We run online courses on [AI safety](https://aisafetyfundamentals.com/) and [biosecurity](https://biosecurityfundamentals.com/). We recently ran a brief study to better understand how to attribute our marketing efforts when people say they generically came ‘from LinkedIn’. In short, we discovered that we can attribute at least 32% of these applications to our standard paid advertising:

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We’re publishing this article in line with our views on [working in public](https://bluedot.org/blog/working-in-public/).

## Why we did this

When people apply to the courses, we ask people where they heard about the course. This is so we can better understand how to improve our outreach and marketing efforts.

Many people said they heard from the course from LinkedIn. However, this could be a number of things: a paid advert, an organic post, a message, or even something else. Knowing which of these it is helps us understand how well different marketing strategies are working, so we know what works and what doesn’t.

Internally, we disagreed quite a bit as to how to account for these people. Different assumptions would affect our analysis of our marketing efforts quite a bit.

So we did the simple thing: ask people!

## What we did

We sent out a survey to anyone who applied to our courses in the last 3 months (between 16th April and 16th July), who had said generically they had heard about the course from LinkedIn. It asked them to indicate more specifically where they heard about the course. Here’s the text we sent:

> You applied to a BlueDot Impact course (AI Safety Fundamentals or Biosecurity Fundamentals) in the last 3 months, and mentioned that you heard about the course from LinkedIn.
> 
> We're trying to better understand what people mean by this, so we can prioritise our marketing efforts. Answering this survey will help us have a greater impact by attracting more high-quality students. Your answers will not affect your application decision in any way.
> 
> Where did you hear about the course? (single select)
> 
> Pick the one you think was most likely. If you're really uncertain, pick 'Can't remember'.
> 
> - LinkedIn advert (including posts from AI Safety or Biosecurity Fundamentals)
> - LinkedIn post (not by AI Safety or Biosecurity Fundamentals)
> - LinkedIn message
> - Can't remember
> - Other… (allows free-text entry)

We included posts from the AI Safety and Biosecurity Fundamentals LinkedIn accounts in the definition of an advert. This is because almost all interactions on those accounts were with the paid adverts posted by those accounts, which might have been confused for organic posts. We also linked the responses to individual users to avoid duplicates. Of 125 applicants, 51 responded to the survey. 4 stated they couldn’t remember. The other totals were:

- Post: 26
- Advert: 15
- Other (organic): 5, for example via searching on LinkedIn for AI safety or seeing it as a certification on someone’s profile
- LinkedIn Jobs: 1, via a teaching fellow job advert we posted

NB: These are not the only people who came from LinkedIn, as there are others who already just provided this information in the first place. Also, applying these figures to your situation will also likely depend on how much paid marketing you are doing.


What do applicants mean when they say they come from LinkedIn?

Adam Jones • July 19, 2024