How to use a LinkedIn sales navigator scraper?
Now that we’ve covered the basics, time to put theory into practice and explore how to scrape LinkedIn data with different types of software, depending on your business needs.
Free LinkedIn scrapers
Unlike virtually every other form of B2B software, there are quite a few completely free LinkedIn scraping tools out there that can help businesses extract the ‘basic’ data such as job title, location, company size, company revenue, and most importantly—email and phone number.
These tools are more often than not Chrome extensions and are great for teams just starting or with tight budgets.
Findy is a great example of a free LinkedIn scraper that operates with minimal effort—no coding skills, no setup, simply download the extension and let it run in the background:
The way tools like Findy work is extremely simple—as users browse through LinkedIn profiles, these extensions will automatically extract whatever information on prospects and their companies they can find.
Some of the more advanced extensions like Findy will also validate your emails in real-time to ensure your bounce rates stay low, without harming your email deliverability. Afterward, simply export your scraped prospect and company data into a CSV file or manually add them to your Excel or CRM.
While such tools may slightly lack in terms of advanced features compared to the paid alternatives that we’ll discuss below, If you’re simply looking to extract basic prospect data and contact info to build prospect lists for your outreach, look no further and save your money.
Paid LinkedIn scrapers
On the other hand, there’s also no shortage of paid tools out there to help businesses scrape LinkedIn data.
After browsing through several of the ‘top’ paid options on the market, the features they mention that free Chrome extensions don’t offer are faster bulk extraction, at times more data points, integration capabilities with CRMs, and available customer support.
However, such tools are usually expensive with many other unnecessary features that small teams simply do not require, so whether to opt for a paid LinkedIn scraper solely depends on your needs and budget.
At the end of the day, if all you’re really looking for is a few hundred or thousand validated emails and basic data on prospect and company information of LinkedIn users, we’d highly recommend sticking with a free tool instead.
Web LinkedIn scraping APIs
Finally, it’s worth mentioning that a good chunk of such ‘advanced’ paid LinkedIn scrapers require minimum to expert-level coding skills, often operated on Python:
Source: ScrapFly
So, if the image above gives you a bit of anxiety just looking at it like it does for me, such tools are probably not the best option for you, unless you have an IT professional on your team willing to help with LinkedIn scraping.
In all fairness, they have the potential to extract huge chunks of more hidden data such as company metrics, but they are quite resource-consuming to install and maintain. While they may give more control over your LinkedIn scraping process, their use can be regarded as overkill for smaller teams.
So then we face a dilemma—code-requiring scrapers are too advanced to operate without an IT professional by your side but they do provide more advanced ‘hidden’ information, whereas no-code paid tools don’t offer those advanced scraping capabilities yet are quite costly.
Where to scrape LinkedIn data for lead generation?
Once you’ve decided to gear up with one of the LinkedIn scrapers we’ve discussed, here are the best ways to utilize them to build hyper-targeted prospect lists, be it for sales, marketing, BD, or HR activities:
- Sales Navigator → use this premium LinkedIn feature to leverage the numerous search filters, and then extract the contact info one by one or in bulk via your tool;
- Post likers and commenters → a neat trick is taking a look at those who’ve engaged with your company’s or industry-related posts, as that could signify potential interest from their side;
- Competitor’s followers → go for a stroll through your competitor’s accounts to scrape LinkedIn followers that could potentially be in the market for such a solution or an alternative now or in the future;
- Group members → LinkedIn has countless different groups where users with similar personal interests and professional attributes can network, share knowledge, and learn, so depending on your product, you could target relevant groups.
- Event attendees → when it comes to B2B virtual events such as webinars, conferences, and workshops, organizers will undoubtedly advertise them on LinkedIn; users that engage with such posts and ads are likely to be interested in your solution/expertise.
Alright, now that you know where to grab LinkedIn data for leads, let’s jump into the top scraping tips for 2024 to make sure you’re doing it right and staying ahead!
What are the LinkedIn scraping best practices in 2024?
There are certain best practices everyone should follow when scraping LinkedIn data to stay legally and ethically in the green (more on that shortly):
- Stay compliant → pace your data-scraping efforts, do not scrape aggressively, and don’t use tools that promise to extract any private information beyond simple contact and company data to avoid raising any red flags by LinkedIn;
- Enhance data usage → focus on quality over quantity when scraping LinkedIn data. In any case, targeted and relevant outreach will always bring in better results than the ‘spray and pray’ approach.
At the end of the day, LinkedIn should be used for what it was designed to be—a place for professionals to network, connect with each other, and potentially engage in business.
This is why it’s best to prioritize building up your personal LinkedIn profile, establishing your professional brand, engaging with valuable posts, and building relationships, which in turn will grow your social selling index.
How to fuse LinkedIn data with outreach?
Now, in the context of best practices to make the most of your LinkedIn scraping efforts, the biggest recommendation involves integrating your chosen scraping tool with a reliable outreach tool to facilitate seamless data flow and automated engagement.
This way, businesses can take the scraped data, merge it with their CRM or sales outreach software, and run automation campaigns in a matter of seconds, enabling them to take immediate action with the data scraped.
While most of those free Chrome extensions mentioned are standalone tools, they are virtually all created by such outreach suites. For instance, Findy seamlessly integrates with Reply.io to add extracted LinkedIn data directly to your sales campaigns with a click of a button:
This way, after scraping data from prospects on LinkedIn, Reply.io users can right away add them to their multichannel outreach campaigns, now having the ability to engage with them not only through LinkedIn but also via email, cloud calls, WhatsApp, and more:
Moreover, given that Reply.io offers a native lead database with hundreds of millions of profiles, should your prospects already be in the database — Reply.io will automatically enrich their customer profiles with any extra data available.
The best part?
With our brand new AI SDR agents, you won’t even have to worry about setting up these multichannel sequences or crafting messages—AI will do that for you. It will determine the best channels and timing to connect with your prospects (taking into account the reason for outreach and other details), generate hyper-personalized messages for each unique lead (based on available data points), and then handle responses on your behalf, all on autopilot.
With these advanced AI features and automations, what starts off as simply browsing a LinkedIn profile can result in a new customer or partner acquired in a matter of a few clicks. Sounds too good to be true? Give Reply.io a free 2-week spin and see for yourself!
