Current data from LinkedIn shows the most in-demand skills as the job market slowly looks to regain a foothold after the sharp decline caused by Covid-19.
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Microsoft announced that LinkedIn’s advertising business had sales of more than $ 3 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31, outperforming competitors for digital-only ads like Snap and Pinterest.
The company doesn’t regularly report revenue from LinkedIn’s advertising business – called LinkedIn Marketing Solutions – but it does say that growth is accelerating. At Microsoft’s tender for the third fiscal quarter (end of March 31st), Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that the unit’s sales increased by over 60% over the previous year. In the last quarter, the company announced that the unit had grown by 53%.
For comparison, Snap generated around $ 2.8 billion in revenue over the same period, while Pinterest, which also posted quarterly profit on Tuesday, had revenue of $ 1.9 billion.
LinkedIn’s advertising business has offers such as sponsored content displayed on its feed, sponsored news, and other ads that could encourage LinkedIn users to register for an event or set up a demo. Customers have included brands like American Express, Adobe and Chase since last month, LinkedIn announced in March.
LinkedIn has tried to position itself as a better place for business-related ads than competitors like TikTok or Facebook’s Instagram. A campaign was launched in March to convince advertisers that if they are in an “operational mindset” they can reach business professionals on LinkedIn. It is part of a larger branded platform launched by LinkedIn Marketing Solutions in June, with the motto “Do business where business is done”.
LinkedIn likely got a boost in the last year as well, when a number of advertisers paused their Facebook placements starting this summer and tried other other channels.
eMarketer predicts that LinkedIn will account for 1.4% of US digital ad revenue in 2021, only a slight increase from the 1.2% in 2019, but well below the 25.4% from Facebook, 28.7% from Google and 10.7% from Amazon.
Overall, however, LinkedIn’s advertising business still makes up a tiny fraction of Microsoft’s total revenue, which was $ 41.7 billion for the quarter ended March 31 alone.
