Professional social networking site LinkedIn, with 238 million registered users, is looking to emulate Facebook and Twitter by pushing its advertising business. During the quarterly earnings call, company CEO Jeff Weiner responded to an analyst by stating that LinkedIn will introduce an ad API, allowing brands and agencies to make larger media purchases. He did not disclose a specific launch date but indicated that launching the ad API will be a high-priority task.
"Introducing a set of powerful APIs will enable social promotion agencies to utilize the entire LinkedIn platform most efficiently, and this is indeed a high-priority task for us going forward. We won't announce a specific release date in advance, but it is undoubtedly one of our top priorities," he said.
In fact, LinkedIn had already released an ad API earlier, but it is currently in a limited beta test phase; its test users include Adobe, AdStage, Bizo, and Unified. LinkedIn's plan to publicly release a broader ad API signifies the company is seriously considering how to better generate advertising revenue.
The ad API will allow companies to more easily conduct media buying, meaning third-party social media promotion companies and advertising agencies will partner with LinkedIn, leading to more media buying through these third-party entities for LinkedIn.
Facebook and Twitter introduced ad APIs in August 2011 and February 2013, respectively. Just like these two platforms, after introducing the ad API, LinkedIn will see more ad units on its platform.
LinkedIn has not disclosed its advertising revenue figures. The company stated that such revenues will be categorized under the "Marketing Solutions" department. In LinkedIn's Q2 financial report, the Marketing Solutions department accounted for 24% of total revenue (US$364 million), amounting to US$8.736 billion. As LinkedIn's user base continues to grow and its features expand, there will be more growth potential in the advertising business.
Mobile traffic accounts for one-third of LinkedIn's total traffic. However, LinkedIn's ad business layout on mobile has been slow to develop. In fact, it was only recently that the company began its ad business deployment on mobile devices.