LinkedIn And Sales Navigator Advanced Search Filters: 15 Tips You MUST Know

LinkedIn is a great place to search for B2B prospects. But how to leverage LinkedIn search filters to get most of its data and find the right prospect?
In this tutorial, we will cover the most effective ways to find leads on LinkedIn.
The most common way to search leads on LinkedIn is to use Boolean Search.
LinkedIn Boolean Search uses operators in a similar way Google Search does.
Here is the full list of operators you can use to narrow down search results on LinkedIn:
- AND: CMO AND SaaS
- OR: CMO OR CEO
- NOT: CMO NOT Senior
- "": "UX Designer"
- (): CMO AND (Startup OR SaaS)
AND, OR, NOT only works as operators when written in capital letters in your search query.
Let's say you want to find CMO's but only profiles working for SaaS or Startups.
Here are some LinkedIn boolean search string examples:
Or you could type it like this:
You could also leverage LinkedIn Negative Filters to exclude a keyword from your search.
An example to search for Startup founders but excluding co-founders from search results:

Another example is using AND, OR, and parenthetical searches ().
Type the above query in the LinkedIn search bar at the top of your feed:

Then click the People filter only to get profiles. you can also use an additional filter like:
- Connections: filter by connection degree
- Locations: filter by geography
- Current company: filter by current or past experience

To collect those profiles data, you can use TexAu's Extract profiles From LinkedIn Search automation:

Try it here: Marketing Automation | TexAu
You can also use Boolean Search on Sales Navigator, but this method is not the most accurate.
You can use boolean search operators in these Sales Navigator filters like:
- Keywords
- Company
- Industry
- Function
- Title


To extract any Sales Navigator Search Filters, you can use TexAu's Scrape Linkedin Sales Navigator Leads Search Result automation:

Try it here: Marketing Automation | TexAu
You can easily filter profiles by connection degree from LinkedIn Search.
Enter a blank search and then click on to "People" tab then "Connections" to filter by first, second, or third connection degree relationship:


To collect those profiles, you can also use TexAu's Extract profiles From LinkedIn Search automation:

Try it here: Marketing Automation | TexAu
You can do the same on Sales Navigator, displaying more results (up to 2500 profiles per search). In addition, you can filter profiles by connection degree under the "Relationship" tab:


To collect those profiles, you can also use TexAu's Scrape Linkedin Sales Navigator Leads Search Result automation:

Try it here: Marketing Automation | TexAu
You can also use LinkedIn Boolean Search to find trending topics. For this, instead of using the People filter, you will use the LinkedIn Post filter:

Here you can search for a particular topic, then filter by:
- Posted by: You or your 1st connection degree
- Date posted: past 24 hours, week or month
- Top match and latest posts: from most relevant to recent posts
- Author industry: by verticals
For this, you can use TexAu's LinkedIn Content Search Extractor:

Try it here: Marketing Automation | TexAu
And the cool thing is that you can use TexAu to do those content searches without even opening LinkedIn at all. All possible in-app!

Negative filters allow to make hyper-targeted and narrow leads search filters on Sales Navigator.
Here is what I mean by a narrow filter:

Those negative filters appear in red on the left tab above.
To do this, hover on the blue bubble in the right corner. Then click on the small stop sign to turn it into a negative filter:


This way, you can remove any unwanted results like trainees, apprentices, students from job titles or exclude homonym companies and your existing clients from the list.
Negative filters are also helpful to divide profile search results to extract data by batches of multiple search URLs. For example, this will allow you to extract all the search results with more than 2500 profiles.
To remove employees from a company in your filters (ex: existing clients or direct competitors), you will sometimes have to exclude twice the same company name from Sales Navigator using a negative filter.
- Click on the company logo to add the filter
- Turn it to a negative filter
- Type the same company name again, but this time without the auto-suggested result.
- Turn it to a negative filter again Please don't ask me why it's like that, but that's how it works.
To extract this Sales Navigator Search filter, you can also use TexAu's Scrape Linkedin Sales Navigator Leads Search Result automation.

Try it here: Marketing Automation | TexAu
If you want to scrape all the leads from a search filter, but the number of results exceeds 2500 profiles, try to divide your search with negative filters to stay below 1400 profiles. The reason is, TexAu only extracts up to 1425 profiles per search from LinkedIn API (faster and doesn't need to scrape all the search pages one by one).
Select the tab filter "Posted on LinkedIn in past 30 days" under the Spotlights section:


Selecting those active profiles will significantly increase your reply rate.
The reason is: that the more active a profile is on LinkedIn, the more likely they will check their pending connection requests and messages.
To extract those profiles, you can use TexAu's Scrape Linkedin Sales Navigator Leads Search Result automation.

Try it here: Marketing Automation | TexAu
By default, Sales Navigator search results display a maximum of 2500 profiles or 100 pages per search (25 profiles per page). So how can we overcome that and process ALL the search results each time we run a workflow?
Simple. In your LinkedIn Sales Navigator account, go to your "Saved Search" filter list.
Then select the filter below "Remove Viewed Leads From Search."
That way, each time TexAu processes a saved search filter, all previously viewed profiles won't show up in search results anymore. Instead, only new profiles will show.
That way, if you schedule a single automation or a workflow, you'll scrape only new results, overcoming the 2500 Sales Navigator profile view limit.
This method implies scraping (opening and visiting) the profile pages from the list, not the basic profile information from search results. In addition, this method is slow (50-80 profiles per day) and bound by the LinkedIn daily limit. There is another "fast" method for bulk data extraction, but less accurate. We'll cover in another tutorial for B2B email extraction.


To display only new profiles from search, you have to visit each profile page. It's a slow process (50 to 80 pages per day) but gives the most data about a profile.
To extract unique profiles from search results, you can build a simple workflow like this:
- Scrape LinkedIn Sales Navigator Leads Search Results
- Scrape a LinkedIn Sales Navigator Profile

Another handy filter: Remove Contacted Leads From Search.
You can access this filter under the Past Lead and Account Activity section.
This filter will remove all profiles you already sent messages on LinkedIn or Sales Navigator.
That way, you can solely focus on new prospects you never interacted with before.

For more effectiveness, you can combine this with Remove viewed Leads from Search filter.

To extract those profiles, you can use TexAu's Scrape Linkedin Sales Navigator Leads Search Result spice.

Try it here: Marketing Automation | TexAu
Sales Navigator Spotlights also has a neat filter. For example, you can find LinkedIn Influencer's profile mentioned in the news in the past 30 days.
These mentions are a great way to find influencers on LinkedIn and use flattery to congratulate them for their achievements. It appeals to status and prestige and is a piece of great information you can leverage in your icebreakers to personalize your messages.

This filter also gives all the articles links that mention these prospects:

To extract those profiles, you can use TexAu's Scrape Linkedin Sales Navigator Leads Search Result spice.

Try it here: Marketing Automation | TexAu
If a prospect follows your company, he is more likely to connect with you.
Thankfully you can also use Sales Navigator Search Filters to find these leads.
You can use the filter "Leads that follow your company on LinkedIn" and extract those profiles for future outreach campaigns in TexAu.

Then you can extract those leads using TexAu's Scrape Linkedin Sales Navigator Leads Search Result spice.
To extract those profiles, you can use TexAu's Scrape Linkedin Sales Navigator Leads Search Result spice.

Try it here: Marketing Automation | TexAu
On Linkedin, it's easy to find employees from any company.
First, go to the company official LinkedIn page and click on the "People" tab:


Then type the roles and their location. It will give you the corresponding employees.
You can search multiple job titles, comma-separated like "CEO, CMO, etc..".

Alternatively, you could do the same and extract all this data on autopilot with TexAu's Extract Any Company Employees On Linkedin spice:

Try it here: Marketing Automation | TexAu
You can also search for people titles or Linkedin Search and extract them with TexAu's Extract Profiles From Linkedin Search.

Try it here: Marketing Automation | TexAu

Last, you can also use TexAu's Prospector to make all the above on autopilot and return B2B emails of these profiles:

Try it here: Marketing Automation | TexAu
You can also search for employees of a company in LinkedIn Sales Navigator with many granular details. Sales Navigator also returns more results (up to 2500 profiles per search) than regular LinkedIn searches.

You can also extract those leads using TexAu's Scrape Linkedin Sales Navigator Leads Search Result spice:

Try it here: Marketing Automation | TexAu
On LinkedIn, you can search groups from LinkedIn Search.
Enter a keyword or topic, then select the "Groups" tab to find a list of related LinkedIn groups:

After joining one of these groups, you could scrape each group member using TexAu's Linkedin Group Members spice:

Try it here: Marketing Automation | TexAu
Even better, streamline the process combine the above spices in a workflow:
- Extract Profiles From LinkedIn Search
- LinkedIn Group Members

In Sales Navigator, you can extract profiles belonging to any LinkedIn Groups, even those you aren't part of:

You can also find your mutual Group Members On Sales Navigator from the "Relationship" section:


To extract those profiles, you can use TexAu's Scrape Linkedin Sales Navigator Leads Search Result spice.

Try it here: Marketing Automation | TexAu
One of the best Sales Navigator filters is Company Headcount Growth.
This filter can narrow companies with positive or negative growth rates:
- Positive: from 0 to +100, companies that hire more employees and grow (have money and needs)
- Negative: from 0 to -100, companies that lay-off staff after economic hardship or merger.

Another great filter only available to Sales Navigator users: Technologies used.
This filter reveals mainly "front-end" technologies (technologies used on websites), not "back-end" (like servers or infrastructures or CRMs and ERPs).
This filter can narrow companies that use specific web technology, for example, Shopify stores:

Another good source of networking is to leverage school Alumni networks on LinkedIn.
First, you can search schools from LinkedIn search:

Then enter the name of the school you want, let's say Princeton.
Then once landed on the school page, select "People" to find its Alumni:


Try it here: Marketing Automation | TexAu
On Sales Navigator, you can easily find profiles who studied at a specific school:

To extract those Alumni profiles, you can use TexAu's Scrape Linkedin Sales Navigator Leads Search Result spice.

Try it here: Marketing Automation | TexAu
Not only can you find and extract the school's Alumni, but you can also do the same for the school institutions. For example, using the Industry filter "Higher Education":

To extract those schools, you can use TexAu's Linkedin Company Search Extractor spice.

Try it here: Marketing Automation | TexAu
Last on the list: LinkedIn Learning Courses.
On LinkedIn, you can easily find courses about any topic. Enter any keyword on the search bar and select "Courses":

You will soon be able to extract these Course titles we TexAu's upcoming LinkedIn Courses Search Extractor.
That's it! You are now a LinkedIn Search expert! You will end up using these search filters a lot with TexAu, often at the start of your workflow. Then from the top of the funnel, you will dig deeper to automate your Social Selling game and outreach to target profiles in your industry.