you found helpful when it comes to converting prospective buyers, we can have that there. And so we had just over 10,000 product pages live by the end of December, which is really exciting. And this quarter, we're rolling it out to many, many more B2B software companies. And so it's probably 2030 fold the amount of companies they'll have access to. And our goal by the end of this quarter is every B2B software company will have access to a product page. And we're starting with B2B software for a couple of reasons. One, members on LinkedIn are already talking about these products every single day, like they've had, they've never really had a place where these can all come together so that that information can be accessible to everybody. So if I'm really skilled in campaign manager, and I have that as a skill on my profile, and I've been talking about it in the feed, how do we get everybody to make sure that you know who in your network is using this and you can reach out to them if you want to do that. So we're focused on b2b software. It's the most amount of, of products that the members associated with today, and it's a great way for us to understand at that scale, what works really well within this marketplace before we start to bring it to other use cases and verticals. But that's where we're really focused today. Great. And if someone is in B2B software, but somehow maybe they just didn't have it on their website properly, or anything. Is there an application process? Is there a way that someone can can start one? Or do they just have to publicize it nicely on the website and wait for LinkedIn to come crawl? 22:43 That's a good question. So and this happens, where, you know, maybe they see a week lag between a competitor in this space having access, and then it's, we are rolling it out slowly, they can reach out to me directly if they'd like to. It's rmacinnis@linkedin.com . Or we have an alias that they can they can email that's product pages-feedback@linkedin.com. And both of those will actually get routed to me. So I try to respond to almost every single one. And we'll evaluate it if it is a product and a software product. Indeed, we'll we'll do that, but I think one of the most interesting things is it's caused a lot of marketers to ask themselves, am I a product or my service? And you know, is this a feature or is this a product? And as a marketer, I would think it's a very good thought experiment, even to think about our own positioning to go back to our team and say, "Hey, we should really think about how we can play in this space, because this is what's going on here." So they can reach out there if they are indeed a B2B software company. Fantastic. All right, I'll put your the product email address in the show notes that way people aren't like bombarding you personally. Sounds good. Okay, that sounds great. Another question I've got, how should marketers think about product pages in terms of their overall marketing strategy? At what point would you say this is super valuable for someone to pay attention to their product page, and maybe put something else on the shelf? 24:03 Yeah, so one of the most interesting stats, and I'm sure it's higher now is that more than 70% of buyers are completing the buyer journey in a digital only environment in a digital only setting, which means that the likelihood you talk to a sales rep before making a purchase is very slim. And so as marketers, we should think about how we can use this to empower our teams at all aspects of the funnel. And so the reason why I say you should use it as much as possible as one, it's free, you can create one at any time, it's free to use. Two, it really has everything that you would want to look at, if you're trying to convince someone that this is a good product for them. So maybe there's already people in their network that use it. And if you're a sales rep, you've already identified what that messaging is. You can also see the companies they use a product and there's also an opportunity for the brand to showcase product tutorial videos, rich media of what certain dashboards or features may look like. And so if I'm being prospected into, and I see all of these things on day one on LinkedIn, that's a really interesting way to get my attention. So it's new, it's exciting, not a ton of companies are doing it. As I mentioned, we're slowly rolling this out, it's a good way stand up. And it's different than just sending somebody to your website, and hoping that this landing page, you've optimized for other channels is going to go ahead and get their attention and get them to convert, which means that you're gonna have to send them a five to seven touch email to get them to come back around. So as a marketer, I would say, because this is such a lightweight thing for you to stand up, you should be using this at all stages. And then give it to your team, so your customer success team should be asking your customers to add this product as a skill to their profile to leave a review, if they'd be so inclined. And your sales team should be using it maybe as their footer for email outreach, or even just to say, Hey, we were a part of something really new and exciting that LinkedIn is rolling out, we think it would be a really good way for you to get to know our products get to know our brand a bit more, you should check it out. So I think it presents a ton of new opportunities for marketers to really differentiate themselves and help other teams 26:05 along the way. I love it. Okay. And obviously, before we go off to the product, I'm going to ask about you like, personally, professionally next, but anything else that you want to share with us? Anything you're really excited about with product pages, or anything else that we haven't covered that you'd want people to know? No, I think that I would just say, I'm really excited about this. I always think about this, as Ryan, the marketer before joining LinkedIn. Ryan as somebody who's always struggling to differentiate myself from the competition. And it's really hard if you don't have the same budget, if you don't have the same market notoriety to really play on the same playing field. And product pages, as I mentioned, they give a ton of great opportunities for marketers to be on the same playing field from a discovery point of view, and to see what other products are in similar categories. And so we're always going to keep that in mind of like, how do we make this a true marketplace where people can go and find the right products for them. And then at the end of the day, make this really valuable, not only for the companies, but for the members, people who are coming to these pages, who are either users to say, here's what I love about the products, or as a prospective buyer to say, hey, this is what i'd love more information on. We're always going to be evolving these pages. But I'm really excited about how they turned up as a start. So cool. Ryan, thanks so much for sharing that. And my last question for you is basically what are you most excited about either, personally, professionally, or you can list one for both. But what what's in your world that you're excited about? 27:32 Sure. So I'll list one for both because I'm selfish. So today, I finally I have a puppy, a three month old puppy, my dog finally was able to use the bathroom outside today. We've been trying to get him to do that over the last couple weeks. He's gotten used to going to the bathroom inside. And so this is big news, what a way to start the week off. So that's what's exciting me personally, I feel like I'm making progress on my dog. What's exciting me professionally, is I think that the way that teams are working together marketing teams, during this time, where everybody is at home, is really exciting. I think we were nervous about it at the beginning of the pandemic. And there are so many great ways for us to stay involved to stay connected from a marketer, using the LinkedIn pages ecosystem, for example, there's so many great things, both internally and externally to really bring your company together. And I actually think that a lot of the success that marketers are seeing is going to influence how companies go back to work. And so that's what's exciting me professionally. Oh, that's cool. Seems a little bit what we'd expect that by forcing ourselves to be separate, it brings us together, but I think you're absolutely correct there. Well, Ryan, I'm super excited to have you on for round two. So I definitely hope there's around three. Thanks for sharing such awesome news with us. Do you want just share again, like if people want to follow you? People want to reach out and give product feedback? How can they do that? Sure. I would say the easiest way to reach out to me is my email. I'm totally fine. Giving that out. It's rmacinnis@linkedin.com if you want to connect with me, also great place to share feedback there. And if you're on Twitter, I'm @rkmac 29:14 @rkmac? @rkmac. Okay, beautiful. All right, everyone listening make sure you go follow Ryan. Keep him in mind as your as you have feedback from a marketing perspective. Remember, he was a marketer before he was a LinkedIn Product Manager. So excited to have you on our side and building great stuff for us. Thanks so much, Ryan. Thanks for having me, AJ. I've got the episode resources for you coming up. So stick around. Thank you for listening to the LinkedIn Ads Show. Hungry for more? AJ Wilcox, take it away. Okay, I promised you some great episode resources. So here they are. In the show notes below. You'll see a link to Ryan Macinnis his profile on LinkedIn, give him a follow connect with him. There's also his email address if you want to reach out and give him any feedback, also a link to his Twitter. Now I've got some fun news. I've talked to you a lot about the course that I did with LinkedIn Learning. And it is, of course, the best resource if you or someone on your team is looking to learn LinkedIn Ads, you should definitely check it out. But I've got some exciting news that within the next couple or few months, the course is going to be fully updated. We're working on that now. So I'm super excited to have you see all the new updated material. So check that out. Please look down on whatever podcast player you're using right now and hit subscribe if you want to hear me in your ear holes. And like we mentioned at the top of the episode, make sure to rate and review and I would love to shout you out. With any topics on your wish list or ideas or for feedback, whatever. Email us at Podcast@B2Linked.com. And with that being said, we'll see you back here next week. Cheering you on in your LinkedIn Ads initiatives.

We’re deeper into the off-season but there’s still news surrounding the Blue Jackets, specifically down on the farm. What’s the vibe up in Cleveland? On this week’s episode of The Cannon Cast we get into Gabriel Carlsson, Kevin Stenlund, and Ryan MacInnis, Elaine scoops us on the Cleveland Monsters and what to look out for with the team going forward, Doc Emerick retire, is the Pizza song good? And much more. Join the conversation at jacketscannon.com! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Show Resources: Brand and Demand Playbook Why Every Startup Marketer Should Be Using Conversation Ads Get in touch with Ryan MacInnis: Twitter – @RKMAC or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryankmacinnis/ LinkedIn Learning course about LinkedIn Ads by AJ Wilcox: LinkedIn Advertising Course Contact us at Podcast@B2Linked.com with ideas for what you'd like AJ to cover. Show Transcript: There are four LinkedIn Ads, ad formats, and 11 plus variants of them. LinkedIn figured out the right combination to use, and they just shared it with us. 0:14 Welcome to the LinkedIn Ads Show. Here's your host, AJ Wilcox. 0:23 Hey there LinkedIn Ads fanatics. LinkedIn just published a really valuable playbook, which contains absolutely prescriptive recommendations about what combinations of ad formats to use, and when for maximum effectiveness. Today I sit down with Ryan MacInnis from LinkedIn Product Marketing. He's going to share his research that he and his team just published. Ryan is over sponsored messaging as an ad category and shares with us some of his excellent insights. So without further ado, let's hit it. Ryan MacInnis, thanks so much for joining us. I'm excited to have you here on the LinkedIn Ads Show. 0:57 Yeah, thanks so much AJ for having me. I appreciate it. 0:59 Oh, of course and super excited to get to chat about the new playbook that you guys just released. I know you've been working really hard on it for our listeners. So this is Ryan Mcinnis. He's in the New York City Office for LinkedIn. I'm assuming not during COVID times you're working out of the Empire State Building. 1:14 That is right. Yeah, no, I'm actually in Connecticut. So I can see the city, but I'm not currently working in it. 1:21 Perfect. Get away from the hustle and bustle. 1:23 Exactly. 1:24 And Ryan is over the sponsored messaging product in Product Marketing at LinkedIn. So super excited to get to ask him all these questions and hear an internal response. Awesome. Okay. A very first question. Ryan, tell us about you. You know, what are you into personally? What do you love about work? What are you responsible for? Give us all that good stuff. 1:45 Sure. Yeah. So I actually started my professional career as a Boston Globe sports journalist, and that was in the end of college, beginning of kind of my professional years and I was covering high school and college sports. So I fell in love with storytelling kind of early on, and was exposed to B2B marketing from there. And I spent a lot of time attending startup events, realized how hard it was to take something that was really complex and position it in a way that not only explained what it was or what it did, but made it really clear to somebody, I'm like, what value they could get from it. So that's how I got into marketing and more specifically, product marketing. And talking about sponsored messaging at LinkedIn, it's really a situation couldn't have been any better for me. I've spent the last five years or so running early stage marketing teams at startups, whether it be the first in marketing hire, or leading a team where the company is less than 100 people, messaging and chat bots and whatnot, were a huge part of our marketing strategy. So aside from doing the really early stage startup stuff, I spent a little bit of time at Twitter on their product marketing team for the developer platform called Fabric that was eventually sold to Google. And yeah, even though I had that big company, express I still do consider myself an early stage marketer, since a lot of the skills you know, the frameworks and go to market efforts have been super helpful in scaling conversation ads, which was a new format we launched back in March. So that's kind of me professionally, me personally, big into sports. I used to be a basketball referee, a high school basketball referee. So spent a lot of time doing that. And yeah, love reading as a former English major, I guess you're never former you're always an English major. But I do like to spend a lot of time reading and kind of disconnecting from a lot of the nonfiction business world. 3:36 Well, I love that you have experienced as an early stage marketer, you also have experienced in product marketing at larger companies. So I think that puts you in a really unique position to understand your advertisers, which we'll get into here in a few minutes but this is why I'm so excited to have you like showing us this playbook. This is super exciting about the playbook. So I know you told me in the pre-show chat This has been your three plus months in the making. share with us the story behind it. Tell us about the new new playbook and why you decided to tackle this kind of project. 4:07 Yeah, so I'll first just kind of talk about what it is. And I'll bury the lead on that. So it's our new brand and demand playbook. And really what it is, it's a combination of tactical advice on how you use our different ad formats in both feed and messaging, along with our newest features such as retargeting together to help you achieve your goals on LinkedIn. And then it's also a source of inspiration. Kind of the second half of the playbook are nine customer stories that not only share the successes in the tactics on how advertisers featured used something like carousel ads and single image ads along with message ads, but you can get a snapshot into what their framework is for how they deployed these things. And so you get everything from the creatives that they use the quotes from the people who really went went big on this and believe that this is gonna be a big part of the strategy. And then you also see benchmarks and results. And so what we wanted this playbook to be for the first time, is the ability to kind of tell that cohesive story of how do all of these formats that marketers have available to them today on LinkedIn, how do they play best together? And how do we recommend which formats to use based on which stage of the funnel you're trying to engage your audience and then also give people you know less about us and more about the successes of our of our customers? How do we give them enough of that true playbook so they can learn and seek inspiration from some of the best marketers doing it today? 5:31 Yeah, and what was the pain point? I'm assuming you guys were hearing customer feedback, people expressing a need or a pain, wanting certain kinds of information. How did you decide to even come out with this playbook? Yeah, I guess let's start there. 5:48 Yeah, definitely. So when I joined obviously conversation ads had just launched and we had more recently launched you know, video ads and retargeting was coming up right around the time that we're starting to think about this playbook. And we had conversations around how there really wasn't much advice on how to use these formats best together, even though we were seeing really good results from advertisers that were. And so it was solving a problem that many advertisers on LinkedIn, they kind of go into their strategies saying, this is the piece of content I want to promote. Here's the one format and I was personally guilty of this as a B2B marketer previously to and then you judge the success of the content based on how well it did there in that format without thinking about how other kind of like supporting cast members can help lift that up, ie, you know, text ads, or video or things like that. So what we're really trying to do is help advertisers be more successful and we believe that it wasn't until we had all of these things like the most engaging ways for you to capture someone's attention in video and conversation ads. And then of course, with retargeting and being able to really dig in and tap into that behavior that you were able to understand a bit better. You could actually figure out how you would connect the dots between running an ad in the feed with really trying to drive conversion and messaging, for example. So it was a really kind of a call that we wanted to answer on how we could help advertisers get more out of the tools that they had access to, even if, you know, some of the lines weren't super clear on what they can do with them. 7:20 And Ryan, this is awesome. I'm a huge believer in using other ad formats together to really multiply your efforts. And I didn't come to that understanding until I was in a quarterly business review with one of our clients. And LinkedIn gave us a report that said, here's how people click on your sponsored content ads, who haven't seen another ad format from you. And here's how they click when they when they have and it was like a 30% lift and I went, ah, there's the value. You may not see a direct ROI from any single ad format, but as you bundle them together, it starts completing the rest of the story. 7:57 Definitely. And to your point, exactly. I think it's helpful for a lot of marketers to understand not only the context of what somebody is doing or thinking about when they're on LinkedIn, maybe they're there to just passively browse. They're there to learn from their peers. Or maybe they're saying, hey, this helpful piece of content, or this webinar is going to help me get that next promotion in my career or, you know, make me a better, you know, insert job title. But the other thing that I don't think a lot of marketers realize is that everything that you're doing in the feed because it is the kind of most prime real estate you have on LinkedIn is essentially providing context and warming up people that you want to have as customers or convert on a big activity that you're promoting. So anything that they see in the feed is kind of contextual relevance for anything that they may see in their inbox. So if I were to want to promote an event, like we were talking about a few weeks back, like carousel ads in the feed to promote some of the speakers and so if I'm in the feed, I know that hey, this company is has this event coming up. I know that the speakers will be there and then maybe in my inbox because we can be a bit more targeted and tailored to an individual person, we can say, Hey Ryan, we know you're in Product Marketing at LinkedIn and this is a pain point that we think you're really going through right now. This is why you should attend this event, use our lead gen forms, and you can register right then and there. And you have the context as to why you're receiving that message. And you understand kind of what the value was in the feed. So to your point, the more that you can help these things work better together, the more successful a lot of these marketers will be. 9:25 Yes, and you are in a fantastic position. Seeing all of this data, I mean, as the platform you get to see anything that was touched with a lead form. You get to see the exact conversions happening, the confluence of all of these ad formats. So you're in amazing position to actually tell what combinations of things and I'm sure you're using really cool machine learning and AI algorithms to figure this out. But you now know what's going to be the best combination. And now you're sharing that with us. And quite frankly, in the past, I've seen quite a few of the playbooks that LinkedIn has created. And I would say they haven't exactly been brimming with actionable information. And I've gotten to review this one, and it's completely the opposite. I'm actually really happy with this one. What changed with this? And is this a pattern for the future? 10:12 Yeah, I mean, I definitely think it's going to be something we're going to look to do more of. I think it's important to say that a lot of the playbooks in the past were foundational kind of owner's manual guides that you could read and understand how products worked. And they were really important just to understand the nuts and bolts before you could kind of get into the tactical How do these work together? But there are definitely a couple things, especially during our time being you know, quarantined and spending more time at home that magnified this, that made this playbook kind of look like what it what it does, that you'll read. And the first thing is that obviously we have even shorter attention spans I think, than we did before COVID-19. Especially those that are balancing homeschooling, taking care of loved ones, kids and whatnot. And then the other thing that was really interesting is that many marketers felt like there was a window of time, or maybe they could innovate in ways that they couldn't have before. When many of their competitors were decreasing their spend or moving slower than they would in the past. And so we were really hearing a lot of feedback on, hey, we know that this is a window for us to gain a competitive edge or reach an audience in a way that might be a bit unexpected given that everybody's trying to reach them through email, for example, how can we innovate on that? And then the last thing that I think was was super interesting is that, you know, as a former advertiser on LinkedIn, I think there's a lot of preconceived notions about advertising is like, especially from what you've been exposed to. So maybe you only understand a sliver of the products that we offer, or you only understand a little bit of how we talk about targeting and how you can reach kind of the right persona within the right company that's really important for your ABM efforts. So that was kind of the behind the scenes thinking that went into this no nonsense approach, which is if I were a B2B marketer, and I needed something that was easy to digest during this time when everybody wants my attention. How can we create a piece of content that would be valuable for them? 12:05 Ryan and I think you nailed it. Thank you for that. As you were working to create this brand and demand playbook, I'm sure you were looking through a lot of different research. What do you feel like is your biggest bombshell that you experienced in researching? Was there anything that just stood out like a sore thumb? 12:23 Yeah, it's funny you use the word bombshell. Like I don't think it can be any more obvious to a lot of people once they've done it themselves. And once they've read the playbook, which is the opportunity cost of not using feed and messaging together is just enormous, right. And I think many advertisers are advertising just in the feed, which obviously is the most competitive real estate and even though you can reach millions of people there, it's extremely hard to get someone to take an action on a lead gen form. For example, most people come to LinkedIn to explore, to learn, to do these things mainly on a mobile device, you know, and so nothing is more jarring than clicking an image and a form pops up, and that be your only chance to really engage with somebody. So I think when we looked at a lot of what made our customers successful what we were seeing, particularly with how they were using, you know, video retargeting with ebook promotion and a single image ad and how they're actually putting together their own strategies for how these ad formats can work best for them. We really wanted to drive home this feed plus messaging narrative, because we knew that kind of warming up your lead that narrative would result in a subset of your audience seeing both to your point earlier. So seeing a piece of sponsored content, and then actually having that contextual relevancy on why they should convert in the LinkedIn inbox. And so when you know more people are being exposed to that context, ultimately you can lower your cost per lead and increase your lead gen form conversion rate, which is a lot of marketers are really looking for especially during this time. 13:54 Oh, I love it. And then this may be similar. I don't know you tell me if this is the same as bombshell, but what do you feel like was your biggest takeaway, or the biggest takeaway you'd suggest for advertisers after now having been through the playbook? 14:07 Yeah, I think obviously, we talked about my first big takeaway, which is that the formats work best together, not in silos. And it's no secret that the majority of advertisers are looking to advertising the feed first and kind of messaging is an afterthought. And we're really trying to do is change that narrative and saying, how can messaging be a bit more of a not just a supporting cast member, but you know, maybe a second leading role and how you think about a particular audience. So that was kind of the biggest takeaway that I think a lot of people when they when they read the playbook, we'll see how prominent messaging is within each stage of the funnel and how we recommend using it, or even within the success stories at the end, a lot of our customers are using message ads and single image ads or video single image ads and message ads. And so there's a very healthy mix on how they can be powerful together. But, I think the other takeaway that many people will have is that there are so many people you can seek inspiration from and the willingness of these marketers who so graciously approved for a lot of their creatives and their strategy to be put in this playbook. They're great models for people to look at. And the best part is, is maybe 30% of them have similar tactics, like it's pretty unique the way that these marketers are thinking about it. So that's the biggest takeaway, aside from how these formats work well together, is that there's so many marketers who are doing this well today that you can seek inspiration from and coming out of it, not only will you have a better idea on how you can use these different formats and targeting facets, but also based on what industry, what region you're in, where you are in the world, kind of which story resonates most with you and how you can kind of seek inspiration from that. 15:46 Great! We as advertisers, I think we tend to think of each of the ad formats kind of in their own little silo. I tell people all the time, sponsored messaging ads are really good if you have a special VIP kind of offer, but don't use them if you don't have an offer that grabs them at first. And what we've found is so many advertisers have come back to us and said, hey, we actually found sponsored messaging ads to work really well as a retargeting ad for, you know, a different ad format. And it makes perfect sense. And one that I'm a little embarrassed that I did come up with. 16:23 No, and you're totally right. I mean, one of the success stories we've seen recently with conversation ads are advertisers using even if it's high intent behavior on your website, and using that as a retargeting audience for a conversation ad promoting an ebook download. You know, you wouldn't believe the successes that a lot of these advertisers are seeing when an audience has that context as to why they're being reached out to. Very similarly, with with marketers on their own websites, the ones who are really good from an automation perspective are able to give, you know prospects and people who are on LinkedIn a lot of that helpfulness. Like why are you asking me to read this message, why are you asking me to take action on this CTA and the easier you can make that decision, the better the experience, 17:08 Yeah, surrounding them so they've they've seen your brand before, they feel comfortable. There's already that know, like, and trust factor. It's a brilliant way to approach it. And then here in the brand and demand playbook, this is very prescriptive, as opposed to, I would say other playbooks or other content that LinkedIn has published before. What am I trying to say? It's much more prescriptive than other content that we've seen LinkedIn recommend before. How did you decide on the different recommendations? And I guess, how did you approach the different recommendations that are very prescriptive in here? 17:43 Yeah, that's a good question. I think as a product marketer, I look at three things on a weekly basis. The first is customer behavior. The second is sales feedback. And then the third is market dynamics, which obviously are are changing because of, you know, what's going on the world, but essentially that is what technology will marketer use today? If not tomorrow? And how can we understand like where we should be building products and making recommendations to to meet them where they want to be. And so I think for this playbook, it was the results that our customers are seeing that whereas was most important. So in my case, it was conversation as we've seen conversation ads grow a tremendous amount since launching in May, in March, rather, and I wanted to understand why advertisers were having success with it. And if they weren't, why they weren't. And for many times, more times than not, they were a result of using multiple formats together were conversation as were a key piece of that to your earlier point around how they can work best together. And so, as I mentioned earlier, like carousel ads to highlight speakers or even you know, product features, if you're trying to get somebody to buy in on the narrative of one platform to help them solve all your problems, maybe each tile tells that story or, or highlights a different aspect of your platform. And then conversation ads is a great way to get them to convert. So some of the things we're seeing you know, to be honest, is, you know, well over 50% lead gen form submission rates with some advertisers who not only are using conversation ads best practices, you know, really short, engaging content, two to three calls to action, using lead gen forms as your first CTA, but also having these formats be supportive. And what they're trying to do is, is anywhere from five to seven times higher than sponsored content alone. And so we started to pick up on what sort of behavior was most valuable to marketers that we wanted to share with even more marketers. And so the other source of inspiration as we were starting to think about this was what customers the success they were seeing with, you know, Lan, LinkedIn Audience Network and retargeting, so I'm kind of more on that, like reach in context layer. And so we took some of these findings, started to form some perspectives on which formats and targeting facets were the best for marketers to use based on what we were seeing from our best customers, and then how we watched an audience respond to it, that was really important as well. And so that's why you'll see a lot of visually engaging recommendations at the top of the funnel, like single image ads, carousel, ads, video, and even conversation ads, depending on if it's you know, kind of a brand play, or really trying to promote a blog post that is around a particular movement or whatnot. And then also, you can see, kind of towards the lower end of the funnel, where message ads or sponsored messaging is maybe more of an investment because as a prospect is lower down the funnel, there's more context, you've warmed them up a bit more, and now you're shifting to kind of the best place to have that intimate conversion opportunity, which is in messaging. So we decided on this based on a combination of what are our best customers doing today and why and then what behavior are we seeing, you know, members respond really well to LinkedIn? And how can we help marketers meet them where they want to be met? 20:47 You certainly won't hear me arguing with a 50% conversion rate. That's amazing. So for performance focused demand gen marketers, let's say testing out LinkedIn Ads for the first time. Let's give him a an imaginary budget of, let's say something like 10k, how would you approach a brand new account? Do you have any recommendations for what you'd put into which ad format and which audience and how? 21:13 Yeah, I think for performance focus dimension marketers, obviously, any type of retargeting would be extremely valuable. So if you've never advertised on LinkedIn before, that's totally fine. Maybe you're using some of our conversion tracking on your website. And so you can definitely plug in some of the high intent behaviors as audience types that you would like. So people who have converted on ebooks previously, or visited pricing pages or other high intent pages that you find valuable, and then for 10k, I really think you can get a lot of value right now with conversation as I'm not just saying that because I'm the product marketer for it. It's definitely a format that is the most delightful way possible to receive an ad right now. And what I mean by that is you have 500 characters or less to explain to somebody why you want their attention. You give them the ability to provide context, additional calls to action if they're just not quite ready to convert as opposed to you know, message to your point. An exclusive offer it's binary, either you convert or you don't. Conversation as are definitely a bit more informal. And you can, see a lot of great results for not a huge investment right off the bat. And then of course, we're talking about brand and demand, we're talking about feeding messaging, link text ads, dynamic ads, any way that you can kind of get your, your brand in the top of someone's feed, even if it's not, you know, right in front of them and in the feed itself, but on the side, kind of the right rail way of advertising. They are going to see that on LinkedIn and that is only going to help lift the conversion rates with conversation ads. So from a targeting perspective, definitely recommend an audience that is already warmed up in some capacity. And then I think for performance marketers if your goal is lead gen, obviously, that conversation ads right now paired with something like text ads, or even, you know, you can do something around like spotlight ads and whatnot. You can see really good results for for that 10k number. 23:08 Oh, beautiful. Thanks for that advice. And just digging into a little bit of what you've seen from conversation as because they are new. What are some of the best calls to action that you've found being successful with conversation ads? 23:19 Yeah, it's a good question because I think as a marketer, you're trying to understand and dig into exactly why people are behaving the way that they do. And so with conversation ads unlike message ads, you don't have a subject line, you don't have all of these great things when you can say as many words as you as you want, or at least much more than with conversation ads. And so the calls to action in the language that you use is very important. And I think what we're seeing anecdotally is is kind of this like passive and friendly way of using these call to actions particularly around lead gen forms. So if you are promoting an event, instead of register now, maybe it save my spot or you know, like, sign me up sort of thing. And I think that most people tend to look at these call to action is very formal. So I connect with a member of our sales team or download now it's like get your free copy, like get your free copy is a lot more informal, a lot less intimidating. And so from a CTA perspective, we always recommend you think that you're having a conversation with a friend or a colleague. And if I was trying to get you to read the playbook, I wouldn't send you an email and say, you know, click this link or, you know, click this button and download it now, I'd say, you know, like grab a free copy or something like that. So I definitely think a lot of the things that marketers are seeing success with an email right now and the language that they're using can definitely be transferred over to conversation ads. 24:47 Excellent. So how would you recommend dividing budgets between, let's say, the feed, messaging ads, and even right rail, do you have a rule of thumb that you'd follow? 24:58 Yeah, I mean, I don't have have anything prescriptive or I'm not going to at least try to make any of those recommendations here, but I would just kind of recommend based on what the goal is, if it's more brand focused, I definitely think investing a bit more in the feed makes a lot of sense with video with single image ads, really trying to understand the behavior of somebody on LinkedIn, especially with video retargeting now, so watching more than 25%, more than 50% and using that behavior to send them something more enticing. I think the feed is extremely valuable. And then I think as you move down the funnel with your audience, making sure that messaging is as much of your strategy as sponsored content. So sometimes that's 50/50 for people that I've seen a ton of success with sponsored messaging, but it should least be kind of that 70/30 60/40 split when you get towards the bottom of the funnel, or at least in that high intent consideration phase where you're trying to get someone to download an asset, attend an event, or things like that. Because we definitely see that people will give sponsored messaging and try, but compared to the amount that they're investing in sponsored content, I think that this playbook will help them think about it as more of a pillar of their strategy. 26:11 That's perfect. That's exactly what I think everyone here wanted to hear. So kind of going into back to your personal or business life here. What are you most excited about or looking forward to coming up right now? 26:23 Yeah, so obviously, this playbook is probably the thing that I've been looking forward to most. But I think much bigger than that, going to sponsor messaging specifically with conversation ads. I'm excited about getting a lot more of my former colleagues in the startup space, kind of this mid-market marketer to give conversation ads a try. I think the perceived notion that LinkedIn is an expensive place to advertise isn't wrong for people that don't have a strategy that helps them use all these things together really well. So you're not using retargeting Not thinking about kind of a very intimate audience and we're startups. And you know, smaller marketing teams fall in as they think that this is a place that's kind of unattainable for them to advertise. And that's not true at all. And so we have a blog post, that by the time this podcast comes out will be live. It's called why every startup marketer should be using conversation ads. And it's kind of like an open letter to myself, which is, if I had conversation ads, obviously, in previous roles, why should I be using it? What are some of the success stories we're seeing from a lot of these scrappy marketing teams that are trying to use their budgets really effectively? So I'm excited for more of these smaller marketers or those with a bit smaller budgets to really find a ton of great value out of conversation and specifically, and then how LinkedIn can be even more impactful for them. 27:50 Great, and we're going to link to the why every startup marketer should be using conversation ads down in the show notes will also link directly to the Brand and Demand Playbook. So all of you can can consume this and even follow along. So that's fantastic. Congratulations on the release of such an awesome asset. By the time any of you are hearing this, this should be available. So obviously Ryan and I are talking before it's fully released, and it's a big burden on his shoulders, and that will be lifted on Tuesday. So that's great. Yeah, Ryan, this has been fantastic. Just getting feedback from you and hearing really how marketers can better use the ad formats in tandem with each other. Do you have anything else you'd like to share with us or anything that LinkedIn advertisers should be paying attention to? 28:34 No, I think there's a lot of great things that we're coming out with from a product perspective, I think, you know, LinkedIn live and events and things like that are gonna be something we're gonna continue to invest in. If you are a conversation ads customer or you want to try it. We just came out with a new reporting feature called Flow Chart that I'd love to, you know, kind of plug which gives you CTA level, engagement, understanding verse similar to how you would think about it. Google Analytics or where people are dropping off in your conversation. And so I would definitely ask you to to look at that if you're thinking about conversation ends, or you want to understand how this new format can be helpful in your goals, because you're gonna learn a ton about the behavior of somebody in the inbox that you never had before. So that's gonna be great. 29:18 And I have definitely gotten a chance to check out the flow chart view of the conversation ads. And that was a brilliant addition. So thanks so much for that. And with that being said, thank you so much for being on the show, Ryan. Sure. Appreciate your insights. And is there any way that you'd want listeners to connect with you? 29:37 Yeah, sure. I mean, if you're active on on Twitter I'm at @RKMAC, or I'm on LinkedIn, you can you can find me there. 29:45 Perfect. And I'll go ahead and link both of those down below in the show notes. Ryan, thank you so much for being on the show, and we'll look forward to hearing from you soon. 29:53 Perfect. Thanks so much for having me, AJ. Appreciate it. 29:55 All right. I hope you enjoyed that talk I had with Ryan. I've got the episode resourcescoming up for you right now. So stick around. 30:07 Thank you for listening to the LinkedIn Ads Show. Hungry for more? AJ Wilcox, take it away. 30:18 Okay, the Brand and Demand Playbook that Ryan mentioned, I've got the link down there below. So definitely check that one out. I think you'll like having that one reviewed and on your hard drive. He also mentioned the blog post, why every startup marketer should be using conversation ads, I've got the link down below for that as well. It's definitely worth checking out. Ryan shared his Twitter handle as well as you can connect with him on LinkedIn. So I've got both of those links for you. And if you are new to LinkedIn ads, or you have an employee or a colleague who needs to learn it, definitely check out the course that I did with LinkedIn Learning. It's incredibly inexpensive and very valuable. And then take a look at your podcast player right now and see if that subscribe button is already lit up. If not, give it a nice loving touch. And while you're at it rate us of course, I'd love to see five stars on everything, but rate us whatever you legitimately think we deserve. And I would love to hear you review our podcast to on whatever service you're using. leave us a review and I'd love to read it aloud and help shout you out. With any show ideas, topic suggestions, any sort of feedback, hit us up at Podcast@B2Linked.com. And then with that being said, we'll see you back here next week, cheering you on inyour LinkedIn Ads initiatives.

When somebody speaks at Hubspot's marketing conference about how to increase inbound leads by 200% without a marketing budget, you pay attention. Ryan MacInnis is the director of Marketing at Voysis, a voice AI platform. In this episode, you'll learn what's needed to increase inbound organic leads for your dealership and how to establish a process that will help you generate more organic leads into the future.

When somebody speaks at Hubspot's marketing conference about how to increase inbound leads by 200% without a marketing budget, you pay attention. Ryan MacInnis is the director of Marketing at Voysis, a voice AI platform. In this episode, you'll learn what's needed to increase inbound organic leads for your dealership and how to establish a process that will help you generate more organic leads into the future.

Truly a quiet week in the NHL, this week’s show reflects as much.  The topics range from arbitration to trades to the future location of Lord Stanley’s cup.  We start this trip in Minnesota with the signing of Matt Dumba.  Avoiding arbitration, he has inked a 5 year 30-million-dollar contract. We agree that this is good for both parties going forward. We move to Winnipeg, where the first arbitration hearing has been held for defenseman Jacob Trouba. The feeling here is that he will get slightly below what Dumba will pull in, but will Matt’s deal in any way affect what Trouba gets as a result? Speaking of arbitration, we discuss the hearing schedule and the way it appears to be back loaded with stars.  The feeling here is that the teams hope to avoid hearings for these players by giving them some time to work out details.  Players such as William Karlsson and Ryan Spooner will have to wait to have their respective arguments heard.  Coming up tomorrow the biggest name would probably be Brandon Montour, yet another defenseman that may have his numbers affected by the Dumba deal. There is one goaltender on the arbitration list, David Rittich, from Calgary.  With not much of an NHL résumé, he will not be commanding huge dollars, but will he in any way affect players such as Malcolm Subban, who is in the last year of his current deal.  We don’t believe this to be the case, but do you? Speaking of the Golden Knights, if you have been following the Forecheck during the season, you are aware of the ongoing trademark battle with the U.S. Army.  Well, we are here to report that the battle is over.  Vegas can use the trademark and will be available for use in 60 days, just in time for the new season. The Ducks have displayed on social media their throwback jersey for the upcoming 25thanniversary season, and it is something to behold.  Bringing back memories from the inaugural season, the duck is back! Give it a look! While in Anaheim, we talk about Adam Henrique signing his extension, 5 years, 29 million dollars. This again is a team friendly deal that should be good for both parties going forward. In Boston, one of the foremost hockey writers, Kevin Paul Dupont, writes about Artemi Panarin coming to Boston and how good a fit it would be for the team.  The issue here is what the Bruins would have to give up to get him and how that affects the line he would be on.  What is your opinion? From Boston we land in Detroit and discuss the prospects that could potentially see ice time in Little Caesars Arena this fall.  The belief here is that the two defensive prospects, Filip Hronek and Dennis Cholowski should be starting at the top level but Zadina and Rasmussen will probably start in Grand Rapids. There was a trade in the NHL, but no one will fault you for missing it.  The Coyotes have acquired Jacob Graves and a sixth-round pick for Ryan MacInnis.  Nothing too exciting here, but the Coyotes have filled their 50 contract spots. We mention the twitter poll regarding Artemi Panarin and finish up with our version of where in the world…needless to say, Lord Stanley is in Canada. Give us a listen and tell us what you think!  Enjoy the show!

According to a recent study conducted by audio and AI company Voysis, more than half of voice commerce is conducted on mobile phones with assistant programs like Siri or emerging platforms that are enabling audio conversions.However, the rise of mobile voice sales is also a result of retailers investing more heavily in voice-activated mobile apps and technology, according to Ryan Macinnis, director of marketing at Voysis. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This special episode is dedicated to voice commerce trends and data. In particular we discuss the results of the recently published Voice Shopping Consumer Adoption Report. Joining the panel are Brian Colcord and Ryan MacInnis from Voysis and my colleague Ava Mutchler from Voicebot.ai. Brian is VP of Design at Voysis, was previously a UX and design executive at LogMeIn and earned an MFA from the University of Hartford. Ryan is Marketing Director at Voysis and previously worked at Twitter, Acquia and the Boston Globe. Learn about how many people have shopped using voice, what they bought, what device they used and what they think about it all. Also, download the report and follow along if you can.   

An all-star panel (Florian Hollandt of Jovo; Adva Levin of Pretzel Labs; Ryan MacInnis of Voysis) discuss the latest in voice technology news, including Google Home beating Amazon Echo in Q1 2018 shipment numbers, Amazon and Google battling for supremacy in India, Apple's rumored new smart speaker carrying the Beats brand, Samsung's push to have Bixby in all devices by 2020, and a hilarious and insightful exchange between a frustrated Scottish woman and her Alexa device. This Week In Voice is hosted by Bradley Metrock (CEO, Score Publishing) and is part of the VoiceFirst.FM podcast network.

"Secondhand Commerce" is changing the way that we purchase luxury goods - from watches and handbags to sneakers - secondary markets are finding life after the initial purchase. Plus: Macy's acquires Story in a move to bring experiential retail to big the department store. Special thanks to Ryan MacInnis of Voysis for joining us on this episode of Future Commerce! Apologies for the audio quality in this episode as we encountered a technical issue. Should be fixed going forward! Thanks for listening!

Voice is dominating commerce experiences: but is it kitsch or is it kismet? What separates retailers who are implementing voice strategies? Ryan MacInnis of Voysis joins us to talk about how to give your brand a voice in a world spoken by Alexa. Plus: Facebook Fiona and Aloha - one more smart speaker / tablet to contend for our attention.

Today, I'm talking with , the Director of Marketing at the SaaS startup . Voysis uses AI to instantly adds natural language voice search to ecommerce apps. In layman's terms, this means shoppers can search and shop by simply saying things like, “Show me running sneakers” or “Add these in size 11 to my cart.” Ryan has taken the marketing lessons he's learned working for companies like Twitter and applied them to smaller startups, managing to double traffic and triple leads with a budget of only $1,000. In our chat, Ryan shares how he did that and how you can take those lessons to build your own marketing machine without a large budget. If you're struggling to generate predictable growth without breaking the bank, then this is the episode for you.

Today we’re chatting with Ryan MacInnis, the Director of Marketing at Voysis, a voice AI platform for ecommerce brands. Ryan joins us to share his story,  how he got into tech & ecommerce, how he joined Voysis and what their platform is all about, why voice is so exciting for both B2B and B2C brands, what it’s been like competing against the largest native voice platform (Alexa), and much more. So let’s get started!

In this episode we talk to Ryan MacInnis, Director of Marketing at Voysis.

An all-star duo (Brian Roemmele of ReadMultiplex.com, Ryan MacInnis, Director of Marketing for Voysis) discuss the latest in voice technology news, including Amazon's experimentation with Alexa skill monetization, Amazon's controversial IoT-based "Amazon Key" home offering, Google's 50 new #VoiceFirst experiences for children, Cortana's growth in number of skills developed for Microsoft's platform, Adweek's exploration of Facebook's data advantage, and much more. Hosted by Bradley Metrock (CEO, Score Publishing) and part of the VoiceFirst.FM podcast network.

Arizona Coyotes draft pick Ryan MacInnis talk the early season success of the Kitchener Rangers. Also Niagara IceDogs TV play-by play voice Steve Clark and voice of the Flint Firebirds Dominic Hennig. Continue reading →