LinkedIn recently launched LinkedIn Ads, fresh out of beta and with the addition of specific targeting options for network marketing. The previous advertising options only included limited demographic targeting, like gender, location, industry and various other general categories, whereas the new LinkedIn Ads now also supports targeting around job title, company name and LinkedIn Group-based ad targeting.  Seems like LinkedIn has gone niche with its own vertical.  Brilliant.

“This deeper level of targeting ability offers advertisers more precision for their advertising dollar and greater return on investment. Customers who have launched campaigns with these new targeting options report click-through rates 3x to 4x higher than other campaigns.”

Three to 4 times higher CTRs are certainly an impressive feat for LinkedIn Ads, but it may not have that bright of an outlook after all. Network ads have their own issues, namely the fact they don’t attract too much activity, not even on Facebook. Mashable reports Facebook ads performed half as well as regular banner ads. Moreover, it seems that while Facebook ads are only getting more expansive, ads received less click-throughs in 2010 than in 2009, falling to half as much as industry standards would expect.

While LinkedIn may face a hard time increasing its ads’ effectiveness, the launch of LinkedIn Ads is not the only recent update we’ve heard from the professional networking arena. We recntly mentioned how LinkedIn itself may file for an IPO much sooner than you think, and this week also brought the official launch of online professional reputation tracking site Mixtent.