With over 722 million members worldwide, LinkedIn is the largest professional social media platform. As a result, there is a tremendous amount of professional data available on LinkedIn that could be highly valuable for businesses, marketers, recruiters, and researchers. This leads to an important question – can you actually purchase LinkedIn data?
What types of data are available on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn contains several types of data that could be useful for different purposes:
- Member profile data – This includes information members provide in their profiles like name, job title, company, location, education, skills, experience, interests, and more. There are over 722 million member profiles.
- Company data – LinkedIn pages contain information on over 55 million companies including descriptions, employee headcounts, locations, industries, website URLs, and more.
- Group data – LinkedIn has over 2 million groups focused on industries, professions, hobbies, alumni groups, and more. This data includes group descriptions, topics, memberships, discussions, and jobs listed.
- Job data – LinkedIn lists over 20 million jobs which contain data like job titles, descriptions, skills required, salaries, company overviews, and locations.
- Advertising data – LinkedIn offers self-serve and managed ad solutions. Data includes ad performance, targeting, creative, and audience segments.
- Content data – This includes the over 100,000 articles, posts, and other content published on LinkedIn daily.
In summary, LinkedIn contains professional data on members, companies, groups, jobs, advertising, and content. Next we’ll look at whether it’s possible to actually buy this data.
Is LinkedIn data available for purchase?
Unlike some social networks, LinkedIn does not directly sell or share member data to external parties. LinkedIn’s User Agreement states that members own their profiles and connections. The platform also gives members control over data sharing with advertisers.
However, there are some limited ways to purchase LinkedIn data:
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator – This paid tool lets you view limited member data like name, title, company, and location. Pricing starts at $79/month per user.
- LinkedIn Recruiter – Recruiters can purchase this tool to find and contact candidates based on criteria like skills, experience, and more. Pricing starts at $999/month per user.
- LinkedIn ads – You can target advertisements to LinkedIn members based on parameters like job title, company, skills, and interests. Ad pricing is based on an auction model.
- LinkedIn Marketing Solutions – This offering provides managed services for ad campaign execution, audience targeting, and reporting. Minimums start around $5,000/month.
- LinkedIn company pages – Businesses can sponsor their LinkedIn company page for increased visibility. This starts at around $200/month.
- Third-party data providers – Some third-party companies claim to provide LinkedIn data for licensing and integration. However, LinkedIn discourages scraping and strictly monitors these activities.
In general, while you can’t buy LinkedIn’s raw member data directly, you can purchase access to view and utilize limited data subsets through paid tools and services. Offerings like Sales Navigator, Recruiter, and Sponsored Content provide selective access for specific business needs.
Does LinkedIn sell user data?
LinkedIn does not sell or share member data directly with third parties without consent. However, there are some cases where LinkedIn may share limited data:
- Advertising – If a member opts in for data sharing with advertisers, some profile data like job title and company may be used for targeting ads they see.
- LinkedIn Pages – When interacting with a LinkedIn page, some of your data like name, headline, and profile photo may be shared with the page owner.
- LinkedIn Recruiter – When applying for jobs through Recruiter, members share their data like profile, resume, and cover letter with the hiring organization.
- Cookie data – Like most websites, LinkedIn uses cookies and tracking technologies to collect browsing data for analytics and ads. This data may be shared with third-party services.
- Aggregated data – LinkedIn may provide aggregated demographic data to partners, advertisers, and clients for analytics and reporting. However, this is anonymized and does not identify individuals.
- Legal requests – LinkedIn will provide user data when compelled by legal requests from government agencies and law enforcement.
- Third-party applications – If you grant access to third-party apps through LinkedIn, they may collect certain profile data.
In summary, while LinkedIn doesn’t directly sell or share user data in bulk, some information may be selectively shared in specific use cases like advertising or legal requests. Members do have options to limit much of the data sharing.
What types of businesses leverage LinkedIn data?
Here are some of the key businesses and industries that utilize LinkedIn data:
- Recruiters and staffing firms – Recruiters heavily rely on LinkedIn to source candidates, post jobs, and build talent pools and networks.
- Human resources – HR professionals use LinkedIn to research candidates, benchmark compensation, and identify passive job seekers.
- Marketing and sales teams – B2B marketers mine LinkedIn for contacts, account intelligence, advertising, and publishing content.
- Market researchers – LinkedIn demographics and company data informs market analysis across industries and geographies.
- Advertisers – LinkedIn ads target professionals based on attributes like job role, skills, company size, and interests.
- Investors and analysts – Investor relations and financial analysts leverage data on companies, executives, and industries.
- Sourcing and recruiting agencies – Third-party sourcing firms serve clients by proactively mining and contacting candidates.
- Small businesses – SMBs and solopreneurs use LinkedIn for networking, job posts, company pages, and advertising.
Almost any business focused on connecting with professionals could extract value from LinkedIn data. It provides a wealth of usable information, as long as accessed through the proper tools and channels.
What are the main benefits of LinkedIn data?
Key benefits that LinkedIn data provides include:
- Candidate identification – Find qualified candidates for open positions based on criteria like skills, experience, education, and more.
- Recruitment marketing – Target and build relationships with passive candidates to build talent pipelines.
- Audience insights – Better understand B2B audiences for targeting ads or content to the right decision makers and contacts.
- Competitive intelligence – Research competitor companies, executives, employee turnover, technologies, and initiatives.
- Lead generation – Identify contacts at companies to support sales efforts and account-based marketing.
- Employment branding – Showcase company culture, values, and team to attract talent.
- Market research – Analyze industry trends, emerging technologies, talent landscapes, and demographics.
- Reputation management – Monitor company and executive mentions, news, reviews, and feedback.
LinkedIn data powers a wide array of business applications. When used properly, it can provide unique professional insights that would be difficult to obtain elsewhere.
What precautions should be taken when collecting LinkedIn data?
If utilizing LinkedIn data, it’s important to take the following precautions:
- Obtain consent where required – For uses like advertising and email marketing, obtain the proper consent and opt-ins.
- De-identify personal data – Where possible, anonymize individual user data or provide only in aggregate.
- Limit scraping – Avoid large-scale scraping projects, and leverage official APIs where available.
- Follow terms of use – Stay compliant with LinkedIn’s user agreement and privacy policies.
- Secure access – Store any LinkedIn data securely with role-based access controls.
- Train employees – Educate employees on proper usage and protection of LinkedIn data.
- Be transparent – Clearly communicate how you are collecting and using any LinkedIn data.
- Consider ethics – Avoid collecting data for unethical purposes like harassment or discrimination.
- Confirm accuracy – Fact check key LinkedIn data points where possible.
- Watch for changes – Monitor LinkedIn policies for updates that may impact data usage and collection.
Following these responsible data practices ensures you remain compliant, while also building trust with LinkedIn members.
Conclusion
While LinkedIn does not directly sell access to member data, businesses can still obtain valuable subsets of information for recruiting, marketing, sales, and research through paid tools, advertising, company pages, and aggregate data.
Popular use cases are sourcing candidates, targeting ads, finding contacts, and analyzing companies and industries. However, proper consent, privacy controls, and compliance with LinkedIn policies are critical when collecting and using any data from their platform.
