Pros and Cons of LinkedIn Carousel Posts and Ads

Are you considering using LinkedIn carousel posts and ads for your marketing strategy? Understanding the pros and cons of LinkedIn carousel posts and ads is essential for making an informed decision.

This innovative ad format allows you to create interactive, swipeable slides that can enhance user engagement and effectively showcase your products or services.

However, like any marketing tool, it comes with its own set of advantages and challenges. This post has talked more about this topic, but very little or no emphasis was made on its pros and cons.

In this blog, we'll delve into the pros and cons of LinkedIn carousel posts and ads, helping you determine if they're the right fit for your business.

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Pros of LinkedIn Carousel Posts and Ads

1. Enhanced Engagement:

One of the pros of LinkedIn Carousel Posts and Ads is their ability to significantly boost your engagement on the platform. 

Here’s how they work to your advantage:

Carousel posts and ads invite users to swipe through multiple slides, creating an interactive experience.

This interaction increases the time users spend on your content, leading to higher engagement rates unlike traditional static posts, which can be scrolled past quickly.

Each swipe represents a deliberate action, indicating genuine interest from the user, which can translate into better brand recall and interaction.

With the ability to include multiple slides, you can tell a more comprehensive and compelling story about your brand, products, or services.

Storytelling helps to captivate your audience and convey your message more effectively, which can lead to deeper connections and more meaningful interactions.

Carousel ads support high-quality images and graphics, making your posts visually appealing and attention-grabbing.

Eye-catching visuals are more likely to stop users from scrolling and prompt them to engage with your content. High-quality imagery enhances the overall aesthetic and appeal of your ads.

Each slide in a carousel ad can have its own unique CTA, directing users to different landing pages or actions.

Multiple CTAs increase the chances of conversion by offering various engagement points. This can lead to more clicks, sign-ups, or other desired actions from your audience.

LinkedIn provides detailed metrics on the performance of each slide within a carousel ad.

These insights help you understand which content resonates most with your audience, allowing you to optimize future campaigns for better engagement and results.

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2. Storytelling Capability:

Another pro of LinkedIn Carousel posts and ads is its storytelling capability.

Like I have said earlier, LinkedIn carousel posts and ads allow you to include multiple slides in a single post.

This multi-slide format lets you tell a detailed and engaging story about your brand, products, or services.

Each slide can have different content, like images, text, and calls-to-action, helping you explain complex information in easy-to-understand parts. 

This format is good for:

• Showcasing a product line with each slide highlighting a different feature.
• Narrating a customer success story step-by-step.
• Presenting a timeline of company milestones.
• Offering a detailed walkthrough of a service or process.

Storytelling is a strong tool in marketing. The carousel format makes it even better by giving you a structured but flexible way to share your story.

Here’s how it works to your advantage:

Using multiple slides helps you tell a story that keeps users interested as they swipe through. This is more engaging than a single post because users stay involved as they follow along.

Breaking your message into slides lets you explain each point without overwhelming your audience. Each slide focuses on one thing, making it easier to understand.

You can balance pictures and words better. Good pictures and short text together make your message clear and memorable.

A good story makes people feel things, which helps them connect with you. Whether it's inspiring success, making them curious, or teaching them something new, emotions make relationships stronger.

You can change your story to fit what your audience cares about, making it more personal and relevant to them.

3. Interactive Experience:

This is another advantage of LinkedIn Carousel Posts and Ads. 

The swiping action used in LinkedIn carousel posts and ads makes the ad naturally engaging.

Unlike a single static image or post, which users can easily scroll past, the carousel requires users to actively engage by swiping through multiple slides. 

This interactive feature can grab users' attention better and make the ad more interesting.

Users must take action (swiping) to view the entire content. This active participation increases the likelihood that users will spend more time with your ad, engaging with each slide.

As users swipe through the slides, they become more invested in the content, building a deeper connection with the message being conveyed.

Swiping through content makes it more memorable. Users are more likely to remember an ad they interacted with than one they just looked at.

By swiping through multiple slides, users can understand the content better. Each slide can highlight a different part of your message, giving a complete view.

When users swipe through the slides, they spend more time with your brand and message. This longer exposure can increase engagement and make it more likely they will take action.

The interactive format can make users curious and excited, creating a stronger emotional connection with the content. Users are more likely to feel connected to a brand that involves them in this way.

4. Multiple CTAs:

In a LinkedIn carousel ad, each slide has its own call-to-action (CTA), which directs users to specific landing pages or prompts them to take different actions. 

This feature provides marketers with the flexibility to tailor CTAs to the content of each slide, maximizing the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns.

By having many CTAs, marketers can give users different ways to engage, making it more likely they'll take action. 

Each slide can focus on different things users care about, giving them a personalized experience.

By offering various CTAs like visiting a website, downloading resources, or signing up for webinars, marketers address different stages of the buyer's journey. This gives users choices to engage with the content in ways that suit them best.

Different CTAs on each slide create personalized paths for users, guiding them to conversion. This makes the user experience better by giving relevant opportunities at every step.

Relevant CTAs make it easier for users to act, reducing obstacles in the conversion process. This boosts engagement and conversion rates.

5. Detailed Insights:

LinkedIn's analytics tools offer marketers a comprehensive breakdown of the performance of individual slides within a carousel ad. 

This means that you can delve into each slide's engagement levels, track click-through rates, and measure various interactions. 

Essentially, you get to see which slides capture the most attention from your audience, how many clicks they generate, and what other actions users take while viewing your content. This wealth of data is invaluable for refining your future advertising efforts. 

By understanding which content resonates most with your audience, you can tailor your campaigns more effectively, focusing on what works best to drive engagement and achieve your marketing goals. 

Whether it's understanding which visuals are most captivating, which messages prompt the most clicks, or which calls-to-action spur the most interactions, LinkedIn's analytics provide you with the insights needed to optimize your carousel ads for maximum impact and effectiveness.

6. Visual Appeal:

One great thing about LinkedIn carousel posts and ads is how they look. You can use really clear and detailed pictures in these ads, which makes them look super cool and interesting.

When you use lots of these high-quality images in a carousel ad, it makes your ad stand out from the rest of the stuff on people's feeds. It's like having a bunch of eye-catching posters in a row. This makes your ad look way better than other stuff that might not be as nice to look at.

Having these cool pictures in your ad makes it more appealing and attractive to people who see it. It's like having a mini art gallery right in their feed! 

And when your ad looks this good, it's more likely that people will stop and check it out, which is exactly what you want. So, using high-resolution images in LinkedIn carousel ads is definitely a big plus!

7. Audience Targeting:

Another benefit of using LinkedIn Carousel posts and ads is that it has special tools to help you show your ads to the exact people you want to reach. 

For example, you can pick who sees your ads based on what job they have, what industry they work in, how big their company is, and other things like that. 

This means your carousel ads will be seen by people who are most likely interested in what you're offering. 

When your ads reach the right people, they're more likely to pay attention and take action, like clicking on your ad or signing up for something. This helps you get better results from your advertising efforts on LinkedIn.

8. Brand Awareness:

LinkedIn Carousel Posts and Ads offer several benefits, and one of them is boosting Brand Awareness. 

When you use carousel ads on LinkedIn, you can show off lots of different things about your brand. You know, like your products, services, or cool stuff your brand has done. 

Instead of just showing one thing, you get to show lots of different stuff, like maybe happy customers talking about your products, or examples of how your products have helped people. This makes your brand look really good and helps people understand what you're all about.

So, when people see your carousel ads on LinkedIn, they don't just see one thing - they see a whole bunch of cool stuff that makes your brand look awesome. 

And when they see all that cool stuff, they're more likely to remember your brand and want to learn more about it. That's why carousel ads are great for building brand awareness on LinkedIn!

9. Versatility:

LinkedIn carousel posts and ads are very flexible and can be used for many different types of marketing goals. Here’s how they can help in different scenarios:

• Brand Awareness: If you want more people to know about your brand, you can use carousel ads to show off your brand's story, values, and key messages. By swiping through the slides, users can get a better understanding of what your brand is all about.
• Website Visits: If your goal is to drive traffic to your website, each slide in the carousel can have a link that takes users to different parts of your website. For example, one slide might link to your homepage, another to a product page, and another to a blog post.
• Lead Generation: If you want to collect information from potential customers, you can use carousel ads to promote things like free eBooks, whitepapers, or webinars. Each slide can encourage users to fill out a form or sign up for something valuable.
• Conversions: If you want to turn interested users into actual customers, carousel ads can help by showing detailed information about your products or services. Each slide can highlight a different feature or benefit, with a call-to-action that encourages users to make a purchase or sign up for a service.

The great thing about carousel ads is that you can change the message and call-to-action (CTA) on each slide to match the specific goal of your campaign. This means that no matter what you’re trying to achieve—whether it's getting more people to know about your brand, driving traffic to your website, gathering leads, or making sales—carousel ads can be adapted to fit your needs. This makes them a very useful tool in any marketing strategy.

10. Compatibility with Various Content Types:

Carousel ads support both image and document formats, allowing for a diverse range of content.

This flexibility means that marketers can repurpose existing content such as reports, whitepapers, or infographics into engaging carousel ads, extending the reach and impact of their existing assets.

Cons of LinkedIn Carousel Posts and Ads

1. Complex Creation Process:

One of the challenges of using LinkedIn carousel posts and ads is that they can be more complicated to create compared to single-image ads.

This means it takes more time and effort to make them. You have to design multiple slides and make sure they all look good together. 

It's like putting together a puzzle where each slide is a piece, and you want them all to fit together nicely. 

This process requires careful planning and creativity to make sure each slide is attractive and that the whole carousel tells a clear and coherent story. 

You might need to work with different teams, like designers, writers, and marketers, to make sure everything comes together smoothly. 

It's like organizing a big group project where everyone needs to do their part to make it successful.

2. Cost:

One of the limitations of using LinkedIn carousel posts and ads is the cost. 

Basically, running these ads can be pricier because they tend to get more attention from people, which means more clicks and interactions. 

Also, since carousel ads require really good images or graphics, you might end up spending more money to create them. 

Plus, because they get more engagement, LinkedIn might charge you more for each click or for every thousand times your ad gets shown to people. 

All these costs can add up and make carousel ads a big investment. This could be a problem for smaller businesses that don't have a lot of money to spend on advertising. 

So, while carousel ads can be effective, they might not be the best option for everyone, especially if you're working with a tight budget.

3. No Edits Post-Publishing:

One of the pros of using LinkedIn carousel posts and ads is that once you've published them, you can't make any changes to them. 

This means that if you've made a mistake or forgot something important, you can't go back and fix it. You'd have to create a whole new ad, which takes up more time and might cost you more money. 

Because of this, it's really important to double and triple-check everything before you hit the publish button. 

Making sure everything is perfect before you publish can save you a lot of hassle and stress later on.

4. Creative Limitations:

Another downside of using LinkedIn carousel posts and ads is that there are some restrictions on what kinds of content you can use. 

For example, you can only use pictures that are in JPG, PNG, or GIF format, and they can't be animated. 

This means you can't use more exciting things like videos or moving GIFs, which might make your ads less interesting and engaging. 

Videos and animations are usually better at grabbing people's attention and getting messages across, so not being able to use them could limit how creative and engaging your ads can be.

5. Character Limits:

One disadvantage of LinkedIn carousel posts and ads is the character limits imposed on the text. You're limited to just 45 characters for headlines and 255 characters for introductory text on each slide. 

This means you have to keep your messages short and to the point, which can be tough if you want to convey a lot of information or tell a captivating story.

Marketers have to be really careful with their wording to make sure they get their message across effectively within these constraints. 

It can be tricky to strike the right balance between being concise and providing enough information to engage your audience. 

Plus, if you have a lot to say or want to include compelling narratives, these character limits can feel quite restrictive and frustrating. 

This limitation may force marketers to simplify their messages or sacrifice some details, potentially impacting the overall effectiveness of their carousel posts and ads.

6. File Size Constraints:

One of the cons of using LinkedIn carousel posts and ads is the restriction on file sizes. Basically, each file you upload can't be bigger than 10 megabytes (MB). This might not sound like a big deal, but it can actually limit the quality or complexity of the images you want to use.

For example, if you have high-resolution images or really detailed graphics, you might need to compress them to fit within the size limit. And when you compress images, it can sometimes make them look less sharp or clear. This could be a problem, especially for brands that depend a lot on how visually appealing their content is.

So, while carousel posts and ads can be great for showcasing products or telling stories, the file size limit might make it tricky to use certain types of visuals effectively. It's something to keep in mind when you're planning your content strategy on LinkedIn.Each file must not exceed 10 MB, which can limit the quality or complexity of the images used.

High-resolution images or detailed graphics might need to be compressed, potentially reducing their visual quality. This can be a significant limitation for brands that rely heavily on visual appeal.

7. Device Compatibility:

One downside of LinkedIn carousel posts and ads is that they might not look or work the same on every device. This means that people using different phones, tablets, or computers might see them differently. 

Even though carousel ads are supposed to adjust to fit different screens, they might still appear differently depending on the size and quality of the device's screen. 

This could affect how people feel about the ads and how much they interact with them. 

For example, someone using a big, high-quality screen might have a better experience than someone using a small, low-quality screen. 

So, even though carousel ads are meant to be flexible, they might still lead to inconsistent experiences for users depending on what device they're using.

8. Learning Curve:

One con of using LinkedIn carousel posts and ads is that there's a bit of a learning curve involved. This means that if you're new to using this format or advertising on LinkedIn in general, it might take some time to get the hang of things.

To create effective carousel ads, you need to understand how they work and what LinkedIn expects from them. This includes things like knowing the right size and type of images to use, as well as understanding how to target your ads to the right audience. 

It can be a bit overwhelming at first, especially if you're not familiar with all the ins and outs of LinkedIn's advertising platform.

Overall, the learning curve for carousel ads on LinkedIn can be a challenge for beginners. It takes time and experience to master the art of creating and optimizing these ads, so it's something to keep in mind if you're just starting out with LinkedIn advertising.

9. Potential for Overload:

With up to 10 slides per ad, there's a risk of overwhelming users with too much information, which can reduce the effectiveness of the ad.

Overloading users with too many slides or too much information per slide can lead to disengagement. It's important to strike a balance between providing enough information to be informative and keeping it concise to maintain user interest.

10. Dependent on User Interaction:

The success of a carousel ad relies heavily on user interaction (swiping through slides), which is not guaranteed and can lead to less exposure if users do not engage.

If users don’t interact with the carousel, they may only see the first slide, significantly limiting the ad’s effectiveness. Ensuring the first slide is compelling enough to encourage further interaction is crucial for the ad’s overall success.

Final Verdict

In conclusion, LinkedIn carousel posts and ads offer both exciting opportunities and potential challenges for marketers. 

On the positive side, these dynamic tools provide a visually engaging way to showcase products, tell stories, and drive user engagement. With the ability to include multiple slides and CTAs, marketers can create personalized and interactive experiences that resonate with their audience. Furthermore, LinkedIn's analytics tools offer valuable insights into the performance of each slide, allowing for continuous optimization and improvement of advertising campaigns.

However, it's essential to acknowledge the potential drawbacks of carousel posts and ads on LinkedIn. The learning curve associated with mastering the carousel format and understanding LinkedIn's specific requirements can be a barrier for beginners. Additionally, ensuring consistent brand messaging and maintaining audience interest across multiple slides can pose a challenge.

Despite these challenges, the benefits of LinkedIn carousel posts and ads outweigh the drawbacks for many marketers. By leveraging these tools effectively and continually refining strategies based on performance data, businesses can maximize their impact on the platform and drive meaningful results.