Purpose

This recipe produces a cleaned, deduplicated CSV of 200-2,000 leads extracted from LinkedIn Sales Navigator, matching your ICP filters — with names, titles, companies, LinkedIn URLs, and optionally work emails. The output is ready for enrichment pipeline ingestion or direct CRM import.

Prerequisites

ICP definition available from persona-builder agent — ICP Definition
LinkedIn Sales Navigator — active Core ($99/mo) or Advanced ($149/mo) subscription
PhantomBuster account — API key from phantombuster.com (free tier: 2hr/day)
Sales Navigator cookie — extracted from browser session (required for PhantomBuster)

Constraints

LinkedIn allows ~80-150 profile views/day on Sales Navigator accounts. Exceeding this triggers temporary restrictions. [src1]
Connection requests capped at ~100/week across all LinkedIn account types. [src1]
PhantomBuster processes ~1 profile every 30 seconds. A batch of 500 profiles takes ~4 hours. [src2]
GDPR applies to personal data of EU residents — B2B work emails are generally permissible under legitimate interest. [src1]
Apify community scrapers are limited to ~500 profiles per session before LinkedIn detection kicks in. [src2]

Tool Selection Decision

Which path?
├── User is non-technical AND budget = free
│   └── PATH A: Manual Export — Sales Navigator CSV + Google Sheets
├── User is non-technical AND budget > $0
│   └── PATH B: No-Code Paid — PhantomBuster or Evaboot
├── User is semi-technical AND budget = free
│   └── PATH C: Apify Community Scraper (free tier)
└── User is developer AND budget > $0
    └── PATH D: PhantomBuster API + Custom Script

Path	Tools	Cost	Speed	Output Quality
A: Manual Export	Sales Navigator + Sheets	$99/mo (Nav only)	2-3 hours/200 leads	Basic — no emails
B: No-Code Paid	PhantomBuster + Nav	$168/mo	30 min/500 leads	High — with email discovery
C: Apify Free	Apify + Nav	$99/mo (Nav only)	45 min/500 leads	Medium — cap at 500/session
D: Code + Paid	PhantomBuster API + script	$168/mo	15 min/500 leads	Highest — full automation

Execution Flow

Step 1: Build Sales Navigator Boolean Search

Duration: 10-15 minutes | Tool: LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Translate your ICP into Sales Navigator boolean search queries. Use Lead filters for individual contacts. Save the search in Sales Navigator and copy the full search URL.

Verify: Search returns 200-5,000 results. If fewer than 200, broaden criteria.

Step 2: Extract Sales Navigator Cookie

Duration: 2-3 minutes | Tool: Browser DevTools

Open Sales Navigator in Chrome, press F12, navigate to Application → Cookies → linkedin.com, find the "li_at" cookie and copy its value. Paste into PhantomBuster's LinkedIn Session Cookie field.

Verify: Cookie value starts with "AQ" and is 200+ characters long.

Step 3: Configure and Run Scraper

Duration: 5-10 min setup + 30-120 min runtime | Tool: PhantomBuster

Configure the "Sales Navigator Search Export" phantom with your session cookie, search URL, and 500 profiles per run. Set time between launches to 60+ minutes and 100 lines per launch. [src1]

Verify: Row count matches expected range. No columns with 100% null values.

Step 4: Clean and Deduplicate

Duration: 10-15 minutes | Tool: Python/Sheets

Remove duplicates by LinkedIn URL, drop rows missing critical fields (name, company), normalize titles, and filter to ICP-matching titles only.

Verify: Dedup reduces list by less than 10%.

Step 5: Export Final Lead List

Duration: 5 minutes

Generate CRM-ready CSV with standardized columns: First Name, Last Name, Job Title, Company, LinkedIn URL, Location, Email, Lead Source, Date Scraped.

Output Schema

CSV with columns: First Name, Last Name, Job Title, Company, LinkedIn URL, Location, Email, Lead Source, Date Scraped. Expected 150-2,000 rows, deduplicated on LinkedIn URL, sorted by company ascending.

Quality Benchmarks

Quality Metric	Minimum	Good	Excellent
ICP title match rate	> 70%	> 85%	> 95%
Data completeness (name + company + title)	> 90%	> 95%	> 99%
Email discovery rate	> 30%	> 50%	> 70%
Duplicate rate post-dedup	< 10%	< 5%	< 2%

Error Handling

Error	Cause	Recovery
LinkedIn account restricted	Exceeded daily profile view limit	Pause 24 hours, reduce batch to 50/launch
PhantomBuster "cookie expired"	Session cookie invalidated	Re-extract li_at cookie from browser
Empty CSV output	Search URL malformed or cookie rejected	Verify search URL loads in browser, re-paste cookie
Partial extraction	Runtime limit hit	Split into multiple smaller runs
Email discovery returns 0%	LinkedIn privacy settings	Use enrichment pipeline as fallback

Cost Breakdown

Component	Free Tier	Paid Tier	At Scale
Sales Navigator	$0 (30-day trial)	$99/mo (Core)	$149/mo (Advanced)
PhantomBuster	2hr/day, 500 credits	$69/mo (20hr)	$159/mo (80hr)
Email discovery	500 included	Included	$0.10-$0.20/email
Total for 500 leads	$0	$168/mo	$308/mo

Anti-Patterns

Wrong: Running scraper at maximum speed without delays

Blasting 1,000 profile views in an hour triggers LinkedIn's automated detection. Account gets restricted for 7-30 days. [src1]

Correct: Throttle to 50-100 profiles per session with 60+ minute gaps

Spread extraction across multiple sessions with conservative launch intervals. [src1]

Wrong: Using personal LinkedIn account for scraping

If the account gets restricted, you lose your professional network and messaging history.

Correct: Use a dedicated Sales Navigator seat for scraping

Separate scraping activity from your primary account. [src4]

When This Matters

Use when the agent needs to extract a targeted lead list from LinkedIn Sales Navigator based on ICP criteria. Requires an active Sales Navigator subscription and produces a CSV ready for enrichment or CRM import.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator Scraping Workflow