LinkedIn Launches BrandLink For Video Ads

LinkedIn has renamed its Wire video advertising scheme as BrandLink and brought well-known creators such as Steven Bartlett, Bernard Marr, Allie K. Miller, Rebecca Minkoff, Candace Nelson, Guy Raz, Gary Vaynerchuk and Shelley Zalis into the lineup. According to LinkedIn, the new feature lets brands run short pre-roll clips ahead of both publisher and creator videos inside the feed, giving campaigns a stronger association with voices that viewers already trust.

The professional network first opened Wire last June with titles like Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal. Lindsey Edwards, LinkedIn’s vice-president of product management, says adding creator shows such as The CEO Playbook and AI & Innovation gives advertisers a richer menu of themes linked to entrepreneurship, artificial intelligence and small firm growth.

When an advert appears beside material that matches the viewer’s interests, it stands out. Because BrandLink sits inside LinkedIn, the company’s first-party data can guide placements so that only the intended audience sees each clip.

How Does BrandLink Place Adverts Beside Professional Videos?

To join the programme, a marketer contacts a LinkedIn sales representative and chooses either a single creator package or a “dominate the topic” option that spans many partners. After that, the brand uploads a 3-30 second video in Campaign Manager and waits for the creator or publisher to sign off the pairing.

LinkedIn then serves the pre-roll only to members who match the brand’s chosen job titles, seniority, or location. The advert rolls automatically before the selected video, inside the standard feed, so the viewing experience feels natural rather than intrusive.

Every campaign comes with detailed read-outs. The dashboard shows impressions, view-through rates, completion rates, and professional demographics. Advertisers can also run brand-lift studies to see whether viewers remember the message or change their opinion of the sponsor.

Why Are Marketers Turning To Video On LinkedIn?

Time spent watching video in the app climbed by 36% year on year, and video posts draw 1.4 times more reactions than text or image updates. 62% of B2B marketers now rate video as the best format for reaching buying groups, while 91% believe it accelerates return on advertising spend more than any rival format. This growth explains why LinkedIn is “doubling down” on the medium.

The network also has a safer setting than open web video sites. BrandLink clips sit beside news reports from Forbes, Morning Brew, USA TODAY and ADWEEK, plus original shows from the named creators. That mix gives advertisers the reassurance that their message will not appear next to questionable material.

For creators, LinkedIn shares pre-roll revenue with the hosts, giving them a new reason to publish exclusive shows inside the platform rather than posting first on other networks. A steady income stream could, over time, draw more high-profile voices into the professional space.

Adding multilingual publishers such as Der Spiegel and Condé Nast broadens the reach even further, letting brands run the same campaign in English, German, or Spanish while still using LinkedIn’s audience filters.

What Can Companies Expect When They Sign Up?

LinkedIn says BrandLink campaigns enjoy a 130% higher average completion rate than standard feed video adverts. View rates rise by 23%, and members who watch a BrandLink clip are 18% more likely to fill in a lead generation form later. Cartier, for example, saw higher ad recall among C-suite viewers when its pre-roll preceded premium publisher videos.

Those figures matter because many marketing budgets face tighter scrutiny… being able to trace completion, recall and downstream conversions inside one platform helps teams defend their spend without juggling spreadsheets from numerous suppliers.

BrandLink runs on both mobile and desktop, and advertisers can restrict delivery to chosen regions. That flexibility lets a South African fintech, for example, target only United Kingdom chief financial officers, or a German software firm aim at North American heads of engineering.