In-Depth Guide for LinkedIn Sales Navigator Filters [+7 Advanced Search Hacks]

There’s only one thing I have to say to you if you’re still relying on LinkedIn searches to find sales-ready leads and winning customers:

Do you HATE doubling your revenue?

Dramatics aside, the default LinkedIn search just doesn’t cut it if you’re planning to ramp up your outreach.

And that’s what LinkedIn Sales Navigator is for.

With the whopping 52 LinkedIn Sales Navigator filters, you can narrow down the prospect pool by A LOT till you find the leads that fit your ICP.

No more compromising for dead-ends and uninterested prospects. 😇

But if this is your first rodeo with LinkedIn Sales Navigator, then don’t worry.

Because I’ll give you a comprehensive rundown of every filter on LinkedIn Sales Navigator that you can configure and play around with till you strike gold.

The best part? It’ll only take you 15 minutes!

LinkedIn Sales Navigator filters: Lead filters

The whole point of the “Leads” Sales Navigator filters is to help you find your ICP faster.

And you’ll find these filters under the “Lead” right next to the search bar.

I’ll take you through the 36 filters under “Lead” for a clear picture of what each of them are used for

Keyword

Technically, this isn’t exclusive to the “Lead” Sales Navigator filters.

After all, the Keyword search is your standard method of looking for prospects. Just like how it works back on LinkedIn.

You type a keyword like “VP of Sales”, and Sales Nav shows you profiles that have that exact keyword, or at least share a partial match.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator will look for the given keyword in these places:

• Headlines.
• About.
• Job titles.
• Skills.
• Recommendations.

Company

There are 5 Sales Navigator filters in the “Company” sub-section:

1. Current company:

Filter leads based on the company your leads are currently a part of.

2. Company headcount:

Search for prospects based on the number of employees in the company presently.

You can set the ranges between 1-10, 11 - 50, 51 - 200, and so on.

3. Past company:

Filter leads based on the companies they used to work for in the past.

4. Company type:

Filter leads based on the type of organization they belong in.

You can find prospects in Privately held, Public company, and Non-profit companies (and more!).

5. Company headquarters location:

Find companies from a particular region, country, or city.

Role

There are 6 Sales Navigator filters to cover here:

1. Function:

Filter leads based on the department in their company.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator will guess the leads’ department based on the job title given on their profile.

2. Current job title:

Find leads belonging to a particular job title.

3. Past job title:

Find leads in a particular job title they held in one or more past companies.

4. Seniority level:

Find leads based on the management level they hold in their company.

For example, Specialist, Director, CFO, CXO, Owner, Vice President, etc.

5. Years in current company:

Filter leads based on the number of years spent in their present company.

6. Years in current position:

Filter leads based on the number of years spent in their current job position across all companies.

Personal

For these LinkedIn Sales Navigator filters, the name says it all.

You can choose from 8 filters to target leads based on their personal details:

1. Geography:

The “Geography” Personal filter lets you search for leads by their physical location.

2. Industry:

Find leads based on the industry mentioned on their LinkedIn profile.

3. First name:

Target leads by first names.

4. Last name:

Target leads by last names.

5. Profile language:

Filter leads based on the primary language on their LinkedIn profile.

6. Years of experience:

You can find leads by the number of years they have spent working in a particular industry.

As long as they spend their time in a particular industry, the number of years will be counted, even if they change companies.

7. Groups

Find leads from a LinkedIn Group.

You can search for LinkedIn Groups by searching for them on Sales Navigator.

8. School

Find leads from a particular school or university as mentioned in their educational background on LinkedIn.

Buyer Intent

When you’re looking for prospects that have the highest chance of responding to your cold outreach, you choose the “Buyer Intent” LinkedIn Sales Navigator filters.

There are 2 filters under this section. As for what they what do, it’s pretty much what it says on the tin:

1. Following your company.
2. Viewed your profile recently.

Best Path In

These Sales Navigator filters help you find more information about your prospects by leveraging your existing network, helping you personalize your outreach even further:

1. Connection:

Find leads based on your degree of connection with them.

That includes 1st/2nd/3rd degree connections, groups, etc.

2. Connections of:

Filter leads by finding mutual connections with a specific LinkedIn user.

3. Past colleague:

All LinkedIn users that used to work with you based on their employment record.

4. Shared experiences:

All LinkedIn users that share the same LinkedIn group, school, and past/current company with you.

5. With TeamLink intro:

The LinkedIn TeamLink filter is only available with the Sales Navigator Advanced plan.

You can find leads that fit one of the following criteria:

• Mutual connection.
• People on your contract who are related to the lead.
• People in your contract who have accepted your TeamLink Extend seat.

Recent Updates

These Sales Navigator filters lets you target leads who have recently updated their LinkedIn profiles in terms of:

• Changed jobs:

Filter leads who have changed jobs in the last 90 days.

• Posted on LinkedIn:

Search for leads who have posted on LinkedIn recently.

• Mentioned in news:

The LinkedIn’s algorithm that covers 800 news sources.

You can use this filter to find leads who have been on the news in the last 30 days.

Workflow

• Persona:

Filter leads with Personas.

• Account lists:

Filter leads based on your “all accounts lists” or custom accounts lists.

• Lead lists:

Filter leads based on your “all leads lists” or custom leads lists.

• People in CRM:

Connect and search for leads in your CRM.

This filter is only available with the Sales Navigator Advanced Plus (Enterprise) subscription.

• People you interacted with:

Find leads you have interacted with by saving their account, viewing their profile in the last 90 days, or sending them a message in the last 2 years.

• Saved leads and accounts

Target leads in your accounts and leads lists created whenever you have manually added profiles from LinkedIn.

You can find them in LinkedIn Sales Navigator under “Saved searches”.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator filters: Account filters

The “Account” Sales Navigator filters help you find companies that are winning customers.

You’ll find these filters right next to the “Lead” section.

Let’s see what each of the 16 “Account” filters have in store for you:

Keyword Filter

As I said for the “Lead” section, the Keyword Leads Sales Navigator filters work exactly the same way here.

Type the keywords, find the accounts with a partial or total match, you know the drill.

Except this time, LinkedIn’s algorithm looks at the Overview and Specialities fields of company pages.

Company Attributes Filters

The bulk of the “Account” filters come from the “Company Attributes” section. 10 Sales Navigator filters, to be exact:

• Annual revenue:

Filter target companies based on their annual revenue (estimated by LinkedIn).

• Company headcount:

Filter target companies based on their current employee count.

• Company headcount growth:

Filter target companies based on the percentage of employee count growth.

• Headquarters location:

Filter companies based on the headquarter location.

• Industry:

Target company pages based on the industry on LinkedIn.

• Number of followers:

Target companies based on their number of LinkedIn followers.

• Department headcount:

Filter companies based on the number of employees in a particular department. For eg., Sales, Marketing, Accounting, etc.

• Department headcount growth:

Find departments in companies based on their rate of growth in employee count.

• Fortune:

Find companies based on their Fortune ranking.

• Technologies used:

Filter companies based on technographic data.

Spotlights Filters

There are 4 “Spotlights” Sales Navigator filters:

• Job opportunities:

Filter companies that have at least one job opportunity posted on LinkedIn.

• Recent activities:

Find companies who have conducted a major event like changes in management or have activities like a fundraiser active.

• Connection:

Filter company pages who are your 1st degree connection.

• Buyer intent:

Find companies that have expressed interest in your business products or services.

Workflow Filters

• Companies in CRM:

Connect and search for leads in your CRM with LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

This filter is only available with the Sales Navigator Advanced Plus (Enterprise) subscription.

• Saved accounts:

Saved company accounts in LinkedIn and Sales Nav are put in the “All Saved Accounts” section.

As an added bonus, Sales Navigator automatically includes the company a lead belongs in.

• Account lists:

Filter companies from custom account lists.

Sales Navigator filters - Try these 7 advanced search hacks

Now that you have a comprehensive understanding of all the LinkedIn Sales Navigator filters, it’s time I show you a few search hacks you can use to get EVEN MORE leads.

By the way, if you want to see the various combinations of filters that got me $257K in new revenue, check out our video here-

But if you’re in the mood for a little more, here are 7 advanced search hacks you can use with LinkedIn Sales Navigator:

1. Using Boolean Search

Boolean search is an advanced search tactic which uses specific operators to modify your search results and laser-focus on the perfect leads.

You can place these operators into your search query and voila! Your search results are going to be segmented based on the combination you choose.

Consider Boolean search as a great way to complement the LinkedIn Sales Navigator filters.

Here are all the Boolean search operators:

• “AND” - Search result includes all items in the query.

For example, “VP of Sales AND New York AND IT”

• “OR” - Search result includes one or more than one of the items mentioned in the search query.

For example, “marketing OR product design OR sales”

• “NOT” - Search results will exclude the following items in your search query.

For example, “manager NOT designer”.

• Quoted searches - Find prospects that match the exact phrase that match the quoted text.

For example, searching for “sales manager” will only show results for profiles that share the same phrase.

• Parentheses searches - Combine different variations of the Boolean search operators for a complex search query.

For example, “(social media OR content marketing) AND manager”.

2. Blacklisting

The whole point of LinkedIn cold outreach is to meet and interact with new prospects who could prove to be long-term customers.

So, it wouldn't make much sense to spend your time and money personalizing your outreach for someone that will never be your customer, right?

More than that, you really don’t want to message your competitors. 😶

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That’s exactly what blacklisting saves you from.

When you’re using the LinkedIn Sales Navigator filters, there are 3 ways you can make this happen:

The Exclude option, blacklisting via Account Lists, and blacklisting via Saved Searches.

• The “Exclude” option shows up for a few Sales Nav filters, and it basically does the opposite of what filters usually do.

So if you’re looking for leads in the Finance industry but don’t want to target real estate agencies, you can simply click on the “Exclude” button next to it.

• Blacklisting via Account Lists work by letting you create Account Lists that have companies you choose to “Exclude”.

Sales Navigator will stop showing employees from those companies in your search results.

• Blacklisting via Saved Searches works by configuring filters for companies and leads you want to exclude, and save the search.

Keep selecting the accounts Sales Nav shows and blacklist them by saving them to an account list.

Automated outreach tools like SalesRobot offer features like Blocklisting that excludes accounts from your cold outreach campaigns.

You can include the LinkedIn accounts from a CSV upload, import your blocklist from your LinkedIn profile, or even search for companies and users manually.

3. Creating smart Saved Searches

Speaking of Saved Searches, you can use this feature to passively gather new leads by configuring LinkedIn Sales Navigator filters.

Your job? Define your ICP with the relevant filters and click on the “Save search” button on the top right.

Give it a name and check on your searches every time you see a green number next to it.

That means Sale Navigator has automatically added more profiles since you last checked that match your ICP! 😇

4. Using CSV uploads

Full disclosure, this method works only if you have a Sales Navigator Advanced or a Sales Navigator Advanced Plus subscription.

If you already have a CSV file ready to go with companies and accounts that match your ICP, you can import it on Sales Navigator.

After that, Sales Nav will scan and match the relevant LinkedIn profiles to each entry.

Now you can narrow down your search by implementing any combination of the LinkedIn Sales Navigator filters.

5. Network within a LinkedIn Group

Sales Navigator allows you to target leads from a specific LinkedIn group with its filters.

And for good reason, too!

Reaching out to someone from your niche gives you better opportunities to add value and personalize your messages, resulting in more positive responses.

Aside from gaining a potential customer, you’re also expanding your network and opening up more possibilities for future business partnerships.

6. Leveraging “Recent Updates” filters

The “Recent Updates” Sales Navigator filters gives you an unique opportunity to leverage new changes, when your leads are open to making big decisions.

With “Changed jobs”, you can target key decision-makers who have taken up new positions and are looking for novel solutions to their pain points.

“Posted on LinkedIn” lets you target LinkedIn influencers and active community members to engage with their posts and personalize your outreach further.

“Mentioned in news” shows you potential leads who have accomplished a major milestone. You can refer to relevant articles to congratulate them and warm up your introduction.

7. Finding contact data with SalesRobot

With your leads gathered from LinkedIn Sales Navigator filters, it's time to ramp up your outreach and engage them with targeted messages.

One of the key cold outreach strategies is to run email campaigns, and for that you need the correct email addresses.

Otherwise, you’re just looking at bounced emails or resources spent on inactive email addresses.

While searching for them manually can be mind-numbingly boring, outreach tools like SalesRobot take away this hassle by providing you accurate contact data.

SalesRobot will find data like LinkedIn profile URLs, email addresses, and even phone numbers.

But the truth is, that’s just a fraction of what you can achieve with SalesRobot.

SalesRobot: Automate your cold outreach and generate leads on auto-pilot

SalesRobot is a sales automation tool that takes away the boring, repetitive tasks that come with running your cold outreach campaigns.

Finding contact data is just the beginning, because SalesRobot makes setting up and running an automated multichannel (LinkedIn + email) outreach strategy a breeze.

For starters, SalesRobot lets you pull prospects from LinkedIn and Sales Navigator search URLs, Groups, Events, Posts, and even custom CSV uploads.

Just configure the relevant Sales Navigator filters, copy the search URL, paste it on our browser platform, and you’re good to go!

SalesRobot will fetch the prospects for you in 24 hours.

You can add your prospects to outreach campaigns where SalesRobot will send messages on auto-pilot based on the messaging sequences you’ve configured.

SalesRobot lets you choose if you want to use our tried-and tested templates, or start all the way from scratch with options to send InMails and set delays for follow-ups.

Did I mention? We have an “AI-brain” to help you along the way by calculating the possibility of a positive response based on your message draft.

But it isn’t just about sending messages. SalesRobot lets you configure advanced steps in your sequences.

You can view and follow profiles, endorse prospects, like and comment on relevant posts, all on auto-pilot.

SalesRobot’s Smart Reply Detection feature will automatically stop your message sequence when a prospect responds, letting you swoop in to take over and close the deal. 😇

And to ensure your prospects aren’t getting generic messages, SalesRobot’s Hyperise integration will personalize your messages in bulk.

By the way, SalesRobot doesn’t just integrate with LinkedIn Sales Navigator, it enhances the prospecting experience by a significant margin.

How, you may ask?

Well, SalesRobot has an in-built B2B lookalike database that uses AI to help you find more prospects that resemble your winning customers.

Why did we build this? Simple answer.

Approximately 31.4% of LinkedIn Sales Navigator search results are inaccurate because it gives you the wrong industry, head count, or job title.

Not to mention, there’s no way to search for prospects in hyper-specific use cases.

For example, if you’re looking for eCommerce websites with at least 50,000 monthly search traffic, there are no Sales Navigator filters to help you with that.

But now with SalesRobot’s B2B lookalike database, you can simply input the website of your dream customer and watch the magic!

Truth be told, it’ll take hours to give you a complete view of SalesRobot’s outreach automation capabilities.

I’m talking safely sending 200 connection requests per week, an AI assistant that will respond and book meetings for you, integrations with popular CRMs…

Honestly, the list goes on.

So, what do you think? Feel like SalesRobot is on to something cool?

Then why not take our features for a test-drive with a 14-day risk-free trial 😇.

And hey, if you want to talk about getting your dream LinkedIn outreach up on its feet, then stop by for a quick chat! Coffee’s on me. 😄

LinkedIn Sales Navigator filters: Final thoughts

Prospecting is hard. Prospecting for the perfect sales-ready leads without the right tools is downright impossible.

And if you don’t take the time to narrow down your search to find your ICP, you’re going to be stuck with dead-ends that eventually bite you in the a** with a huge cut in your revenue.

The 52 LinkedIn Sales Navigator filters help you do just that.

With the Lead and Account filters, you’re always targeting key decision-makers and companies that will convert for your business solutions.

Once you have your dream prospects lined up, you can reach out to them with personalized multichannel outreach campaigns with SalesRobot. 😇

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Until next time,

Good luck!

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