Getting LinkedIn Data into Excel: How to Export Contacts for Savvy Outreach

LinkedIn is a great platform for building professional connections and growing your network. With over 800 million users worldwide, chances are most of your professional contacts are already on LinkedIn. But to leverage your connections beyond the LinkedIn platform, you need to be able to Export LinkedIn Data into Excel.

Exporting LinkedIn contacts to Excel gives you a lot of flexibility in how you manage and utilize your network outside of LinkedIn. You can integrate your exported contact list with other tools like CRM and email marketing software. Having your contacts in Excel also makes it easy to organize, segment and search your network.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll walk through the step-by-step process of exporting your LinkedIn contacts to Excel. We’ll cover everything from downloading your connections to segmenting and organizing your exported list.

Overview of Exporting LinkedIn Contacts to Excel

Here’s a quick overview of the process:

Download your LinkedIn connections – LinkedIn allows you to download your 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree connections. We’ll cover the various download options.
Export to Excel – The downloaded. CSV files can then be opened directly in Excel for editing and organizing.
Clean up and organize – Your exported Excel sheet may contain some duplicate and incomplete entries that need to be cleaned up.
Segment and categorize – Use Excel tools like filtering and formulas to segment and categorize your contacts (e.g. by industry, location, etc).
Enrich with additional data – If needed, use Excel add-ons to enrich your contact data with additional information like social profiles.
Utilize and integrate – Once organized, integrate your exported contact list with CRM, email marketing, and other tools.

Step 1: Download Your LinkedIn Connections

The first step is to download your LinkedIn connections. Here are the options for downloading your 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree connections from LinkedIn:

LinkedIn Data into Excel — Source – Linkedin

Download 1st Degree Connections

Your 1st degree connections are people you’re directly connected with on LinkedIn.

To download your 1st degree connections:

Go to your LinkedIn profile
Click My Network on the top menu
On the My Network page, click ‘Manage synced and imported contacts’ on the right rail
On the following page, click the ‘Export LinkedIn connections’ blue button

This will export all your 1st degree connections to a CSV file which can be opened in Excel.

Download 2nd and 3rd Degree Connections

Your 2nd-degree connections are people connected to your 1st-degree connections.

Your 3rd-degree connections are people connected to your 2nd-degree connections.

To download your 2nd and 3rd degree connections:

Go to your LinkedIn profile
Click My Network on the top menu
On the My Network page, click ‘Manage synced and imported contacts’ on the right rail
On the following page, click the ‘Export extended network’ blue button

This will export your 2nd and 3rd-degree connections to a CSV file.

Note: You can only download your extended network once per day. And you can only download up to 30,000 contacts through the extended network export.

Also Read – Maximizing LinkedIn Endorsements: The 2024 Guide

Download Connections from LinkedIn Recruiter

If you have a LinkedIn Recruiter plan, you can also download your LinkedIn connections through Recruiter:

Go to Recruiter and click the My Network tab
Use the search and filter tools to narrow your connections
Click the ‘Export’ button to download selected connections

Recruiter allows you to segment and filter your network before downloading, giving you more flexibility.

Step 2: Export to Excel

Once you’ve downloaded your LinkedIn connections CSV file, it’s time to open it in Excel.

Here are the steps:

Locate the CSV file in your downloads folder. It will be titled something like “LinkedIn-connections.csv”.
Open Microsoft Excel.
Click File > Open.
Browse to the CSV file location and open it.
The CSV data will now open in an Excel workbook.

That’s it! Your LinkedIn data is now an Excel spreadsheet that you can work with.

By default, each row will be a single LinkedIn connection with columns for data like name, headline, location, etc.

Now let’s look at cleaning and organizing your exported spreadsheet.

Step 3: Clean Up and Organize in Excel

When you export LinkedIn contacts to Excel, the raw data may contain some inconsistencies and duplicate entries.

Here are some tips for cleaning up and organizing your exported Excel sheet:

Remove Duplicate Entries

There may be duplicate entries in your downloaded contacts, especially if you exported 2nd and 3rd-degree connections.

To remove duplicates:

Select the entire spreadsheet using Ctrl + A, or click the triangle at the top-left to select all data.
Go to the Data tab and click Remove Duplicates.
Check the boxes for columns that should not repeat (typically Name and Email Address).
Click OK.

This will remove any duplicate rows in your spreadsheet.

Deal with Blank Values

Your downloaded spreadsheet may contain some blank cells where data is missing. To find blanks:

Press Ctrl + F to open the Find & Select menu.
Click Go To Special.
Select Blanks and click OK.

This will select all blank cells so you can see which columns are missing data. Common ones include title, company, location, etc.

To fill in the blanks :

For text fields, you can manually enter missing info if you know it, or enter “NA”.
For numerical fields like phone numbers, you can enter 0.

Standardize Formatting

Make sure data formats are consistent in columns like name, job title, company, email, etc.

For example, phone numbers should be formatted the same way. Job titles should follow the title case.

Use Excel tools like Flash Fill and Convert Text to Columns.

Categorize and Segment

Use Excel features to categorize and segment your contacts for better organization:

Create separate columns with tags like industry, seniority, location, etc. Use Excel LOOKUPS to auto-populate these.
Split name columns into First Name and Last Name. Use the Convert Text to Columns wizard.
Add a Status column and mark contacts as “Engaged”, “Lead”, “Inactive” etc.
Use conditional formatting to highlight contacts by tags, status, etc.

By carefully organizing your exported contacts, you can create a clean master list of your network in Excel.

Step 4: Enrich with Additional Data

If you need additional data on your exported contacts, Excel add-ons can help enrich your spreadsheet. Useful add-ons include:

Email verification – Validate and fix bouncy email addresses in your list.
Email appender – Append email addresses you’re missing.
Data enrichment – Enhance contacts with extra data like social media URLs, job seniority, etc.
Lead scoring – Score leads in your list based on criteria like engagement, role, etc.

Here are some top Excel add-ons for enriching contact data:

HubSpot: Free email validation and social URL append
Melissa: Paid tool for cleansing, appending, and enrichment
Datanyze: Pulls in extra data like technologies used from company websites
LeadIQ: Scores and enriches contacts with AI-powered data

With enriched data, you can filter and segment your network much more granularly.

Step 5: Utilize and Integrate Your Excel Contact List

Once your exported LinkedIn contacts are nicely organized in Excel, you’re ready to utilize the data in different ways:

CRM Integration – Import your enriched Excel sheet into your CRM as lead records for follow-up and tracking.
Email Marketing – Upload your contact list into email tools to create targeted campaigns.
LinkedIn Automation – Use your Excel list to automate LinkedIn outreach with tools like Dux-Soup or Velocity.
List Segmentation – Create segmented contact lists by industry, seniority, location, etc. for targeted outreach.
List Management – Continuously manage your master contact list in Excel with tracking, tagging, etc.

The use cases are endless! A well-organized Excel contact list is an invaluable asset and networking tool.

LinkedIn Contact Export Limits

When exporting your LinkedIn contacts, be aware of the rate limits in place:

1st-degree connections

Can be exported once per day
No limit on the number of contacts

2nd + 3rd degree connections

Can be exported once per day
Limited to 30,000 contacts per export

Recruiter exports

Limited to 1,000 contacts at a time
Can be exported 3 times per day

Keep these limits in mind when downloading your LinkedIn contacts. Segment your downloads if needed to work around the caps.

Also Read – LinkedIn Bots Are On the Rise: Here’s What You Need to Know

FAQs

Here are some common questions about exporting LinkedIn contacts to Excel:

You can export your 1st-degree connections once per day. For 2nd + 3rd degree connections, LinkedIn allows one export per day. With Recruiter, exports are limited to 3 times per day.

No, downloading your LinkedIn connections as a CSV does not send any notification to your contacts. It’s completely private.

Use the Remove Duplicates tool in Excel, checking the Name and Email Address columns. This will remove any duplicate entries from your exported contacts.

No, you can only export people who are in your LinkedIn network as 1st, 2nd, or 3rd degree connections. To export contacts you’re not connected with, add them as a connection first.

Useful segmentations include industry, role/seniority, company, location, contact status, etc. Create separate columns in Excel for tagging contacts.