LinkedIn CRM Integration: How To Pull Data from LinkedIn into Your CRM

LinkedIn’s leadership as the global professional networking platform is unrivalled. Consequently, LinkedIn has built up a unique database on companies and people. Therefore, the prospect of integrating LinkedIn into your CRM could elevate sales, recruiting, partnerships and fundraising to new heights. However, several challenges stand in the way of successful integrations, such as limited data available via APIs and a restricted number of CRMs with native LinkedIn integration. This article presents an overview of CRMs with native LinkedIn integrations, and sheds light on workaround ways of integrating LinkedIn into your CRMs, including scraping, CRM add-on tools and Chrome extensions.

Why Is LinkedIn CRM Integration a Game Changer?

With over 875 million users worldwide, LinkedIn reigns as the dominant professional networking platform with the most accurate and up-to-date information on contacts and companies. As the holy grail for valuable data on leads, customers, candidates, investors and more, LinkedIn can be leveraged for many use cases like sales, marketing, recruiting, and fundraising. Professionals across these use cases rely on CRMs to manage their business relationships. Although LinkedIn and CRM data are highly complementary, going back and forth between these tools to reduce data silos is extremely time-consuming.

That’s why a LinkedIn CRM integration would unlock massive value by offering these 4 transformative benefits:

Centralise data in one place: the CRM provides a single source of truth on contacts and companies, allowing users to stay within one workspace.
Reduce CRM data decay: background updating of CRM data with LinkedIn profile changes reduces manual entry and miscommunication when reaching out.
Save time: the removal of tedious data entry allows team members to dedicate more time to sales, partnerships, closing deals etc.
Align external communication: increased network visibility in a team prevents unproductive scenarios like two people reaching out to the same prospect and appearing unprofessional or disorganised.

Why Is LinkedIn CRM Integration So Scarce?

Despite the strong demand for LinkedIn integration with CRMs, here are 2 reasons why LinkedIn CRM integration is so challenging to achieve:

Restricted LinkedIn APIs: since 2015, LinkedIn has built up stringent controls over its Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), which allow different programs to communicate and exchange data. Without API access, CRM developers cannot seamlessly extract LinkedIn data. LinkedIn is super selective about granting API access to even some of the market leading CRMs like Pipedrive. Furthermore, the type of data available via API access has been reduced.
Costly & complex LinkedIn scraping alternatives: to bypass the native LinkedIn integration restrictions, some teams attempt to enrich CRM data with LinkedIn scraping as-a-service tools, or by building in-house scrapers. LinkedIn scraping as-a-service tools provide an out-of-the-box solution, but still may require a custom integration into your CRM. LinkedIn scraping providers can also become expensive depending on the number of contacts and info fields imported. Alternatively, building an in-house LinkedIn scraping tool necessitates upfront development and regular maintenance, as they tend to break down every time LinkedIn releases minor updates in UI/UX. Plus, if the scraping is done while being logged into a team member's LinkedIn profile and doesn’t imitate normal usage behaviour, LinkedIn can temporarily block the account.

5 Native CRM Integrations with LinkedIn

Since LinkedIn does not offer a CRM software to satisfy various use cases, it has granted the following 5 CRMs APIs for native integrations:

Salesforce
Hubspot Sales Hub
Microsoft Dynamics
Zoho
SugarCRM

We’ve broken down everything you need to know on the native LinkedIn integrations in these five CRMs.

What LinkedIn Data Do Native Integrations Import into CRMs?

The LinkedIn integration offers the following 3 features in all 5 CRMs:

Contact enrichment: job title, current company, industry, location, time in current role, and LinkedIn activity (posts, likes, comments).
Company enrichment: industry, number of employees, and location.
Notifications: get notified when CRM contacts join a new company. It’s not possible to tailor job change alerts to certain contact groups.

The next 3 native LinkedIn integration features are exclusive to HubSpot, Zoho and SugarCRM:

InMail messaging: send an InMail from within the CRM software. Take note, these interactions are not automatically recorded in the CRM, so users still have to log them manually.
Lead discovery: get prospect suggestions based on shared interests, mutual connections or an employer in common with you or another lead. You can save the new contact to your Sales Navigator leads list.
Strongest relationship: see mutual connections to ask for warm introductions via the InMail feature of your CRM.

What Limitations Do LinkedIn’s CRM Native Integrations Have?

Even if you do use one of the 5 CRMs with a native LinkedIn integration, there are 2 crucial limitations of LinkedIn CRM integration:

Require Sales Navigator by LinkedIn: the CRM integration is not actually with LinkedIn, but LinkedIn Sales Navigator, which enhances prospecting and lead generation. Plus, the integration only works with the Advanced and Advanced Plus plans, which are $149.99/month per user and at least $1600/year per seat respectively. If you aren’t already using Sales Navigator for your business activities, the extra cost can be a dealbreaker.
Cannot import your LinkedIn network into CRM: only the contacts already in your CRM can be enriched with LinkedIn profile data. However, users cannot import their entire LinkedIn network into the CRM and need to still add missing contacts manually, which is very time intensive.

What If You Use Another CRM or Lack Key Features?

If you’re every second CRM user, who therefore uses a different CRM to Salesforce, HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics, Zoho or SugarCRM, or you’re unhappy with the native LinkedIn integration features, don’t worry! Here’s a shortlist of the best workaround ways to integrate LinkedIn with your CRM:

1. LinkedIn Scraping Software

LinkedIn scraping tools allow you to enrich CRM data, either via direct integration or manual import of CSV files. Although your team can fully customise what data to extract from LinkedIn, creating a smooth dataflow requires an upfront investment and continued maintenance. Here are 4 great LinkedIn scraping software options:

PhantomBuster: as the leading LinkedIn scraping tool, it provides over 50 Phantoms and Flows for LinkedIn and LinkedIn Sales Navigator. They are automated data extraction scripts (Phantoms) and workflows (Flows) that enable users to scrape profile data from various platforms including LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook. Additionally, the tool allows users to export the scraped LinkedIn data into Pipedrive, Hubspot and Salesforce, and migrate emails directly into Lemlist. However, customer reviews point out that it’s very expensive, with pricing plans that range from $69 to $469/month and limit the number of Phantoms users can install monthly.
Bright Data: a data collection service with a dedicated LinkedIn scraping tool. Users can adapt pre-made scraper templates to target specific data points, which are exported into JSON, NDJSON, CSV, or Excel files. It’s a more technical solution that requires Javascript knowledge. Pricing is based on CPMs (1000 page loads) and the LinkedIn tool starts at $4/CPM/month.
Derrick App: exports contacts’ and companies’ full LinkedIn profile data directly into Google Sheets. A Sales Navigator account is only required for importing leads found via search queries. Pricing varies according to volume and use case: finding emails, importing & enriching, or both. The combo plan starts at only $15/month.
EvaBoot: scrapes LinkedIn Sales Navigator to extract leads and searches into CSV files. Importantly, EvaBoot cleans the data and verifies the emails it finds so the exported data is uniform and accurate. Pricing is based on the number of leads, starting at $49/month for 2000 leads a month.

2. CRM Software Add-Ons

Add-on tools offer LinkedIn automation and scraping features, often via a LinkedIn Chrome extension. However, add-on tools can only be synced with a limited number of CRMs and come at an extra cost.

Surfe.com: focused exclusively on LinkedIn, Surfe’s Chrome extension finds verified prospect emails, automates contact entry, updates existing contacts and synchronises LinkedIn and Sales Navigator messages. However, Surfe only integrates with a limited number of CRMs including Hubspot, Pipedrive, Salesforce, Copper, Salesloft and Outreach. After the free plan, prices start at $27/month per user.‍
Lusha: the LinkedIn Chrome extension enriches prospect data using LinkedIn profile details. Users can simultaneously enrich multiple prospects generated from a search on LinkedIn or LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Although the LinkedIn Chrome extension is offered in Free, Pro and Premium plans for email and telephone discovery (starting at $29/month per user), the CRM integrations with Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive and Zoho are only in the Scale Plan with custom pricing. ‍
Dux-Soup: a popular automation tool with a LinkedIn Chrome extension that enhances LinkedIn lead prospecting and generation. Dux-Soup automates profile visits, connection requests, and personalised InMails. It directly integrates with Hubspot, Pipedrive and Zapier. There are only 2 paid plans: £9.08/month per seat to automate outreach and £32.42/month per seat to also scale lead generation.‍
Linked Helper: solely focuses on LinkedIn outreach automation for marketers, recruiters and sales reps. It logs into your LinkedIn profile to scrape company and personal data, as well as message history and Sales Navigator inbox. Users must have the Linked Helper app open on their laptop. Linked Helper leverages loopholes to expand the LinkedIn scraping limit of ~100 profile views, enabling it to import 150 profiles per day. The tool then exports the data to CSV files, Google Sheets, Zapier or CRMs including Hubspot, Pipedrive and Salesforce. After a 14-day trial, pricing varies depending on subscription period and features. ‍
Dripify: a LinkedIn automation tool with a LinkedIn scraping feature that exports contact profile data into platforms including Hubspot, Zoho, Salesforce and Zapier, or CSV files. Dripify also overcomes LinkedIn’s 100-request limit, enabling 500+ connection requests per week. The Advanced plan supports collaboration with the ability to invite members, view team performance reports, avoid reaching out to the same leads and much more. The plans range from $59, $79 and $99/month per user.

3. Personal CRMs with LinkedIn Data Enrichment

Despite not having LinkedIn’s approval for a native integration, these personal CRMs scrape LinkedIn data in the background. As a result, after setting up an account users can view LinkedIn enriched contact data directly in their CRM software.

Clay.earth: a personal CRM that stands out for its LinkedIn integration, which imports contact details like full career experiences, skills, location and education. Furthermore, Clay’s search capabilities are expanded beyond company and person names to include relevant keywords e.g. VC, UI/UX Designer, Fintech Startup etc. Unfortunately, Clay’s integrations with social media platforms, including LinkedIn, are only available for Mac and iOS. Besides a solid free plan, prices start at $20/month.
Dex: after syncing your LinkedIn account, Dex imports all LinkedIn connections over a few hours and attempts to automatically group contacts by industry based on their LinkedIn bio. The LinkedIn sync is continuously refreshed to keep information updated for paying users, and email notifications are generated when connections change jobs. However, Dex only scrapes a contact’s name and headline and the grouping by industry feature is not entirely reliable. Pricing is $20/month or $144/year.
Superhuman: a premium mailbox software with CRM features, which integrates multiple emails and enriches contact data with insights from relevant social media profiles, including LinkedIn. When Superhuman recognises an email as a contact and not a company, it uses the sub processor Clearbit to find the contact’s LinkedIn profile, industry and job title. Pricing starts at $30/month per user.

4. CRMs with a LinkedIn Chrome Extension

The following CRM software examples don’t integrate with LinkedIn natively or by building up in-house scraping capabilities. Instead, they offer a LinkedIn Chrome extension, which allows users to manually import data from LinkedIn profiles.

Folk.app: a flexible and AI-powered CRM with a LinkedIn Chrome extension. In one-click, the extension imports new contacts from LinkedIn with their email addresses, phone numbers, job titles and company. Users can manually add every conversation on LinkedIn to the Folk CRM using their LinkedIn Chrome Extension. Folk pricing ranges from $19 to $39/month per user.
Attio: a CRM tool for startups and investors with a LinkedIn Chrome extension. When on a LinkedIn profile, the extension shows the company or contact’s records in the CRM and enriches them or creates a new record. The extension only extracts name, company, location and job title, and is often buggy. Plus, Attio limits the number of contacts enriched from the LinkedIn Chrome extension, so the mid-range plans of £26 and £54/month per user have a hard cut-off of only 50 and 100 contacts respectively.

How Tiva’s LinkedIn Integration Stands Out?

Tiva’s LinkedIn integration makes it the ultimate CRM for contact management. Most LinkedIn CRM integration solutions explored above have several disadvantages: high setup and maintenance cost, limited data transfer, few integrations with other CRMs or insufficient team collaboration features. Thankfully, Tiva is building a seamless LinkedIn integration that overcomes these pain points with the following features:

Sophisticated LinkedIn integration: unlike other CRMs that require third-party add-on tools or offer a Chrome extension to manually import LinkedIn profile data one by one, Tiva imports your LinkedIn network in the background. Tiva extracts granular LinkedIn profile details, including job title, company, career experiences, skills and education. Centralising your entire professional network in one place enables full visibility among team members.
Contact & company enrichment: enrich contacts and companies that are already in your CRM with data sourced from LinkedIn, as well as other sources like Crunchbase.
Advanced search capabilities: easily search for relevant contacts or companies with custom tags or auto-generated keywords including industry, location, university, calendar events and more.
Automatic CRM data updates: Tiva tracks profile changes on multiple platforms including LinkedIn and updates the CRM data accordingly in real-time. This saves enormous amounts of effort in keeping the CRM up to date.
Proactive notifications: set up custom alerts for key changes across your team’s entire network, or narrow them down to certain contacts or companies. Stay on top of job changes, career milestones, company employee count growth, fundraising events and more. For example, investors using Tiva can get notified when angels in their network announce investments on LinkedIn or when startups in their “Tracking” list close new rounds.
Team collaboration: hook up company and private emails to manage your professional network in one place with granular permission control and ownership. Work with colleagues on shared lists of contacts, while keeping other lists private.

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