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After initially adding more to its image than just being a social network for professionals by having deals with BusinessWeek, CNBC, etc; LinkedIn now shifts its gears to the next level by launching its own ad-network as has been reported by TechCrunch.

The current plans are set to provide an easy access to over 27 million of its users of which a large number of members grab a net income of over $110,000 and almost half of them hold decision making positions in various firms. As Schonfeld mentions:

LinkedIn already sells ads against this audience on its own site, targeted by industry, seniority, company size, geography, gender, and number of connections. Now, it will expand that targeting to other partner sites.

Now this calls for publishers to become a part of the new ad-network and LinkedIn might very well expand its partners as well as have the existing ones to signup. LinkedIn would identify its members by placing a cookie on their browser that helps LinkedIn identify them as its members. Any and every personal information that can be used as identifiers is taken off and various members are put up in categories that tend to be the desired targets. And it’s not set as default; members have a choice to opt out of it at will.

Advertisers can opt to work around with the social network to shape up custom audience categories based on the information related to their profession, position, location, gender etc. This would help at putting up the right ads at the right place, rather than spreading random ads all over the place.

LinkedIn, unlike ads based on CPM across other networks that sell ads at less than $1 will be kicking a start-off from $30 and can maximize it to more than $75. The reason behind such a high rate is that advertisers get to target the real audience that they most desire.

With an audience that is by far very valuable for the advertisers and LinkedIn getting rid of the task of sharing the revenue with partner sites and media, the idea appears most appealing. With increased revenues set to make way for LinkedIn, it remains to be seen what others adopt to this new method.