Most of LinkedIn users outside U.S. to see tailored ads

PanARMENIAN.Net - Roughly 67% of LinkedIn's 300 million users are outside the United States, and now they'll be able to read ads in their language, Mashable reports.

The company on Tuesday, May 6, announced new targeting filters for advertisers that includes the ability to surface ads based on a user's preferred language. Companies will also be able to specify the audience for each post in their feed, meaning they can identify which users will see which updates or ads. For example, a company could now share a post to members in the United States that differs from the post it shares with Brazilian users.

Previously, when users visited a company's page, they would come across all posts from that company, regardless of relevance or language.

The addition of new geo-targeting tools makes a lot of sense for LinkedIn, given its international user base. Of the 3.5 million companies with company pages on LinkedIn, "the majority" are also outside the U.S., according to David Thacker, vice president of product at LinkedIn.

International growth has been a focus for LinkedIn over the past 6 months, a focus that has gone hand in hand with LinkedIn's growth on mobile. About 43% of LinkedIn users visit the site via mobile, and in some countries, like Costa Rica, Malaysia and Singapore, that number is already above 50%. Building services — including mobile apps and features — for an international audience is a priority, Kiran Prasad, senior director of mobile engineering at LinkedIn, told Mashable last month.

In addition to unveiling a Chinese-language version of the site earlier this year, LinkedIn's engineers are working to build apps that work in emerging markets where reliable Internet access is not a guarantee. "If it takes five seconds for you to load the primary screen [on an app], that's like a huge chunk of your experience immediately gone," Prasad explained. "Especially in international environments where the carrier networks aren't super duper fast, speed is going to be literally one of our primary primary concerns for mobile."

LinkedIn isn't the only advertiser using geo- and language-targeting tools to reach the right audience. Multiple Twitter advertisers have been able to tweet to specific countries for more than 6 months now, and Facebook has offered geo-targeted ads for years.

The new features are available to LinkedIn companies beginning Tuesday.