How CXO Searches can be Tricky & Impact Lead Generation
Are you building lists with Sales Navigator? Expect 10% wrong companies because of this LinkedIn bug.
Example – If you perform a CXO search for C-Level executives in companies more than 500 employees, LinkedIn can return an Accountant as a valid result.
You end up adding the wrong person to your marketing list.
Here is the logic flaw that causes LinkedIn to provide false results:
Why does the CXO Search go wrong
The flaw happens if a person shows 2 or more present companies in his LinkedIn profile. For example, say if an accountant happens to work for a company that has more than 500 employees, but also shows they are the owner of a bakery, BOD of a nonprofit, or such equivalents, then you get the false results.
LinkedIn Shows them as matched –
CEO Matched at company-A and >500 EMP matched at another company-B.
LinkedIn doesn’t look if the title is in the same company
Sales Navigator doesn’t see if both the criteria are met by the person in the same company! Sales Navigator results have to be examined carefully if we search for more than one field in Lead Search.
Luckily, 90%+ people show only one present company and Sales Navigator is accurate for them.
10% have 2 or more Present Companies
In most industries, 10% of the people have 2 or more present companies where this LinkedIn flaw is impacting. The problem is worse if you are looking for CXO-level people at a large company. Hundreds of people in large companies can have a side consulting or small bakery or so where they are the CXO. These people show up as CXO of a large company because of the LinkedIn logic flaw.
LinkedIn Errors Appear on Higher Page#
Most of the casual users don’t encounter this flaw because, like in Google, they work with the first page of the search results. As a general rule, LinkedIn ranks people with one present company higher and appears on the first page. It is the middle and later pages where the error is more prevalent. So it is the list builders who mostly encounter this problem.
When you are looking at prospect results, it is best to double verify prospect match if you find they show they are part of more than one company, This small check can help improve email marketing conversions. If you want to manually go through the entire list, it would take a lot of your time & effort. LeadGrabber tool quickly flags these companies for manual verification.
Sales Navigator Industry Match is Misunderstood
There is a more common error related to the way people think the Industry field works and the way it works in Account and Lead Research. More details on that in another post.
