What is LinkedIn Sales Navigator? The Complete Guide

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a sales tool designed by LinkedIn to help sales professionals find new prospects, build relationships, and close more deals. It provides advanced searching, lead recommendations, conversation tools, and analytics to optimize your sales process.

In this comprehensive guide, we will cover everything you need to know about LinkedIn Sales Navigator, including:

What is LinkedIn Sales Navigator?

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is LinkedIn’s flagship sales tool and software. It provides sales professionals access to powerful features and data directly within the LinkedIn platform to help them more effectively engage leads, prospects, and accounts.

Specifically, LinkedIn Sales Navigator makes it easier for sales teams to:

• Discover and connect with relevant prospects and buyers through advanced search and recommendations
• Understand accounts, contacts, and leads by surfacing key insights from LinkedIn profiles and news feeds
• Establish trusted relationships through prompts and messaging templates
• Keep prospects engaged with notifications when they’ve viewed profiles or content
• Grow strategic networks with TeamLink collaboration

In essence, Sales Navigator accelerates social selling by equipping salespeople with data-driven insights and tools to drive more meaningful conversations and relationships.

Key Features and Benefits

Let’s explore the main features and benefits of LinkedIn Sales Navigator in more detail:

Advanced Search

The advanced search in Sales Navigator allows you to use precise parameters to find your ideal prospects on LinkedIn. You can search by criteria like location, company, job title, skills, groups, interests, and more.

Boolean search operators and filters give you complete control to define your target prospect profile. Save your most used searches to reuse.

Lead Recommendations

The algorithmic lead recommendations suggest relevant prospects based on your saved searches and preferences. Sales Navigator will automatically find potential leads similar to your ideal customer profile to add to your pipeline.

Lead recommendations are a powerful prospecting tool to uncover new opportunities and accounts you may have otherwise missed.

Relationship Insights

Get a detailed overview and history of your relationship with prospects and accounts right in Sales Navigator. See your 1st degree connections, shared connections, past conversations and interactions, recent profile views, interests, groups, and more.

These insights help you prepare for outreach and strengthen relationships.

InMail and Connection Tools

Engage prospects directly through InMail messages even if you’re not connected. Sales Navigator includes a monthly allowance of InMails depending on your plan.

You can also send customized connection requests with notes to explain why you want to connect. Nudge connections to accept your request or respond to your messages.

Also read: What is InMail on LinkedIn? The Complete Guide to Understanding and Using InMail

Activity Capture

The activity capture feature tracks prospect engagement, visits to their profile, and interactions. This allows you to see who is responding so you can prioritize follow up.

Activity capture integrates with popular CRM tools like Salesforce to sync prospect activity directly with accounts and contacts.

Team Collaboration

Collaborate with sales teams by sharing accounts, leads, and custom lists. Sales Navigator enables team selling with shared access and visibility into prospect engagement across the team.

Managers get aSalesNavigator TeamLink dashboard to track usage and prospecting activity.

Integrations

Sales Navigator integrates seamlessly with top sales tools like Salesforce, Dynamics, Marketo, HubSpot, and more. Sync data, share links, and push updates between systems.

Leverage the Sales Navigator APIs and widgets to embed Sales Navigator profiles and lead recommendations into your CRM and sales processes.

Mobile Apps

The Sales Navigator mobile apps allow you to search and manage your pipeline on-the-go from your smartphone or tablet. You get full access to leads, events, messages, and notifications.

Stay connected with prospects and continue nurturing relationships even when you’re out of the office.

Sales Navigator’s Key Capabilities

Here are some of the key things you can do with Sales Navigator:

Lead Finding and Research

• Boolean search operators for deep prospecting
• Lead recommendations automatically
• News updates and personnel changes
• Export customized lead lists
• Categorize prospects for segmentation

Outreach and Engagement

• 100 monthly InMail credits
• Tracking for open and reply rates
• Personalized outreach insights
• Create email templates for scale

Relationship Management

• Activity feed with connection updates
• Centralized call and meeting notes
• Reminders and follow-up task workflows
• Full team interaction visibility
• Lead engagement monitoring

Sales Team Collaboration

• Shared access to leads, notes and reminders
• @mention colleagues to loop them in
• Assign leads to avoid overlapping outreach
• Analyze team activity and metrics

Analytics and Reporting

• 30+ usage metrics like InMails sent
• Track conversion rates across funnel
• Trend data to optimize activities
• Per user and aggregate reporting
• Exportable into Excel or PDFs

What Does a Sales Navigator Seat Provide?

A Sales Navigator seat refers to an individual license or access pass to all the platform capabilities.

For the Team edition, organizations purchase seats which dictate how many team members can access Navigator to collaborate across the shared leads, lists, analytics reporting and tools.

Each seat comes with a set of included functionalities like 100 monthly InMail credits, unlimited lead saves, advanced integrations and customized analytics. Access can be managed centrally by an administrator.

Multiple seats allow companies to equip their sales teams while still controlling software costs by adding or reducing seats month to month based on real capacity needs. Individual contributors get full self-service autonomy and tools within their allotted seat.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator Pricing

Sales Navigator is priced on a monthly subscription model based on the plan you choose. Here are the latest LinkedIn Sales Navigator costs as of December 2023:

Plan	Monthly Cost	Annual Cost (2 months free)
Sales Navigator Core (Professional)	$79/month	$959.88/year ($79.99/month)
Sales Navigator Advanced (Team)	$134/month	$1,300/year ($108.33/month)
Sales Navigator Advanced Plus (Enterprise)	$1,600/seat	Custom quote

As you can see, the Sales Navigator Individual plan starts from $79.99 per month. Sales Navigator Team supports multiple users and starts from $239.99 per month.

Sales Navigator Professional

The Sales Navigator Professional plan is designed for individual sales reps and small teams. Pricing starts at $64.99 per month billed annually ($79.99 month-to-month).

You get features like lead recommendations, InMail, activity notifications, custom lead lists, advanced search filters, and more.

Other details:

• Up to 20 InMails per month
• Save up to 25 lead recommendations/search alerts
• Share up to 5 custom lead lists with your team
• Mobile app access

Sales Navigator Team

For larger teams and sales organizations, the Sales Navigator Team plan provides collaboration capabilities, management, and analytics. Pricing starts at $129.99 per user per month billed annually ($179.99 month-to-month).

Additional features include:

• TeamLink analytics dashboard
• Unlimited InMails
• Custom lists, saved leads, and accounts shared with entire team
• Manager controls and access

Sales Navigator also offers an Enterprise option with elevated support, onboarding services, and custom configurations for large global sales teams. Contact LinkedIn Sales for enterprise pricing.

Also read: How Much is LinkedIn Sales Navigator? A Detailed Guide on Pricing and Benefits

Free Trial

LinkedIn offers a 30-day free trial of Sales Navigator to experience the features firsthand. You can sign up for a trial on the LinkedIn Sales Solutions website.

Mobile Apps

The Sales Navigator mobile apps for iOS and Android are included with all paid subscription plans at no extra charge. Simply download from the app store.

Additional Users and Upgrades

You can add more user seats to any Sales Navigator plan as your team grows. Change your plan at any time without having to cancel your subscription. Contact LinkedIn Sales for applicable fees.

Comparing Sales Navigator to LinkedIn Recruiter and Premium

LinkedIn offers three main paid products: Sales Navigator, Recruiter, and Premium. Here is how they compare:

LinkedIn Recruiter

Recruiter is LinkedIn’s dedicated talent and hiring solution designed for corporate recruiters, staffing agencies, and HR professionals. Key differences vs. Sales Navigator include:

• Recruiter focuses on finding and engaging candidates for open jobs and roles
• Specialized for recruiting use cases like pipeline management, candidate sourcing, and diversity hiring
• Expanded profile data and activity visibility for candidates
• Recruiter-specific search filters and tools
• Integration capabilities for applicant tracking systems (ATS)

Also read: LinkedIn Recruiter Pricing 2023: Costs, Features, and Alternatives

LinkedIn Premium

Whereas Sales Navigator is for sales professionals, Premium provides additional profile features, search filters, and messaging capabilities for general professional networking use cases.

Key differences include:

• Premium does not include lead recommendations or team collaboration features
• More focus on enhancing individual profiles vs. sales prospecting
• Less robust activity tracking and sales analytics
• Lower level of access to InMail messages and advanced searches

So in summary, Sales Navigator has the sales-specific features like lead recommendations, customizable prospecting searches, pipeline analytics, and team collaboration tools. Premium and Recruiter serve other use cases.

Also read: How Much Is LinkedIn Premium in 2023: Pricing & Plans Explained

Getting Started with LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Here are some best practices to ramp up quickly and effectively with Sales Navigator:

Sign Up for a Free Trial

Take advantage of the 30-day free trial to experience Sales Navigator firsthand. Get hands-on with the features and see how it could work for your sales process before paying.

Configure Your Profile

Complete your LinkedIn profile 100% to get the most out of Sales Navigator. This ensures prospects see your full professional background when viewing your profile.

Set Up Your CRM Integration

Integrate your CRM system like Salesforce with Sales Navigator to seamlessly sync prospect data. The integration pushes LinkedIn profile updates into your CRM records automatically.

Identify Your Ideal Prospect Profile

Use the advanced search and filtering tools to define your ideal customer profile. Identify the key demographics, titles, skills, companies, and interests to target.

Create Prospect Lists and Saved Searches

Build prospecting lists and save the searches that yield your ideal prospects. You can reuse these lists and searches for ongoing pipeline development.

Review Lead Recommendations

Check new prospects suggested by Sales Navigator regularly. Lead recommendations automatically surface relevant prospects matching your preferences.

Organize with Tags and Lists

Use tags and custom lists to segment and organize prospects in Sales Navigator. Group your prospects into lists by opportunity stage, deal size, industry, etc.

Set Up Notifications

Configure your notifications to receive real-time alerts when prospects view your profile, accept invitations, or respond to messages.

Lead Sourcing and Prospecting on Sales Navigator

Let’s explore some of the best practices for leveraging Sales Navigator for lead sourcing and building your sales pipeline:

Search by Company Attributes

Find companies matching your ideal customer profile (ICP) using filters for industry, size, location, technologies used, and more. Target all employees at those matched accounts.

Search Employee Demographics

Dial in your prospect search by job title, job function, seniority level, and groups/interests. For example, target first level managers in engineering at targeted accounts.

Filter by Skills and Expertise

Search for prospects with specific skill sets or expertise critical for your offering. Identify prospects discussing those skills in their profile or content.

Join Relevant Groups

Join LinkedIn groups relevant to your ICP. Engage in group discussions and identify members as potential prospects. Groups provide visibility into prospects’ interests and pain points.

Follow Companies

Follow targeted companies and receive notifications when employees change roles, join that company, or publish content. This identifies new prospects at prioritized accounts.

Connect with Recent New Hires

Message and connect with people who recently joined your targeted companies. New hires are more open to conversing and building relationships.

Pay Attention to Lead Recommendations

Review and respond to automatically suggested lead recommendations matching your ideal prospect criteria. Don’t miss those relevant prospects.

Save Your Best Searches

Save any searches or searches within accounts that yield strong prospects. You can then easily repeat those searches to uncover new prospects fitting that criteria.

Use Advanced Boolean Operators

Leverage AND, OR, NOT boolean operators in searches to construct very specific and targeted queries. Combine filters for precision prospecting.

Monitor Content Posts

Follow topics and interests to discover prospects sharing relevant content. Message them to discuss the content and build a relationship.

Also read: How to Cancel LinkedIn Learning

Making Connections and Building Relationships on Sale Navigator

Sales Navigator provides tools to connect with prospects and continue nurturing the relationship over time:

Personalize Your Profile

Completing your profile signals credibility and helps prospects understand your background. Personalize your profile headline, summary, and media.

Send InMail to Anyone

InMail allows you to message any prospect directly, even if not already connected. Use relevant subject lines and customize your messages.

Add Notes to Connection Requests

When sending connection invites, use the notes field to reference previous conversations, shared connections, or interests. Make it personal.

Share Content

Share and react to content published by prospects to start conversations. Offer your perspective on articles and posts relevant to them.

Use TeamLinks for Warm Introductions

View TeamLinks shared connections at a prospect’s company to identify the best person to make a warm introduction. Ask for an introduction over InMail.

Segment with Tags

Tag prospects in Sales Navigator (e.g. “leadership team”, “researched competitor”) to segment and prioritize follow up sequences.

Create Automated Nurture Sequences

Use tags and lists to create automated nurture sequences sending a series of connection requests and messages over time.

Monitor Profile Views

Watch for prospects who have viewed your LinkedIn profile as an indicator of interest. Reach out to schedule time to connect and discuss what they do.

Tracking Engagement and Activity

Sales Navigator provides visibility into prospect activity so you can analyze engagement and prioritize follow up.

Watch for Profile Updates

When prospects update their LinkedIn profile it often signals they are active in exploring new opportunities. Check for changes in role, education, skills etc.

Pay Attention to Recency and Frequency

The frequency and recency a prospect views your profile indicates their level of interest. Follow up quickly with members who repeatedly return to your profile.

Note Shared Connections

If a prospect views TeamLinks showing you share connections, leverage those connections for a warm introduction. Shared connections get attention.

Check Relationship Insights

The relationship insights tab shows your full history interacting with a prospect. Review insights before an important call or meeting.

Use Activity Capture

The activity capture feature logs prospect engagement in Sales Navigator. Sync this data to your CRM records for a complete view of interactions.

Enable Notifications

Get real-time desktop and mobile notifications when prospects view your profile, accept invitations, or respond to outreach. Act quickly when prospects engage.

Measure Connection Conversion Rates

Track your connection acceptance rates by prospect type, message style, and outreach cadence. Refine your approach to optimize connection conversions.

Analyze the Sales Funnel

Review conversion rates, velocity, and bottlenecks across the sales funnel stages. Identify which prospect types and outreach strategies drive the best pipeline results.

Integrations and APIs

Sales Navigator seamlessly integrates with popular sales and marketing software. Take advantage of these integrations:

CRM Integrations

Sync LinkedIn profiles and Sales Navigator data into your CRM records. Automatically match prospects via direct integrations with Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, HubSpot, and Marketo.

Marketing Automation Integrations

Pass LinkedIn profile data and prospect activity captured in Sales Navigator into your marketing automation workflows. Use this data to trigger targeted content and personalized messaging in tools like Marketo.

Chrome Extension

The LinkedIn Sales Navigator Chrome extension embeds lead information directly in your browser as you navigate LinkedIn. This allows one-click access to prospect data as you engage.

Sales Engagement Integrations

Tools like Outreach and Groove enable one-click access to Sales Navigator profiles and relationship insights from within sales sequences and cadences.

Widgets and APIs

Embed elements of Sales Navigator like lead recommendations and profile data into other systems via widgets and API calls. Customize integration depth to your needs.

Train on Integrations

Take advantage of LinkedIn support and training resources on properly setting up and utilizing Sales Navigator integrations. Integrations amplify the value.

FAQs