LinkedIn allows publishers to bake pre-roll ads into organic video content

LinkedIn is testing a new program enabling publishers to stitch pre-roll ads from partners directly into the organic video content they post to the platform.

A handful of publishers including The Wall Street Journal are currently participating in an “alpha test” of the program, which is called “Sponsored Editorial Content”, but LinkedIn has told publishers it intends to roll it out more widely.

The program currently allows publishers to include 15-second pre-roll ads from sponsors before their “organic” editorial video content. Publishers share editorial video content and ad creative with LinkedIn, which stitches the two together and publishes the resulting content as a single video to publishers’ feeds.

In terms of economics, publishers maintain direct relationships with advertisers and are responsible for collecting payment. Campaigns during the test period are being sold on a fixed CPM of $50, and 50% of revenue generated by publishers must be shared with LinkedIn.

For audiences, the experience might feel more natural when ads are included in content from publishers they’ve actively chosen to follow on the platform rather than simply injected into their feeds.

LinkedIn has told publishers its goal is to help them increase monetization opportunities on the platform, according to executives from publishers that are participating in or have been pitched on the program. In the long term, LinkedIn said it plans to develop a system that allows publishers to run content sponsorships across the platform on a self-service basis. It also plans to help publishers secure advertising partners with a model where both publishers’ sales teams and LinkedIn can pitch Sponsored Editorial Content opportunities to advertisers.

For initial tests, LinkedIn has pitched publishers with largely professional audiences, including major business publications but also those catering to more specific industries or sectors. The appeal for advertisers is the opportunity “to partner with premium publishers to deliver contextually relevant ads to LinkedIn’s high-quality professional audience,” LinkedIn has told publishers.

When asked about the program, a LinkedIn spokesperson said “We are testing a video sponsorship pilot with a small group of publishers. We’ve had a great relationship with publishers for years and we know that third-party content is valuable to our members. Although we don’t have anything to share at this time, we are constantly talking to customers, including publishers, about ways we can help them more effectively reach the audiences that matter most to them.” WSJ did not return a request for comment.

LinkedIn has stepped up its efforts to forge closer ties with publishers as their relationships with other platforms become more distant. In addition to Sponsored Editorial Content the company has been pushing its native newsletter functionality as a way for publishers to gain more visibility among LinkedIn’s user base, and it’s also been surfacing publisher content more prominently in users’ feeds and notifications in recent months. Traffic referrals from LinkedIn to publishers’ sites have increased slightly over the past three years while referrals from X and Facebook have dwindled, according to data from Similarweb.

“There’s high engagement around video. We’re working on making sure that that is actually showing up in LinkedIn, and we want to make sure that [publishers] are also being rewarded for that content,” LinkedIn’s editor-in-chief and vice president Dan Roth told Axios in March.

“We believe that when members and professionals come to LinkedIn, they should be getting insights that help them be better at the job they have or the job they want to have,” Roth said.