Among the paid offers of the largest professional social network in the world, we find the famous LinkedIn Sales Navigator. This advanced prospecting tool is aimed at sales professionals who want to boost their marketing performance and communication online.
It is undoubtedly the most formidable weapon for salespeople who do Social Selling, particularly in B2B prospecting. Between the Recruiter Lite, Business Plus and Job Seeker features, the platform builds your company brand, showcases your products and services and creates relationships of trust. Qualify your prospects and save time with Sales Navigator. Optimize your B2B prospecting on LinkedIn. We explain everything about this remarkable application!
The article in brief
LinkedIn Sales Navigator is the ultimate premium tool to transform the largest professional network into a real machine for qualified B2B leads thanks to surgical targeting and ultra-effective social selling.
Flagship platform of decision-makers, it offers exclusive features and a fast ROI for serious sales teams.
In summary:
- An optimized profile + 500 connections minimum = mandatory foundation to exploit the full potential.
- More than 50 advanced filters, boolean searches and “Spotlights” make it possible to instantly spot hot prospects (job change, recent posts…).
- 50 InMails/month + TeamLink multiply acceptance and reply rates (30–50% when it is well done).
- Smart alerts, daily recommendations and “similar profiles” and Smart Links ensure a constant flow of qualified opportunities.
- The Core (~$80/month), Advanced (~$125/month) and Advanced Plus (real-time CRM) versions adapt to each team size, with a 30-day free trial.
Linkedin Sales Navigator in brief
Linkedin Sales Navigator is a premium subscription of the professional platform Linkedin, highly appreciated in B2B prospecting. It allows access to advanced features of marketing targeting, smart alerts and commercial follow-up.
There are three different offers: Core, Advanced and Advanced Plus.
Examples of features: more than 50 search filters, suggestion of prospects and accounts, CRM integration, sending InMail, ROI reports…
LinkedIn Sales Navigator: what is it really for?
Linkedin Sales Navigator refers to a paid solution offered by LinkedIn to sales professionals. The online tool, available in three subscription plans (Core, Advanced and Advanced Plus) equips salespeople with prospecting, visibility and engagement features to improve their commercial performance on a daily basis.
A tool designed for B2B prospecting
The interest of Sales Navigator has strengthened as the LinkedIn database has developed. Today, Microsoft’s social network has the largest community of professionals, which makes Sales Navigator a powerful tool to identify, engage and sign with new clients.
Indeed, according to Hubspot’s 2025 report, 1.2 billion B2B companies now use Linkedin to recruit, develop their network and generate leads. The premium subscription makes it possible to reach this last objective.
What differentiates Sales Navigator from the free Linkedin account
LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator tool is full of unique features that are very useful. It allows you, among other things:
- To send 50 InMail messages per month and per user;
- To unlock new search features to better segment and target your audience;
- To configure alerts;
- To create custom lists;
- To synchronize the tool with your CRM.
Discover here all the Linkedin prospecting tools to boost your marketing performance!
How does LinkedIn Sales Navigator work?
Where the standard mode of Linkedin restricts search, the Sales Navigator subscription allows you to refine your criteria. Discover precise filters, an extended display of profiles and lots of tools that optimize making contact!
The features will be more or less advanced depending on the version chosen:
- Core: advanced filters of the search engine and history, creation of prospect lists, alerts on the activity of saved prospects…;
- Advanced: TeamLink features that facilitate making contact, and SmartLink, allowing you to share content and track your prospects’ engagement;
- Advanced Plus: TeamLink Extend which gives access to 2nd and 3rd level connections of colleagues, real-time CRM integration.
How to set up your Sales Navigator account effectively?
Your Sales Navigator account is your database. The premium plan offers you the possibility to build your list of prospects and clients in a smart way. Here are the steps to follow to set up the B2B prospecting tool.
Define the right search criteria
Ideally, before starting to use LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you should already know how to sell effectively on LinkedIn. In other words, you should already have defined your target audience and created your buyer personas: type of content consumed, interests, buying behavior, web navigation…
Once you have collected this information, lead generation becomes (in general) much easier. Sales Navigator allows you to use many different ways and filters to search for your target audience. However, the very first thing to do is to define your sales preferences.
Create relevant prospect lists
These are criteria that you define so that Sales Navigator knows what type of prospects you want to see according to region, industry, function, seniority level, and more. The platform will then give you prospect recommendations according to your interests.
To do this, hover your mouse over your profile, then select “Preferences”;
Then scroll down to the “Sales Preferences” section and fill it in according to your target audience;
You can refine your search according to geography, industry, company size, function and seniority level.
Once you have filled it in, you can then start prospecting like an expert!
Synchronize Sales Navigator with your CRM
If you go for the Sales Navigator Advanced Plus version, then you will be able to integrate your company CRM into the LinkedIn platform. A very practical feature that allows you to import your contacts and synchronize the two tools.
Thus, you can for example exclude from your Sales Navigator searches the leads already present in your CRM and be alerted each time members of your CRM change job or company.
The best features of LinkedIn Sales Navigator
Sales Navigator offers many features to refine your audience. Let’s take a look at the most useful and proven methods guaranteed to generate leads effectively.
Advanced search: your best ally
This is probably the most well-known and popular feature of the subscription. There are more than 50 advanced search filters that you can apply. You can also perform boolean searches (which we will see a little further in this Sales Navigator guide).
Here are some of the most effective filters for lead generation:
- Keywords: relevant keywords found in your prospects’ profiles;
- Geography: if you are looking for prospects in a specific place (for example, where you are based, or if you have a catchment area);
- Title: the position sought, CEO, purchasing manager, etc.;
- Company size: a startup, an SME, a large account?
For a basic search like this, for example, more than 1,500 results were found on LinkedIn.
Once you have the results of your search, you can start to connect with the identified prospects directly via LinkedIn, or start collecting their information for an email prospecting campaign.
Here is a simple contact template:
“Hello {{First name}},
You appeared in my news feed and I am happy to have discovered your profile as well as that of {{Company name}}.
Your favorite topics remind me of what I have done for {{your-similar-work-for-first-clients}}, and we are still {{your-unique-pitch-or-solution}}.
I wrote a few lines about our unique angle of approach and I think you will appreciate the difference. Are you interested in receiving it?”
Do not forget: the key to prospecting is personalization! Learn to personalize your prospecting with images and GIFs with Leadin.
InMails: when and how to use them?
Do you see this golden badge on LinkedIn profiles, “in”?
This is one of the many advantages enjoyed by LinkedIn Sales Navigator users: an “open” profile and additional InMail credits.
InMail is the LinkedIn version of an email or a direct message. It is an effective way to get in touch with your prospects, given that a person receives on average far fewer InMails than emails every day… which guarantees a higher open (and reply) rate!
Your paid subscriptions on LinkedIn provide you monthly with an InMail credit that you can use to contact user profiles with whom you are not connected.
Bonus: did you know that LinkedIn profiles with an “in” badge have the ability to receive free InMails (without using these famous monthly credits) from a LinkedIn user who is not connected? It is the ideal option to use in your prospecting sequences! Rather effective to bypass the LinkedIn limit of 100 connection requests per week.
You just have to add, for example, the “IF Free InMail” step to your automated sequence, and you are done!
Job change alerts
On Sales Navigator, you can also filter prospects who have recently changed jobs.
This is a super simple conversation starter that you can use whether you know the prospect or not. For example:
“Hello {{First name}}, and congratulations on your new position!
I would like to continue the discussion about “XYZ” (that I had with {{previous person in the company}}) with you from now on.
Let me know if you want to talk depending on your availability.”
Find other examples of prospecting on LinkedIn on our blog!
Similar profiles and recommendations
Improve your commercial prospecting by building relationships with a whole new list of similar prospects:
- Go to the Sales Navigator search bar;
- Search for your target market;
- Select a prospect in the results;
- Click on “View similar profiles”.
Once you have done this, you will get more than 100 prospects similar to your existing clients. Learn how to identify your prospects on LinkedIn with Leadin.
Filter by recent activity on LinkedIn
You can use the “Posted on LinkedIn” filter to find content published by your potential buyers.
Let’s say my target audience consists of marketing professionals who work in the field of growth hacking on LinkedIn. We can use these filters in the advanced search of LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
The secret here is the “Published content keywords” filter:
This search filter will give you access to a whole audience of people who have published or engaged in content related to “growth marketing” over the last 30 days.
Tag and segment your prospects
To work efficiently on an account, you must follow the people involved in the buying process, be patient and identify their unique priorities.
Thanks to Sales Navigator, you can add tags and leave notes for each prospect and company in your Sales Navigator news feed.
Save searches and save time
If you carry out a large number of different searches in LinkedIn Sales Navigator, having to enter the same search terms (for your different campaigns) can be tedious.
Fortunately, you can save your searches and return to them later to pick up where you left off.
To do this, copy the browser search URL and import it into your Leadin platform (the safest LinkedIn and Email automation platform you can use with Sales Navigator to multiply your lead generation by 10).
Then create a new campaign.
Paste the LinkedIn Sales Navigator search URL here.
You can then:
- Set up a social selling prospecting campaign step by step;
- Automate follow-ups after 1, 3, 7 days;
- Write your own personalized templates (which gather the information from their profiles).
Boolean searches: refine like a pro
You can perform a boolean search in Sales Navigator by combining keywords with connectors such as “AND”, “NOT” and “OR” during your search.
Here is how these operators work:
- Search in quotation marks: for an exact phrase;
- “NOT” searches: use this expression before a search term to exclude it from your results;
- “OR” searches: use this expression to display results that include one or more items from a list;
- “AND” searches: use this operator to display results that include all the items from a list.
These searches are to be used directly in the “Keywords” field:
Key indicators to measure your success with Sales Navigator
It is difficult to know if you are prospecting correctly without tracking your performance. Sales Navigator provides a whole series of LinkedIn KPIs to track to help you understand how your contacts use the platform. Be careful, they are only available on the Advanced and Advanced Plus versions.
Here are some of them:
- Sales Navigator accesses purchased, invited or activated;
- Usage indicators: days of activity, searches performed, profile views, SSI score;
- Effectiveness indicators: InMail acceptance rate, messages sent, accounts saved…
Prices and plans of LinkedIn Sales Navigator
As you might expect, LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator subscriptions are not free. But do not worry, the Return on Investment (ROI) is generally very interesting, sometimes from the very first months.
Sales Navigator Core
This is the basic plan of the tool, which may eventually be enough for small businesses for whom LinkedIn is only a minor tool for commercial prospecting. Here are its features:
- Extended access to the LinkedIn network: unlimited searches, possibility to save searches and access to the list of users who viewed your profile in the last 90 days;
- Sending 50 InMails per month and per user;
- Advanced search filters and the possibility to use Sales Spotlights to find the right prospects according to a multitude of variables;
- Recommendations to score, prioritize and qualify the prospects found on Sales Navigator;
- A “basic” integration with the other tools of your tech stack, in particular Outlook and LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator mobile app;
- Possibility to save identified leads and accounts, make custom lists, set up alerts…
Interesting fact: the “Core” version of LinkedIn Sales Navigator is the only one that gives access to “Job Seeker” mode and the LinkedIn Learning platform.
The “Core” plan of LinkedIn Sales Navigator costs $99.99 per month and per user. If you commit for a year, the subscription price drops to $79.99 per month and per user, with an annual total of $959.88.
Sales Navigator Advanced
This intermediate version is aimed at companies that want to bet on Social Selling and activate the LinkedIn lever to accelerate the velocity of the sales cycle, do Account-Based Marketing and strengthen the digital part in the Sales prospecting mix.
The Advanced plan offers additional options:
- Advanced integration of Sales Navigator with the tools of your tech stack (including SNAP);
- The possibility to engage prospects and clients through your teams’ network thanks to TeamLink and TeamLink Extended;
- Access to Smart Links, with advanced reach thanks to the “Content & Track Engagement” pack;
- Advanced administrative and reporting tools (Usage Reporting and Account Center);
- The possibility to centralize billing for contracts signed via LinkedIn (dedicated project manager, promotion management, etc.);
- Access to LinkedIn “Enterprise” tools (SSO, Employee Data Integration).
The “Advanced” plan of LinkedIn Sales Navigator costs $159.99 per month and per user. If you commit for the year, the price drops to $125 for an annual total of $1,500 per user. Again, LinkedIn offers you a 30-day trial.
Sales Navigator Advanced Plus
The high-end offer is mainly aimed at companies that are very mature on the SalesTech and MarTech fronts and that have massive and/or very specific prospecting needs. Here are the additional options:
- Complete synchronization with the CRM: auto-save, ROI reporting for Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, automatic addition of CRM contacts…;
- Advanced integrations with the main CRMs on the market, with Data Validation features, the possibility to create contacts on Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales…
For the Advanced Plus plan, LinkedIn offers customized prices.
Is there a free or trial version of Sales Navigator?
You have a 30-day trial period on the Sales Navigator Core plan. It is accessible to users who are on no paid LinkedIn subscription plan and who have not taken a free LinkedIn trial in the last 365 days.
Is LinkedIn Sales Navigator really worth its price?
As with all your company’s investment decisions, you must evaluate the expected benefits of Sales Navigator and estimate the ROI of this expense.
The advantages of the tool in the short and medium term
Here is a simple rule: if you plan to do Social Selling, do not ask yourself the question. LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator will very quickly become the centerpiece of your prospecting toolbox.
You will be able to approach hard-to-reach prospects, particularly in large accounts, effectively qualify prospects, use several profiles for research and, in general, improve the overall performance of your company.
The limits to know before subscribing
Attention: do not make the mistake of taking a Sales Navigator subscription if your profile has fewer than 500 connections! You must indeed work your networking at a minimum. Also, you will not necessarily need Sales Navigator if your target is very broad and does not necessarily require surgical targeting. Finally, and it is obvious to say it, this investment can be heavy for a very small business that does not necessarily have sufficient means.
Common mistakes and pitfalls to avoid with Sales Navigator
If LinkedIn Sales Navigator can prove powerful, you have to know how to use it correctly. A few mistakes to avoid to start on the right foot:
- Prospecting without defined targeting;
- Sending generic InMails without personalization;
- Using Sales Navigator solo (and not with your team);
- Not tracking your results or adjusting your actions.
How to unsubscribe from Sales Navigator?
It is very simple. During the trial period, you can cancel your subscription at any time. As explained above, and even if you have entered your credit card data, you are free not to start your subscription at the end of your trial period.
If you are on a monthly plan, you can cancel your subscription at the end of the month. If you are on an annual plan, termination takes effect at the end of the year.
Attention: once your contract is terminated, you lose all the data saved on Sales Navigator. So take your precautions!
What is the difference between Premium Business and Sales Navigator?
LinkedIn Premium Business is a paid subscription service that offers an enhanced experience to individual users. Sales Navigator, on the other hand, is aimed at salespeople and other sales professionals, providing them with a set of features designed for prospecting.
Here are the main similarities and differences between Premium Business and Sales Navigator:
- With Premium Business, the user is limited to 15 InMails per month, compared to 50 for Sales Navigator;
- Premium Business also allows access to “Job Seeker” mode, the LinkedIn Learning platform, unlimited searches and the list of users who viewed your profile in the last 90 days;
- No “Sales” feature of Sales Navigator is integrated into Premium Business accounts.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator: what you need to remember
So, are you ready to get predictable results in your prospecting with this formidable weapon that is LinkedIn Sales Navigator? This paid platform provides you with clever features to better target and qualify your leads, while offering you smart tracking tools.
Combine the Leadin trial version with the one-month free trial of LinkedIn Sales Navigator and start generating leads automatically and for free!
You need advice to get started with email prospecting techniques and more? Try the Leadin demo and boost your commercial performance!