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It’s fitting that Gyanda Sachdeva, LinkedIn’s VP of product management, found her first job as a financial analyst after grad school by reaching out to people on LinkedIn.
In 2010, Sachdeva joined LinkedIn and quickly rose through the ranks, from a senior associate focused on business operations to director of product management for LinkedIn’s premium subscription products.
A little under a year ago, she took charge of LinkedIn’s Marketing Solutions products, which Microsoft recently said brought in more than $3 billion in revenue over the past year. Monetization on LinkedIn has evolved a lot since the first display ads ran on the platform in 2005.
“Back in the day, we were all in on display advertising, and it took a pretty big shift internally to start thinking about how we use auctions to serve ads and also how we build mobile advertising products, because that was not a thing that existed back then,” Sachdeva says in this episode of AdExchanger Talks.
But the bigger shift, she says, is a bit meta.
“We used to think about LinkedIn as a set of people, a set of professionals … and sometimes they connect with each other – a resume database that’s very actively used by recruiters,” Sachdeva says.
“But that’s changed. It’s not just a network of profiles and connections; it’s gone on to become a professional community,” she says. “And that has created opportunities for brands to reach and engage with their customers.”
Also in this episode: Why agreeing to meet someone for a cup of coffee can change the course of your career; creating economic opportunity for students and recent grads trying to kick off their professional lives in the middle of a pandemic; LinkedIn’s marketing product vision and road map; and a rundown on LinkedIn’s new advertising products, including a feature that allows marketers to turn organic posts into paid media placements.
