LinkedIn Prospecting: How to Find and Reach B2B Leads
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Why LinkedIn for B2B Prospecting
LinkedIn has over 900 million members. More importantly, it is the platform where business professionals identify themselves by job title, company, industry and seniority. No other platform gives you this level of professional targeting for free.
For B2B sales and lead generation, LinkedIn is where your prospects tell you exactly who they are and what they do. The challenge is turning that visibility into conversations and, eventually, email addresses you can use for outreach.
Free LinkedIn Search
LinkedIn's basic search is more powerful than most people realise.
Using search filters
Click the search bar, type a keyword and press enter. Then use the filters:
- People: Search for individuals by name, title, company, location, school, industry and connection degree.
- Companies: Search for businesses by name, industry, size, location and headquarters.
- Jobs: Useful for finding companies that are hiring for specific roles (a buying signal).
- Posts: Find people discussing topics relevant to your product or service.
Boolean search operators
LinkedIn supports Boolean operators in its search bar:
- AND: Both terms must match. "marketing AND director" returns profiles containing both words.
- OR: Either term can match. "CEO OR founder OR owner" broadens your search.
- NOT: Excludes a term. "marketing NOT intern" removes junior profiles.
- Quotes: Exact phrase matching. "Vice President of Sales" returns that exact title.
- Parentheses: Group terms. (CEO OR founder) AND (SaaS OR software) finds company leaders in software.
Search limitations
Free LinkedIn accounts have limited search results. After a certain number of searches per month, LinkedIn restricts the results you can see. This is called the "commercial use limit."
To work around it:
- Be specific with your searches to avoid wasting views on irrelevant results.
- Use Google to search LinkedIn: site:linkedin.com/in "VP marketing" "San Francisco" returns LinkedIn profiles indexed by Google.
- Consider Sales Navigator for heavy prospecting (covered below).
LinkedIn Sales Navigator
Sales Navigator is LinkedIn's paid prospecting tool. It removes the search restrictions of a free account and adds advanced filters.
Key features
Advanced lead filters:
- Job title (current and past).
- Company size (by employee count or revenue).
- Geography (country, region, city, postal code).
- Industry.
- Seniority level (VP, director, manager, etc.).
- Years in current position.
- Years at current company.
- Company headcount growth.
- Department headcount growth.
- Technologies used.
- Recently posted on LinkedIn.
- Changed jobs in the last 90 days.
Lead lists: Save prospects to lists for tracking. Sales Navigator alerts you when saved leads change jobs, post content or are mentioned in the news.
InMail: Send messages to people you are not connected to. Sales Navigator includes a monthly InMail allowance.
Account-based targeting: Build a list of target companies and find the right contacts at each one.
When it is worth the cost
Sales Navigator makes sense when:
- You prospect on LinkedIn regularly (daily or weekly).
- Your target audience is well-defined by job title and company attributes.
- You need to contact people outside your network.
- You are doing account-based selling with a defined list of target companies.
If you prospect occasionally, the free search may be sufficient.
Building Your Prospect List
Step 1: Define your target
Before searching, document your ideal customer profile:
- Job titles (include variations: "VP Marketing," "Vice President of Marketing," "Head of Marketing").
- Company size range.
- Industries.
- Geography.
- Any other relevant attributes.
Step 2: Run your search
Use the filters or Boolean operators to find matching profiles. Start broad, then narrow based on the volume of results.
Step 3: Review and qualify
Not every search result is a prospect. Review profiles for:
- Is this person currently in the role? (Check for "present" in their current position.)
- Does the company match your target size and industry?
- Are there any disqualifying factors?
Step 4: Record your prospects
Export your LinkedIn connections (Settings > Data Privacy > Get a copy of your data > Connections) to get a CSV with names and email addresses for your existing connections.
For prospects who are not connections, you will need other methods to find their email addresses (covered below).
Finding Email Addresses from LinkedIn Profiles
LinkedIn does not show email addresses to non-connections. Here are methods to find them:
Method 1: Connection request and export
Connect with the prospect. Once they accept, their email address (if they have shared it on LinkedIn) becomes available in your connections export.
Limitation: Not all connections share their email. The acceptance rate for cold connection requests varies widely.
Method 2: B2B data providers
Tools like Apollo.io, Hunter.io, RocketReach, Lusha, ContactOut and others can look up email addresses associated with LinkedIn profiles.
Some offer Chrome extensions that show email addresses directly on LinkedIn profile pages.
Method 3: Email pattern guessing
From the prospect's LinkedIn profile, you know their name and company. Most companies use a standard email format (firstname.lastname@company.com, firstinitiallastname@company.com, etc.).
Use Hunter.io's domain search to find the pattern for that company, then construct the address. Verify before sending. See How to Check If an Email Address Is Valid.
Method 4: Company website and other public sources
Check the prospect's company website for team pages, press releases, or published articles that include email addresses. Some professionals also list their email on personal websites or GitHub profiles.
Save these pages and process them through Email Extractor, or use the webpage extraction feature.
Method 5: Process your LinkedIn export
Download your full LinkedIn connections as CSV. Upload to Email Extractor to extract and deduplicate all email addresses from the export.
LinkedIn Outreach Best Practices
Connection requests
- Personalise the note. Reference something specific from their profile, a shared connection or a piece of content they posted. Do not use the default "I'd like to add you to my professional network."
- Keep it short. LinkedIn limits connection request notes to 300 characters. State why you want to connect in one or two sentences.
- Do not pitch in the connection request. The goal is to connect, not to sell. Pitching in the request dramatically lowers acceptance rates.
InMail
- Use a compelling subject line. InMail has a subject line, unlike regular LinkedIn messages. Keep it short and relevant to the recipient.
- Lead with relevance. Why are you reaching out to this person specifically? What do you have in common?
- Keep it concise. Two to three short paragraphs maximum.
- Include a clear ask. A question is better than a demand. "Would it make sense to chat about X?" is better than "Book a demo here."
Moving conversations to email
Once you have a LinkedIn conversation going, you may want to move it to email for longer-form communication or to add them to a nurture sequence.
- Ask directly: "Would it be easier to continue this over email?"
- Offer value: "I can send over the case study we discussed. What is the best email to reach you at?"
- Share your email first to make it a natural exchange.
Avoiding LinkedIn Restrictions
LinkedIn limits automated activity and can restrict or ban accounts that violate its terms.
What gets flagged
- Sending too many connection requests per day (keep under 20-30 for safety).
- Using automation tools that LinkedIn detects.
- High rejection rates on connection requests.
- Sending identical messages to many people.
- Viewing too many profiles in a short period.
Safe practices
- Manual outreach is always safest.
- Personalise every message.
- Accept that some prospects will not respond.
- Spread your activity across the day.
- If using automation tools, use conservative limits and randomised delays.
Compliance
LinkedIn's terms of service
LinkedIn prohibits scraping, automated data collection and the use of third-party tools that access LinkedIn data without authorisation. Violating these terms can result in account restriction or permanent ban.
Data protection
Email addresses found through LinkedIn are personal data subject to GDPR, CAN-SPAM, CASL and other regulations. Having someone's email does not mean you have consent to send marketing messages.
See GDPR Guide, CAN-SPAM Guide and CASL Guide.
