Digital marketing technology provider Silverpop has announced an enhancement to its Social-Sign-In feature (built through a partnership with Janrain). Silverpop customers can now collect email addresses when individuals register for offers using LinkedIn credentials, which Silverpop calls "an important development for B2B marketers" who are more interested in interacting with potential buyers via their professional versus personal email addresses, and who want to target communications based on recipients' professional backgrounds. As DMNews reports, Silverpop has had Social Sign-In for over a year, but LinkedIn has until now prohibited marketers from accessing LinkedIn users’ emails.
Facebook as a social sign-in makes perfect sense for retail, and it is the dominant choice among the top 500 online retailers globally, according to Social Labs, followed by Twitter. LinkedIn is not among them.
But that does not mean social sign-in is unsuited to business—far from it, argues Bryan Brown, director of product strategy at Silverpop. But it must be business-like.
"Social Sign-In benefits both buyers and marketers, making registration processes simpler, thus decreasing the possibility of form abandonment while also getting the marketer closer to the social behaviors of each contact" said Brown. "For B2B marketers, while the information collected from social networks like Facebook and Twitter is certainly valuable, the likelihood of attaining a contact's business email address is low. With LinkedIn accounts, individuals are more likely to include their business-related information." Brown calls the capability a "giant leap for B2B marketers in general, and Silverpop customers in particular,” as they can take advantage of the enhancement immediately due to Silverpop's existing partnership with Janrain.
If nothing else, social log-in makes frustrating online registration simpler, says Tore Steen, vice president of business development for Janrain. "The increase in form completions and conversion rates has an obvious benefit to marketers, but so does the ability to connect users to their social profiles, providing additional, highly valuable insight about their site visitors," said Steen."Through Janrain technology Silverpop customers now can collect verified emails and other permission-based profile data only available from LinkedIn for use in their email and marketing campaigns."
