- How to build a precision lead list in Sales Navigator using account and lead filters
- How to export your leads cleanly using the Evaboot browser extension
- How to upload your lead list as a matched audience in LinkedIn Campaign Manager
- Which ad format, objective, and copy formula works best for B2B lead generation
- What realistic LinkedIn ad benchmarks look like — and when to scale or stop
LinkedIn is the only platform in the world where you can target the exact person at the exact company with the exact job title you want to reach — and then put a sponsored message in front of them the same week. For B2B founders and scaling teams, nothing comes close.
But most people use LinkedIn marketing in one of two ways: posting content and hoping the right people see it, or running broad sponsored ads with targeting so vague it generates clicks but no pipeline. This guide shows you how to combine Sales Navigator and LinkedIn Sponsored Ads into a system that puts your message in front of precisely the right people — consistently.
1. What is Sales Navigator and who needs it
LinkedIn's free search is heavily limited — you can filter by job title and location, but you quickly hit search limits and have almost no ability to narrow by company characteristics. Sales Navigator is LinkedIn's premium prospecting tool, starting at around €79/month, that unlocks the full power of LinkedIn's database.
With Sales Navigator you can filter by:
- Company size, industry, geography, revenue, and headcount growth rate
- Technology used (e.g. companies using Salesforce, HubSpot, or Shopify)
- Job title, seniority level, years in current role, and department
- Recent activity such as job changes, company news, and LinkedIn posts
Sales Navigator pays for itself when you are selling B2B and your deal size is large enough that one extra closed deal per month covers the subscription cost. If your average deal is above €2,000, it's almost always worth it.
2. Building your ideal customer profile in Sales Navigator
The most powerful use of Sales Navigator is building a highly specific list of the exact people you want to reach. Start with your account filters to identify the companies, then apply lead filters to find the right person at each company.
Account filters to use first
- Industry — be specific. "Technology" is too broad; "SaaS" or "B2B software" is better
- Company headcount — match the size to your ideal customer (e.g. 10–50 employees)
- Geography — country, region, or city
- Headcount growth — companies growing fast are more likely to be hiring, investing, and buying
- Technologies used — if your product integrates with or replaces a specific tool, filter for companies using it
Lead filters to apply second
- Job title — use multiple variants (e.g. "Marketing Director", "Head of Marketing", "CMO")
- Seniority — filter for decision-makers: Director, VP, C-level
- Years in current role — people in a role for 1–2 years are often looking to make their mark and more open to new tools and services
- Posted on LinkedIn in last 30 days — targets people who are active on the platform and more likely to see and respond to your messages
3. Saving leads and accounts
Once you have a refined search returning the right people, save them to a Lead List in Sales Navigator. This is important for two reasons: it lets you track activity (job changes, LinkedIn posts, company news) and it's the foundation for your matched audience in LinkedIn ads.
Create separate lists for different segments — for example, "Hot prospects — contacted", "Warm — replied", "Cold — not yet contacted". Set alerts on your saved accounts so you are notified when a key contact changes job, which is one of the highest-signal buying triggers in B2B sales.
4. Exporting your leads with Evaboot
Sales Navigator does not let you export leads directly to a CSV in a usable format. This is where Evaboot comes in — a Chrome browser extension that exports your Sales Navigator lead lists into a clean, formatted CSV in one click.
What Evaboot does automatically:
- Exports all lead data (name, job title, company, LinkedIn URL, company size) into a clean spreadsheet
- Removes duplicates and cleans up special characters in names and job titles
- Finds and verifies professional email addresses for each contact
- Tags each lead with their Sales Navigator list membership
The clean CSV Evaboot produces is exactly the format LinkedIn Campaign Manager requires for uploading a matched audience. Without a clean export, you'll spend hours manually reformatting data before you can use it for ads. Evaboot turns a 2–3 hour process into 5 minutes.
Evaboot pricing starts at €9/month for 100 credits (1 credit = 1 exported lead). For most small B2B teams, the €49/month plan (5,000 credits) offers the best value. Note that you need an active Sales Navigator subscription to use Evaboot.
5. Using Sales Navigator for outreach
Before running ads, consider direct outreach to your saved leads. Sales Navigator gives you access to InMail — LinkedIn's paid messaging system that lets you message anyone on LinkedIn, even if you're not connected.
- Connection requests — free, works best with a personalised note under 200 characters. Use for warm prospects where you have a specific reason to connect
- InMail — paid, better deliverability, good for colder outreach to senior decision-makers
1 sentence on who you are. 1 sentence on what you noticed about them or their company. 1 sentence on the specific problem you help solve. 1 question to open a conversation. Total: under 100 words. Shorter messages get significantly higher response rates on LinkedIn.
6. Integrating Sales Navigator with your CRM
Sales Navigator integrates natively with HubSpot, Salesforce, and Pipedrive, allowing you to sync leads directly to your CRM without manual data entry. Enable the integration in Sales Navigator settings and any lead you save will automatically create or update a contact record in your CRM.
This means your LinkedIn outreach activity, InMail replies, and profile views are all logged alongside your email and call history in one place — giving your team full visibility of every touchpoint with a prospect.
7. Setting up LinkedIn Campaign Manager
LinkedIn ads are managed through Campaign Manager, LinkedIn's self-serve advertising platform. To access it, go to linkedin.com/campaignmanager and create an ad account linked to your company page.
Campaign Manager uses a three-level structure:
- Campaign Group — the top level, used to organise campaigns by objective or time period
- Campaign — where you set your objective, audience, budget, and schedule
- Ad — the individual creative (image, copy, headline) within a campaign
LinkedIn requires a minimum spend of around €10/day per campaign. Realistically, you need €30–50/day to gather enough data to optimise. Budget at least €500–1,000 for your first test campaign before drawing any conclusions about performance.
8. Choosing the right ad objective
LinkedIn Campaign Manager asks you to choose an objective before building your campaign. The most relevant objectives for B2B founders are:
- Brand awareness — maximises impressions. Best for: getting in front of a new audience before running lead generation campaigns
- Website visits — optimises for clicks to your website. Best for: driving traffic to a landing page or blog post
- Engagement — optimises for likes, comments, and shares. Best for: building social proof on a piece of content
- Lead generation — shows a native LinkedIn form when someone clicks your ad. Best for: collecting leads without sending people to an external website. The highest-converting option for most B2B campaigns
- Website conversions — optimises for actions on your website (form submissions, demo bookings). Best for: driving traffic to a high-converting landing page
9. Building your target audience
This is where Sales Navigator and LinkedIn ads come together. There are three ways to build your audience in Campaign Manager:
Matched audiences (most powerful)
- Export your Sales Navigator lead list using Evaboot to get a clean CSV
- In Campaign Manager, go to Plan → Audiences → Upload a list
- Upload your CSV. LinkedIn will match your contacts against its member database — typically 50–80% match rate
- Your ads will then show only to the exact people on your list
This is the most precise targeting available on any advertising platform — you are literally showing ads to a named list of your ideal customers.
Lookalike audiences
Once your matched audience is live and has at least 300 members, LinkedIn can build a lookalike audience of members with similar profiles. This is a powerful way to scale beyond your exact list while maintaining targeting quality.
Attribute-based targeting
If you don't have a list yet, you can target by job title, seniority, company size, industry, skills, and interests. Less precise than matched audiences but a good starting point for top-of-funnel campaigns.
LinkedIn recommends audiences of 50,000–500,000 for most campaigns. For matched audiences from Sales Navigator, you're likely to be working with smaller, more targeted lists of 500–5,000 people — which is fine. Smaller, more targeted audiences typically generate higher quality leads at a higher cost per click.
10. Choosing your ad format
LinkedIn offers several ad formats. For B2B lead generation, these are the most effective:
- Single image ads — the standard format. Simple, versatile, and well-tested. Good for most campaigns
- Document ads — promote a PDF download (a checklist, guide, or whitepaper) directly in the feed. Members can read the first few pages and then submit their details to download. Excellent for lead generation with a content offer
- Video ads — higher production cost but strong engagement. Best for brand awareness and explaining a complex product
- Conversation ads — delivered directly to LinkedIn Inbox, with multiple CTA buttons. High open rates but strictly regulated by LinkedIn's policies
- Lead gen forms — available with single image, video, and document ads. Pre-fills the form with the member's LinkedIn data, dramatically improving conversion rates
11. Writing ads that convert
LinkedIn ad copy follows a simple formula that applies across almost every B2B context:
- Hook — the first line must stop the scroll. Address a specific pain point or make a counterintuitive statement. "Most B2B founders are targeting the wrong people on LinkedIn" will outperform "Grow your B2B pipeline" every time
- Value proposition — what do you offer, for whom, and what result does it produce? Be specific. "We help SaaS companies with 10–50 employees reduce churn by 20% in 90 days" beats "We help companies grow"
- Social proof — one specific, credible number or customer name. "Trusted by 200+ B2B founders" or "Used by teams at HubSpot, Notion, and Figma"
- CTA — one clear, low-friction action. "Download the free guide", "Book a 20-minute call", "See how it works". Avoid "Learn more" — it converts poorly
Always run at least two ad variants per campaign and change only one element between them — the headline, the image, or the CTA. Changing multiple elements at once makes it impossible to know what drove the difference in performance.
12. Budget, bidding, and benchmarks
LinkedIn advertising is more expensive than most other platforms. Here are realistic benchmarks for B2B campaigns targeting decision-makers:
- Cost per click (CPC): €5–15 for most B2B audiences
- Cost per lead (CPL): €40–150 for lead generation form campaigns
- Click-through rate (CTR): 0.4–0.8% is typical; above 1% is strong
For bidding, start with Maximum delivery (LinkedIn's automated bidding) for your first campaigns. Once you have data and know your target CPL, switch to Manual CPC bidding to control costs more precisely.
LinkedIn ads are expensive. They make sense when your average customer lifetime value is high enough to absorb a €100+ cost per lead. If you close 1 in 10 leads and your average deal is €5,000, a €100 CPL gives you a 5:1 return on ad spend. If your average deal is €500, the maths doesn't work.
13. Measuring and optimising your campaigns
The four metrics that matter most for LinkedIn B2B campaigns:
- CTR — below 0.4% means your creative or targeting needs work
- Cost per lead — track weekly and compare against your target CPL
- Lead quality — are the leads actually converting to sales conversations? High volume, low quality means your targeting is too broad
- Pipeline value generated — the ultimate measure. How much potential revenue has this campaign added to your pipeline?
Review campaign performance weekly for the first month. Pause ads with CTR below 0.3% after 1,000 impressions. Scale budget on ads with CTR above 0.8% and CPL below your target.
The LinkedIn flywheel
Sales Navigator outreach and sponsored ads work best together. Use Sales Navigator to identify your ideal prospects and start conversations directly. Use sponsored ads to stay visible to the same audience as they move through their buying journey — so that when they're ready to buy, your name is the first one they think of.
The founders who win on LinkedIn are not the ones with the biggest budgets. They are the ones who know exactly who they want to reach, put a specific and relevant message in front of them consistently, and follow up with discipline.
Start with a Sales Navigator trial, build your first lead list of 500 ideal prospects, export it with Evaboot, and run a matched audience campaign with a €500 test budget. That single experiment will teach you more than any course.