Top Linkedin Lead Generation Services, Companies and Agencies in 2023
Source: InfluencerMarketingHub
94% of marketers use LinkedIn to distribute content because LinkedIn lead generation campaigns and other interactions are considered the most effective for B2B companies on this social media platform.
It’s effective for B2B sales because the platform was built for connection purposes, plus it contains 660 million professional members, most of whom are active on the channel. It also lists things like job titles and company size which are critical to finding the right prospects.
While online advertising, social media, outbound emails, SEO, and your overall online presence all work together over the longer term, LinkedIn use for marketing (when done right) is a proven sales funnel method. It has the potential for generating leads fast and, most importantly, building lasting relationships of engagement.
However, as popular as it’s become for lead generation, always keep in mind that it was created to be a network-focused community, not a place to push as many people for sales as possible.
LinkedIn has strict terms, and many people are going directly against their terms of service by using automation bots. I’ve seen countless individuals get their LinkedIn profiles banned or restricted by using automation tools.
Simply put, using automation is risky.
It’s a good idea to use expert services: not only can they save you money, but they get results and keep your reputation intact.
In this article, we furnish you with the top most reputable LinkedIn lead generation services, and also provide tips for choosing the best solution.
What is LinkedIn Lead Generation?
LinkedIn lead generation is a process of securing leads for your business from the LinkedIn platform that will result in a boosted sales pipeline.
It works well (for certain B2B industries) because a) your target audience is already on it, and b) it is used for business and connecting, unlike Facebook for instance, which is built for socializing and keeping in touch with friends and family.
But … there’s no silver bullet to effective lead generation, and LinkedIn is no exception.
What You Need to Know about LinkedIn Lead Generation
Although LinkedIn can be an exceptional lead generation tool, as with all marketing channels it does not work for every industry, nor does it work for B2C, and technique is critical to success. In order for it to work for your business, this is what you need to know:
Target persona
LinkedIn will only work for you if your target persona uses the platform; your target market has to be very familiar with this platform specifically.
Stand out
Unfortunately, when something works well to generate leads, you’re always going to get the guys that use it unwisely and make it more difficult for the rest of us to be effective. Standing out is key, and to stand out, you need to do things manually and personalize communication instead of using automated tools and chatbot messaging.
What’s important to LinkedIn’s should be important to you
To keep within LinkedIn’s boundaries, it will serve you well to understand what’s important to it, and work around that to ensure your profile is not shut down.
LinkedIn’s mission is to “connect the world's professionals to make them more productive and successful.” So it’s fine for you to connect, but spamming hundreds of professionals on the platform without offering any value or relevance is a poor and ineffective lead generation strategy that will produce minimal results.
Manual outreach is best
LinkedIn prospecting of yesteryear was still largely effective using automation and chatbots, but once a popular automation tool got shut down, LinkedIn got seriously smart about tools that were violating its terms. Today LinkedIn has algorithms that detect the tools you use and it’s strict about stopping abuse of its system.
Automated tools make certain assumptions that are now always true—that searches are always correct, and that LinkedIn members add details to their profile correctly. On top of this, professionals abhor spam, and this is the root cause of why automation is not as effective as carrying out lead gen by hand.
In addition, LinkedIn has invitation limitations in place, and you may be prohibited from sending invitations temporarily if:
You send a lot of invitations within a short period of time.
Your invitations are either ignored by recipients, left pending, or marked as spam by the recipients.
In 2021, LinkedIn throttled down the amount of acceptable connection invitations to about 75 a day, and this number is likely to drop even more in the future.
To this effect, quality is key so that your invitations get a response—and automated software and bots are not generally built for this; instead, they are usually built for quantity, which does not encourage the best results. For LinkedIn, the best way to get high-quality leads is for experienced marketers to create a manual LinkedIn lead generation process.
Expertise = make or break
We’ve ascertained that hand-selection is superior for LinkedIn lead gen. Yes, it’s slower and more complicated, but it absolutely yields better results.
But with doing things manually comes doing it expertly. It’s recommended that if you don’t have a team that specializes in LinkedIn lead generation, outsourcing is the next best thing.
If you’re a smaller business that wants to do your lead generation, be prepared to make continual adjustments and improvements until you start to win. It will take practice.
Types of LinkedIn Lead Generation Services
There are two choices of LinkedIn lead generation:
Agencies: provided you find the right agency, especially one that uses a manual process, they are likely to provide high-quality leads together with a strategy that improves your brand reputation. In addition, a (good) agency will not get your LinkedIn profile banned.
Automation tools: while you might use them within your overall LinkedIn lead generation strategy, on the whole we do not recommend them. This is because:
They are short-term thinking and likely to get your profile banned
They do not produce the best results
They may harm your reputation
Factors to Consider when Selecting a Linkedin Lead Generation Agency
As with any service or product, not all LinkedIn lead generation agencies provide the same quality of service. We understand that marketing may not be your core strength and because of this people might try to take advantage of that. It is important to find a credible agency with experience and proven expertise. The following list of factors should help you to make the best choice:
Quality
Look for an agency that provides a few good leads instead of hundreds of poor ones. It’s better to pay triple the amount for high-quality leads that turn into sales rather than pay peanuts to a cheap agency that uses tools to get hundreds of poor quality, irrelevant leads that end up in very few deals.
Realistic
If an agency promises 4–20 warm leads every week, run away... fast. In reality, no one can promise across the board results like that. Every business is different, so your agency should be estimating a realistic amount of leads for your specific business. Be aware that those agencies who are after making a quick buck off you may promise the world but it is unrealistic and they will probably not deliver.
References
Check references because this is the closest thing you have to a guarantee that they are experts at what they do and can indeed deliver. Be aware that there are a lot of "churn and burn" agencies out there who don't care about their customers. Ask for a few references from customers and check their websites for testimonials, case studies, and use cases. Bear in mind that some cheapskate agencies might provide good reviews which have been bought.
Price
In the case of lead generation agencies, you get what you pay for. Go cheap and you will get poor quality results and a waste of money.
Differentiating factor
Each agency should provide some kind of differentiating factor as to why you should choose them. Be sure to match what they offer to what you are looking for. Some may even specialize in certain niches and this could be helpful.
Top Linkedin Lead Generation Agencies
Not all Linkedin lead generation agencies are made equal. We've put the very best ones in a list:
Lead Cookie
Lead Cookie specialize in B2B LinkedIn lead generation and boast an internal research and verification team to ensure that their targeting produces unparalleled relevance between their clients and the leads they procure on LinkedIn.
Between their 35 in-house experts, and without utilizing any automated tools, they hand-qualify every single lead they reach out to so that not even one connection request is wasted on a lead that is not the right fit.
What is particularly impressive is that they make it clear that they only take on clients they know they can actually achieve results for.
Working with the systems you already have in place, they run small batches, but highly targeted campaigns that are relevant to produce high conversion rates.
Do more research: On their site, find success stories and the numbers around how many companies they’ve helped.
Legendary Leadgen
For their clients, Legendary Leadgen apply a thoughtful, personalized, and value-first approach to outreach on LinkedIn; their aim for clients is to build meaningful relationships with prospects by using a completely manual approach.
Do more research: on their site, find testimonials, brands they’ve secured work with for their clients, and subscribe to their podcast.
LinkedSelling
LinkedSelling helps companies schedule sales appointments with hard-to-reach decision-makers by using a multi-channel outbound approach for quality conversations.
Do more research: scroll through their listed recognitions, testimonials, and case studies.
BrightestMinds.io
Using a combination of automation technology and humans, BrightestMinds target B2B prospects on LinkedIn, but always send out personalized messages.
Do more research: on their website, find numbers of how many companies they’ve helped and case studies.
Pearl Lemon Leads
Pearl Lemon Leads promises to message 600 qualified LinkedIn leads per month for you. They use a multi-channel approach and guarantee their methods will not get your LinkedIn profile banned as they stay within the LinkedIn terms.
Do more research: on their website, watch them cold call live to set up appointments, read case studies, and watch a video about how they find qualified leads.
LeadLaunch
Using LinkedIn’s own search functionality and group searches with filters, LeadLaunch source new leads and connects with them through LinkedIn Messenger and provide clients with a custom-designed live Lead Tracker on Google Sheets so you can see actual results. They utilize software in the process.
Do more research: on their website, view actual responses they’ve received from prospects, as well as success stories.
Linked Into Leads
Linked Into Leads say they use a proven step-by-step proven LinkedIn lead generation process to procure new business for their clients.
Do more research: Find testimonials, background of the CEO, and their social media marketing communities including Facebook and Twitter on their website.
Lead Lemonade
Lead Lemonade say they know how to generate B2B leads from companies with big budgets, and their clients only pay for the leads they secure. They define leads as those who respond to their outreach and that meet your criteria, and who complete a sales call with you.
On average, they claim ten B2B lead generations per month.
Do more research: you’ll find testimonials on their website.
Perfect Boom
Perfect Boom are slightly different to the other agencies listed in that they offer a consultative role with your LinkedIn strategy. But they will also optimize your LinkedIn profile for you, and provide a LinkedIn lead generation service that is tailored to your objectives, whether that be sales or building credibility as a thought leader.
This agency only serve those companies they know they can get good results for.
Do more research: you’ll find testimonials, case studies, and podcast interviews on this site.
Optamark Digital
Using an automated system and your brand personality in natural-sounding messaging, Optamark Digital give clients their own dashboard from which to manage the leads they source for you on LinkedIn.
Do more research: read through testimonials.
Twiz.io
Placing heavy emphasis on the onboarding process, Twiz.io offer you your own campaign manager to manage the sourcing of leads which are placed directly into your calendar for you to call. You can expect 1–5 meetings a week.
Do more research: look through success stories and testimonials on their website.
ZealousWeb
ZealousWeb first study your business and strategize the LinkedIn lead generation process they will use for you. They offer two monthly packages; on one package, 600–800 connection requests are sent, and with the other package, 1,200–1,500 requests are sent.
Do more research: you can find testimonials and case studies on their website, however, these are for the other services they provide, not their LinkedIn lead gen deals.
Abstrakt Marketing Group
Abstrakt Marketing Group offer four types of LinkedIn lead generation:
LinkedIn posts and articles
LinkedIn ads and marketing management
Connection requests and sponsored Inmail campaigns
LinkedIn profile page optimization
The agency use your company’s page as well as the personal profile of a key senior-level decision-maker in the company to increase brand awareness, for quality content marketing, and to build your LinkedIn network.
Do more research: look through video testimonials (although they do offer other services, so check for LinkedIn lead gen testimonials specifically).
FANNIT
FANNIT offer 4-stack lead generation, of which LinkedIn is one. Different from the other agencies on this list, the FANNIT process for LinkedIn lead generation is not a do-it-for-you solution, but instead comes in the form of a ready-made strategy, together with leads, and information for you and your team to use and execute.
Do more research: check out awards won and case studies.
100 Pound Social
Clear and upfront, 100 Pound Social offer done-for-you LinkedIn lead generation, and 3 profile posts a month. You must already have LinkedIn Sales Navigator, and they recommend you also already have at least 300 connections.
What’s different about their service is that they offer a 20-day guarantee: if you are not completely satisfied after 20 days, they’ll refund you.
Do more research: find testimonials and case studies on the site.
For the Solopreneur
LinkedIn Ninja
While we cannot list this service as a top LinkedIn lead generation service, we’ve added it for the benefit of small business owners or solopreneurs who can’t afford the more professional agencies. LinkedIn Ninja is targeted at small businesses and solopreneurs, and their specialty is financial advisors. While this service may give the small business owner the opportunity of getting on to LinkedIn with a limited budget, it is not ideal due to poorer quality.
However, for companies whose focus is not on brand awareness (yet), and strictly on sales leads, it may be an option.
But...do your homework!
Do more research: check things like response rate on what they post, and the actual writing in posts.