Scraping Linkedin is forbidden under the terms and conditions of this social network. So, logically, anything forbidden by a platform means that it’s doing everything it can to prevent their users from easily scrapping. Linkedin is the number 1 B2B database worldwide. The network will soon pass the symbolic 1 billion user mark. Unlike other social networks, here data is of interest to companies, enabling them to prospect and recruit with ease. In the world of scraping tools, it’s an eternal game of cat and mouse, and Linkedin’s latest weapon is a quota system. In fact, each Linkedin profile has a limited number of actions that can be carried out daily on the platform.
This has a direct impact on your ability to scrape Linkedin. If the network notices that you systematically reach your daily limit, it will know that you’re using automation tools and may ban your Linkedin account. Here’s how to avoid this and, above all, how to scrape Linkedin easily and unlimitedly. Imagine: in just a few clicks, you have access to a treasure trove of user information, enabling you to target your prospecting and improve the quality of your leads. Pretty cool, huh?
Scraping is the principle of sucking up all the information present on a web page to build up a database, instead of making hundreds or thousands of copy and pastes.
LinkedIn scraping, an increasingly widespread practice in the professional world, consists of automatically extracting data from the LinkedIn platform. This method offers a multitude of advantages, particularly in terms of prospecting and business development. Scraping on LinkedIn makes it possible to gather a vast amount of information about users, which is essential for marketing and sales strategies. For example, you’re looking for people with the job title “growth hacker” on Linkedin. Type “growth hacker” in the search bar, go to people and you’ll find all the growth hackers in France in just 3 clicks.
Tools are available to allow you to vacuum them automatically.
We’ve selected 2 that are very popular with our customers. They are experts in their field, affordable and, above all, safe.
Phantombuster:
Phantombuster is a platform offering automated tools that require no coding and are accessible to all. It allows you to organize your prospects in one place. This platform is designed to save hours of work on repetitive tasks. In other words, Phantombuster provides solutions for automating web actions, such as data collection or marketing task management, without the need for in-depth technical skills. It’s a kind of script bank.
Phantombuster is interesting because it’s very simple to operate, requiring only :
- Linkedin cookies
- The right Phantom for the right use case
When I started out in Growth, it was my favorite tool, because it responded quickly to my simple customer cases. However, it proves complicated to use as soon as we imagine more complex workflows or want to use its API. What’s more, its unique feature of pricing by runtime rather than by job proves to be a fairly high quality/price ratio. Indeed, on some workflows Phantombuster is profitable, while on others it is not.
Here are the main pricings:
For example, we worked with a digital marketing and communications consultancy on Phantombuster, which was faced with the need to increase the volume of prospecting for two of its clients in the information technology sector.
The solution we implemented consisted in renting 4 LinkedIn accounts via Mirrorprofiles, 1 of which was equipped with Sales Navigator(a tool we’ll be looking at next). Set up Sales Navigator searches to target IT and CIO profiles, scraping and then using Lemlist on the 4 Linkedin accounts + 4 email addresses to contact them automatically.
The strategy enabled us to contact 400 qualified prospects per week, generating an average of 10 appointments. This case study illustrates how LinkedIn scraping, combined with the right content and communication strategy, can significantly increase the reach and effectiveness of prospecting.
Captain Data:
Captain Data is a platform specializing in the automation of data processes for sales teams. According to Arnaud Renoux, SalesOps at TheScalelab, using Captain Data enables us to quickly enrich a large number of prospects – in his case, 1000 leads enriched in just 10 minutes. This enables teams to focus directly on making contact with prospects, freeing up time for creativity and other value-added tasks, and eliminating tedious manual work. Captain Data offers solutions for optimizing sales operations by automating data collection and enrichment.
Captain Data is clearly our favorite at MirrorProfiles ahah. We use it every day. Pricing may seem high at first glance, but it’s actually very fair when you weigh up value for money. It will save you a considerable amount of time, not to mention the problem that few tools in their sector remove: intellectual gymnastics. Thanks to Captain Data, you can create scraping and enrichment recipes. No need to struggle with different databases. Everything is managed here. All you need to do is :
- Linkedin cookies
- The right Captain Data workflow for the right use case
Its richer workflows and stable API make Captain Data the ideal scraping tool for experienced growth profiles.
Texau :
Texau is a web-based automation platform that enables you to connect automations together, build powerful workflows, collect data or generate leads in minutes.
Texau is therefore positioned as a solution for accelerating growth by automating tasks and optimizing lead generation and data management operations.
More complex to get to grips with, but worth keeping on hand. Texau has the most diversified bank of scripts on the market. Clearly, if you’re on every social network, this could be the tool for you. However, its use is not intuitive.
There are dozens and dozens of them. In fact, the vast majority of Linkedin automation tools offer this scraping functionality internally. By the way, the tools presented here are scraping tools, not Linkedin automation tools. To automate interaction with the platform, I’d recommend GetSales, Heyreach, LGM or LinkedHelper.
Although these scraping tools are effective and secure (although there is always a risk), they don’t allow you to exceed the quotas set by Linkedin. They’re absolutely right! If they want you to scrape a lot, that would jeopardize your Linkedin account, so divide that risk! Which brings us to the solution for safely scrapping large volumes of data on Linkedin.
Multiply your Linkedin accounts for unlimited scraping with MirrorProfiles
As each Linkedin account has a daily quota to respect, the best way to be able to scrape in volume without alerting their algorithm is to divide the risk across different accounts. Thanks to this, you no longer take any risks on your real Linkedin account, and you can use MirrorProfiles accounts to do your scraping and enrichment. Our accounts have the same quotas as yours, except that we have a lot of them.
Renting a MirrorProfiles account offers a secure approach, with carefully prepared accounts ready for immediate automation. These accounts, created and “warmed up” over more than three months, faithfully reproduce human activity on LinkedIn, promoting the creation of a solid network while respecting the platform’s best practices.
Unlike buying a LinkedIn account, renting via MirrorProfiles ensures greater quality and security. In the case of repeated scraping, the “li-at” cookie used by all Linkedin scraping tools must be of good quality to avoid suspicion on the part of Linkedin.
In the event of a problem with the account, such as a strike, the loss is shared under a lease, which is a significant advantage over account sellers who do not guarantee security after the sale.
It’s an effective and sustainable way, because Linkedin won’t be able to limit the number of visits or searches on the platform any further, as this would run the risk of mistakenly banning real Linkedin accounts.
Let’s take a quick example: you’ve done a Linkedin search and come up with 10,000 results. With your single account, it will take you weeks (20 to be exact) to visit each profile to retrieve the data it contains. Whereas if you rent 10 MirrorProfiles cookies, you only need 2 weeks 😉
In conclusion, although LinkedIn scraping is forbidden by the platform’s terms and conditions, there are specialized tools available to automate and facilitate the practice. Phantombuster, Captain Data and Texau are examples of tools that offer secure and effective solutions for task automation and lead generation, despite the restrictions imposed by LinkedIn.
However, in order to scrape by in volume and without risking detection by LinkedIn’s algorithms, the strategy is to diversify risks by using several accounts. Services such as MirrorProfiles offer to rent LinkedIn accounts and cookies, making it possible to meet daily quotas while carrying out large-scale scraping operations.
This method of multiplying accounts is not only effective but also sustainable, as it minimizes the risk of sanctions by LinkedIn, while fully exploiting the scraping capabilities of the tools available. Ultimately, for B2B companies looking to maximize their growth and optimize their prospecting or recruiting on LinkedIn, these tools and strategies represent valuable solutions, provided they are used with care and within the limits imposed by the platform.
