What Does LinkedIn Sales Navigator Do, Function by Function

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is LinkedIn's paid selling tool. It does three jobs on top of the LinkedIn network:

1. It finds the people and companies you want to sell to, through search.
2. It tells you when something changes at the leads and accounts you have saved.
3. It lets you start a conversation with those people from inside the tool.

LinkedIn's developer documentation on Microsoft Learn calls these jobs target, understand and engage (LinkedIn Sales Navigator documentation).

Two practical facts belong next to that answer. Connecting Sales Navigator to HubSpot or to Dynamics 365 Sales requires the Advanced Plus tier for the full integration, according to both vendors' own help pages. And whatever the search returns is raw material for a list: someone still has to check it, verify the addresses and run a sequence before a single meeting gets booked.

What happens when Sales Navigator shows up inside other software?

The same documentation shows a second side of the product. Through the Sales Navigator Application Platform (SNAP), approved partners place Sales Navigator modules inside other software, such as a CRM screen. So there are two answers: what you do in the tool, and what its data does once another program displays it.

That second answer can catch a new user out. Outreach's Sales Navigator FAQ says you need to click on the tile to view the profile, and that click triggers a notification to the prospect. So watch what your reps click: the click through to the profile is what the prospect hears about.

My team pulls names from Sales Navigator next to Apollo and UpLead, because a list built from several real databases beats anything scraped in bulk. Sales Navigator earns its place as one source. It is not the whole list.

How does Sales Navigator work from search to first message?

A seat holder works through five actions, usually in this order:

1. Search. Run a people search or a company search for the buyers you want.
2. Open the result. A profile shows the person and an account shows the company, with recent activity and posts, so you can read what someone has been talking about before you write.
3. Save it. Save the lead or account so it appears in your lists and in the change suggestions; LinkedIn also records saves per seat, next to searches, profile views and InMails sent (Analytics Services documentation).
4. Watch for changes. This is the "understand" job: suggestions about changes at leads and companies.
5. Reach out. Send a connection request or a message, including InMail.

Which CRM connections need which Sales Navigator plan?

The CRM vendors document three connections themselves, and all three name the same tier: Advanced Plus. The CRM side has its own requirement too, so check both before anyone buys anything.

Microsoft also sells a bundle. Its Relationship Sales subscription combines Dynamics Sales Enterprise with Sales Navigator Advanced Plus licenses (Microsoft: Dynamics 365 Sales and Sales Navigator integration).

The tier is only half the bill. Here is what the CRM vendors' published price pages show, at the time of writing:

Microsoft notes that its prices can differ by currency, country or region at checkout.

My rule comes before any of this: get a CRM, whichever one, so every reply lands somewhere and no lead gets lost. Connect LinkedIn data to it after that. So:

• If LinkedIn data on your CRM records is the reason you want Sales Navigator: budget the tier and the CRM seats together, because both have to be in place.
• If you mainly need to find and contact people: the connectors can wait until you have a CRM worth connecting.

These requirements and prices were current at the time of writing. Vendors change them, so read the pages above on the day you buy.

What shows up inside your CRM once it is connected?

HubSpot record cards

On a contact record, the card shows the person's LinkedIn job title, company, time in the current role, location and industry. Three tabs sit under it:

• Icebreakers: shared connections, experiences and interests.
• Get introduced.
• Related leads.

On a company record, the card shows industry, size and location. Its tabs are Overview, Find People, Relationship Map, Connections and News. From either record, a rep can save the lead to a Sales Navigator list or send an InMail.

HubSpot CRM Sync

CRM Sync works at the level of objects:

• HubSpot contacts pair with LinkedIn leads.
• Companies pair with accounts.
• Deals pair with opportunities.

It can also pull HubSpot contacts and companies into a Sales Navigator list. And it can include or leave out matched records in Sales Navigator searches.

That last option matters for prospecting. If your CRM holds your customers and open deals, leaving matched records out of a search keeps those people off a new outreach list. Nobody on your team sends a cold message to someone a colleague is already selling to.

Two limits come with it. A HubSpot account can link to only a single Sales Navigator environment at once. The sync settings also cannot be edited after setup, so switching the sync off means uninstalling the app.

Dynamics 365 Sales

Microsoft's lead control has four parts:

• a top card;
• News, with icebreakers;
• Connections, with a Get Introduced option;
• Related Leads, which points to other likely decision-makers on a deal.

The account control adds Account IQ, which gives AI-generated insights on the account. Its Find Key People module is one place where Microsoft spells out a tier difference: Advanced Plus users can search for leads that match a chosen buyer persona, while Advanced users see only lead recommendations.

Any control action that writes into Dynamics, the Add to CRM button for example, needs CRM sync switched on. Bulk import is a separate question, answered in the FAQ below.

Two documented failure points are worth fixing before rollout:

1. Email mismatch. Microsoft names a mismatch between the user's email in Dynamics 365 and the email on their Sales Navigator seat as a reason CRM sync cannot be switched on for that seat. Line the two up first.
2. On-premises setups. On-premises Dynamics 2016 and every later on-premises version lack support for CRM sync and the features built on it.

Where does Sales Navigator fit when you build an outbound list?

In my team's campaigns, Sales Navigator sits at the very start, before verification, sequences and reply handling.

Meetings come from the outreach that follows. I walk through one full example in the situation section below: a US business consulting and coaching firm.

The full method, from first source to final file, is in how to build a B2B lead list from several sources.

How do you prospect on LinkedIn with Sales Navigator, step by step?

Run these six steps in order. Steps 1 and 2 happen before you open Sales Navigator at all.

1. Begin with your own customer base. List your current and past clients. Then look for companies similar to them in size, structure and buying habits. Before any search, I go through a client's existing customers and only then look for similar companies.
2. Find out who actually signed. Go back through past deals and write down the person who made the decision on each one. My team works out the real decision-maker on past projects before a single list gets built.
3. Search with the niche's real titles. Turn the titles from step 2 into a boolean string (wanted titles joined with OR, unwanted ones removed with NOT) you can reuse in every source. Generic titles such as Assistant and Associate come off my lists entirely.
4. Add a second database. Run the same titles and companies through another source, such as Apollo or UpLead, so the list does not rest on one database.
5. Before sending, verify each address. Run each email through a verification tool. My team keeps the bounce rate under 0.5%. Before any send, audit the lead list line by line.
6. Put a CRM under it. Every reply should land in one place where someone owns it. Without one, replies scatter across personal inboxes and leads get lost.

An illustrative string for a supplier selling to procurement teams at contractors:

("Head of Procurement" OR "Procurement Director" OR "Operations Director") NOT (Assistant OR Associate)

This string only shows the shape. Use the titles you wrote down in step 2.

Which situation calls for Sales Navigator, and which does not?

Start from the job you need done, then check whether this tool covers it.

One real case shows the first and last rows working together. My team ran LinkedIn outbound plus LinkedIn content for it, the founder's profile was optimized first, and Sales Navigator was the list tool. Of its connection requests, 38 of 98 were accepted, a 39% connection rate, and my team booked 27, 35 and 64 sales calls in months 1 to 3, with 204 in 4 months.

The profile work, the content and the messages did the booking. The list tool only supplied names. An average message sent from a strong profile will win over a flawless one sent from a ghost account, every single time.

One warning on the first row. If your searches only turn up 50 to 100 perfect-fit names a month, I would not build a pipeline on that alone: some of those people will be busy, some not ready and some not interested, so the outcome is a coin toss.

Volume negates luck. So widen the titles from your past deals and add a second source before you judge the tool.

Whether a seat pays off for a small team is a separate question, covered in whether Sales Navigator is worth buying for a small team. If you are weighing other tools, see LinkedIn Sales Navigator alternatives.

Wondering if a Sales Navigator seat is worth it for your team? Book a call and tell me your market and who does the prospecting. I will give you my view.