LinkedIn 2013 Annual Report Download

10APR201419231192
April 2014
To Our Stockholders:
2013 was another successful year for LinkedIn. Following a period of accelerated product innovation
exiting 2012, this year was marked by improvements in scale and relevance across all of our core products,
leading to strong levels of member growth, engagement and financial results at record levels.
The value we deliver to members remained consistent in 2013—we enable professionals to build and
manage their identities; create and leverage their professional networks; and gain the knowledge they
need to be more successful in their careers, across multiple screens and devices.
Our success in delivering this value is reflected in our engagement metrics. Cumulative membership grew
37% year over year to 277 million members. Unique visitors, as measured by comScore, which excludes
mobile, averaged 187 million unique visitors per month in Q4. Our internal engagement metrics, which
include mobile, also showed significant growth, culminating in Q4 unique visiting members growing
approximately 31% year over year and member page views growing approximately 48%, a pattern that
shows greater engagement per visiting member.
I want to highlight a few of our most successful product initiatives in 2013 that delivered across all of our
value propositions:
We began the transformation of the LinkedIn profile from a resume into a true portfolio with the launch
of rich media in May, resulting in members showcasing millions of pieces of visual content as part of their
professional identities. And members saw their professional brands furthered strengthened through more
than three billion Endorsements, which reached critical mass in 2013. As we exited the year, we turned
our focus to increasing the overall quality and relevance of endorsements.
Last year, we also made significant progress connecting the world’s professionals and helping them build
their networks. LinkedIn added nearly 75 million members in 2013, the largest single-year gain in the
company’s history. More than 70% of them came from outside the U.S., bolstering our status as a truly
global network. We also improved the accuracy and relevance of network suggestions with revamped
People You May Know algorithms, driving significant increases in member signups and connections.
In 2013, LinkedIn also furthered its efforts to become the definitive professional publishing platform. Our
content ecosystem, which consists of news from Pulse; our Influencer platform and company posts;
presentations on SlideShare, and Groups, would rank among the top digital business publishers based on
unique user metrics. The impact of content on LinkedIn is seen in the growth of traffic to our homepage,
where we saw nearly 50% growth in organic engagement in Q4.
Additionally, in 2013, we made significant progress toward making LinkedIn fully mobile. While improving
our core LinkedIn flagship app with new versions, we also embarked on a portfolio strategy, with
dedicated apps for Recruiter, Pulse, and Contacts. These apps continue to drive deeper member
engagement. Exiting 2013, mobile accounted for 41% of unique member visits to LinkedIn. In 2014, we
expect to reach the point where most LinkedIn members access the site via mobile devices.
Regarding monetization, for Talent Solutions, 2013 saw continued product innovation, helping to drive the
scale at which our customers are using LinkedIn to power talent acquisition. In the spring, we introduced
a new version of our flagship Recruiter platform, and at our Talent Connect conference in the fall, we
unveiled a number of products designed to mobilize the traditionally desktop-bound recruiting process.
Within Marketing Solutions, we began transitioning to a more sustainable and scalable model built around
content marketing. We launched Sponsored Updates, our first content product, in July. Sponsored
Updates quickly grew to contribute 13 percent of Marketing Solutions revenue in the fourth quarter, with
two-thirds of that revenue coming through mobile devices.