Scraping a LinkedIn search without Sales Navigator
No Sales Navigator subscription? Emelia also extracts LinkedIn's people search, with the LinkedIn account you already connected. Up to 1,000 profiles per search, with no extension to install.
| Profiles per search | 1,000 at most (LinkedIn's limit) |
| Account used | a LinkedIn account connected in Emelia, free or paid |
| Chrome extension | not needed |
| Search type | people only |
| Cost | no credits with a plan; 0.5 credit per contact without one |
| Data collected | name, headline, location, industry, profile link |
| Emails collected | none: search for them afterwards |
Classic search or Sales Navigator: the practical difference
The search everyone has, the bar at the top of LinkedIn, is enough to build decent lists. It has fewer filters than Sales Navigator, and LinkedIn only shows the first 1,000 results. But it needs no subscription, and Emelia extracts it directly with your connected account, with no extension.
| Source | What you need | Volume | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Classic search | A LinkedIn account connected in Emelia, no subscription and no extension; the search URL is pasted into Emelia | 1,000 profiles per search | Name, headline, location, industry, profile link. The company and its website only if the search filters on one company. People only. |
| Sales Navigator | A Sales Navigator subscription and the Chrome extension, with its Export with Emelia button | 2,500 profiles per search, up to 80,000 with splitting (Grow and Scale) | Profile, job title, company, website, size and industry. Company search available (1,000 results). |
Before you start: a connected LinkedIn account
The classic extraction goes through a LinkedIn account already connected to Emelia, under Accounts. A free account is enough. It must show as connected and active: in the extraction window, an account that is disconnected, disabled or not connected is greyed out and cannot be picked. Reconnect it first from the Accounts page.
It is the same account that runs your LinkedIn campaigns, and the searches count towards its activity. More on that below.
Step 1: run the search on LinkedIn and copy the address
On LinkedIn, type your search in the top bar, then pick the People tab: only people searches are accepted. Narrow it down with the filters (locations, current company, industry, connection degree) until the list looks like your target.
Then copy the full address of the page from the browser bar. It must start with https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/people/.
LinkedIn never shows more than 1,000 results for a classic search, even when it announces more. If your search announces 8,000, add filters or split it (one search per region, per industry): you will avoid getting only an arbitrary slice of your target.
Step 2: create a new LinkedIn list in Emelia
In the left menu, open Lead Lists, click New List, then the LinkedIn tile ("Import from a classic LinkedIn search").
Step 3: fill in the window and start
The New LinkedIn search scrap window asks for four things:
- LinkedIn account: the first available account is preselected. Change it if you have several.
- Name: it will become the name of the list. Two extractions cannot share the same name.
- LinkedIn search URL: the address copied in step 1. A Sales Navigator URL is refused here: it goes through the Sales Navigator source.
- Max contacts (optional): left empty, Emelia takes everything LinkedIn shows, up to 1,000. Handy for a trial on 100 profiles.
Click Start scrap, or Planify to choose a start date and time, at least one hour later. If an extraction is already running, only Planify is offered: one extraction runs at a time.
Step 4: follow the extraction and get the list
The extraction shows up right away in Lead Lists with LinkedIn as its source and a status badge: Initializing, then Scraping… x%. It runs on the server side: you can close the tab. Emelia reads the results page by page, with a pause of a few seconds between pages, so a 1,000 profile search usually finishes in under half an hour.
Once done, the list plugs into a campaign, or exports to CSV or Excel with the Export button, like any other list.
What the classic search does not give you: the company
This is the limit to know before picking this source. For each profile, the classic search returns the name, the headline shown under the name, the location, the industry and the profile link. It returns neither the current company nor its website.
One exception: if your search filters on a single current company, Emelia knows which company it is and fills in the company columns (name, website, size, industry) for the whole list. With several companies in the filter, those columns stay empty.
The phone number search, for its part, starts from the profile's LinkedIn link: it works normally on these lists.
The email search needs the company website or name. On a list from the classic search, Emelia will flag "leads missing website, domain, or company name". If your campaign starts with email, prefer Sales Navigator, or Basile for a French target. For a LinkedIn campaign, on the other hand, this list is perfect: the profile link is all you need.
Going past 1,000 profiles
There is no automatic splitting for the classic search: the 1,000 cap comes from LinkedIn. So the method is manual: split your target into several searches of fewer than 1,000 results each, by region, industry or connection degree, and run them one after another by scheduling them.
Searches often overlap. Before running the email search or a campaign, merge the lists or deduplicate them by LinkedIn URL in Lead Lists.
Looking after your LinkedIn account
The classic extraction uses your own LinkedIn account to page through the results. Emelia says so in the window: "Your LinkedIn account quotas remain your responsibility". In other words, LinkedIn sees these searches as yours.
If LinkedIn slows the account down because it finds the requests too many, Emelia puts the extraction on hold and tries again an hour later, three times at most over 24 hours. Beyond that, the extraction stops with an Error: wait until the next day before starting again. And if the account gets disconnected along the way, the extraction stops too: reconnect it in Accounts, then start again.
- Tight searches, under 1,000 results
- A trial on 100 profiles before a large extraction
- Extractions scheduled outside campaign hours
- Running dozens of searches in the same day
- Restarting over and over an extraction LinkedIn has stopped
- Pasting a Sales Navigator or Companies tab URL: it will be refused
Frequently asked questions
The questions we get asked on this topic, answered briefly.
Do I need LinkedIn Premium to extract the classic search?
No, a free account connected to Emelia is enough. A free account has fewer search filters, and LinkedIn may restrict searches on a free account that runs a lot of them; a Premium or Sales Navigator account has more room, but it is not required.
Why does Emelia reject my URL?
The address must be a people search, in the form https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/people/…. The All, Companies or Posts tabs are not accepted, and neither is a Sales Navigator URL, which goes through the Sales Navigator source. Also check that the address starts with https.
Why is my LinkedIn account greyed out in the window?
It is disconnected, disabled, or not connected with the current connection method. Reconnect it from Accounts, then reopen the window. If no account is available, the window says so: add one from the Accounts page.
Why is the company column empty?
Because LinkedIn's classic search does not return the profiles' company. It is only filled in if your search filters on a single current company. For a list with company and website, go through Sales Navigator, or Basile for a French target.
Can I extract a list of companies from the classic search?
No, only people. For companies, use Sales Navigator's account search, capped at 1,000 results, or Basile for France.
Does the classic extraction use credits?
Not with an active Emelia plan. Without a plan, it costs 0.5 credit per extracted contact, like a Sales Navigator extraction. One extraction is free during the trial.