Transcription
Hey guys, today we're diving into the ultimate guide on how to scrape unlimited LinkedIn leads and automate the entire process. Whether you're looking to supercharge your sales, recruit top talent, or level up your marketing game, this video is going to give you all the tools and steps you need to get it done. We'll walk through each part of the setup so you can follow along and get results right away. Sound good? Let's jump right in!
First off, thank you for coming back and a big welcome to all of the new subscribers joining us today. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Jake Dawson, your go-to guy for AI sales automation and workflow hacks that are easy to understand and even easier to apply. And hey, if you're new here, don't forget to check out the School Community linked below. It's packed with templates, resources, and an amazing group of like-minded people all working on cool stuff like this. Plus, you can grab the exact blueprint we're using in this video and start right away.
Okay, enough chitchat, let's get into it. So, here's the plan: we're going to use four tools. Appify to scrape LinkedIn profile URLs, Make.com to automate the process, Google Sheets to organize the data, and Derek, a Chrome extension, to enrich those leads with more details. Trust me, by the end of this, you'll have a LinkedIn lead machine working for you while you sip on your coffee.
All right, let's really break this down and get set up with Appify. Imagine having an assistant that works tirelessly, doesn't take coffee breaks, and never complains about overtime. That's what Appify feels like. It's this amazing platform that can scrape data from the web, and honestly, it's a lifesaver if you're trying to pull LinkedIn profiles without spending hours doing it manually.
Okay, first things first, head over to Appify.com. Signing up is quick and painless. Just create your account, verify your email, and you're good to go. Once you're in, take a moment to look around. You'll see a sleek dashboard with tools Appify calls them actors that can perform a wide variety of tasks. It's like walking into a gadget shop where every tool is designed to make your life easier. On the left-hand side, there's a menu, and you'll see options called the Appify Store. Click on that. It's essentially an app store, but for scraping tools. Instead of downloading games or productivity apps that you'll forget to use, you're grabbing tools that can scrape hundreds of LinkedIn profiles with just a few clicks. In the search bar, type "LinkedIn profile URL scraper from Google." Yeah, the name's a bit of a mouthful, but it does exactly what it says. When you find it, click on it, and let's get into the good stuff.
Here's where things get even better. Appify operates on a pay-per-use model. That means you're not locked into any subscriptions, and they even give you $5 in free credits to start. That's more than enough to scrape a decent number of LinkedIn profiles without spending a dime. Once you're on the scraper's page, you'll see a brief overview on what this actor does. Take a second to read it because it gives you a good sense of what to expect. Scroll down a bit, and you'll find the input configuration section. This is where the magic happens. In the input configuration, you'll need to fill in some fields. For the keyword, let's keep it simple and type in "sales manager." This tells the scraper what type of LinkedIn profiles to search for. Next, for the location, enter "United States." If you want to target a different region later, you can easily update this field. Finally, there's an option for the number of pages to scrape. Think of this as how deep into the Google search results you'll want the scraper to go. For now, set it to one, and this is just for testing so we can make sure everything's running smoothly before we go big. Once you've got your details entered, click "Save and Start." Now, sit back and let the actor do its thing. You'll see a progress bar indicating the status of your scrape. Depending on the search parameters, it might take a couple of minutes. This is the perfect time to go grab a coffee or simply marvel at how much work this tool is saving you. Once it's done, you'll have a data set filled with LinkedIn profile URLs. It's like opening a treasure chest, but instead of gold coins, you get leads that could turn into gold in your sales funnel. But we're just getting started. Scraping is only step one.
Now, we're going to make the process seamless with automation using Make.com. If you don't have a Make.com account yet, go ahead and sign up. It's a straightforward process, no unnecessary hoops to jump through. Once you're logged in, click on "Create a new scenario." A scenario is essentially a workspace where you build your automation flow. Think of it as your command center for getting tools like Appify, Google Sheets, and others to talk to each other. Let's name this scenario something fun like "LinkedIn Scrape Automation." Giving it a cool name makes it feel like you're building something epic, which you are.
The first module we're going to add is from the "Tools" category. Click the little plus button to add the module, search for "Tools," and select "Set multiple variables." This is where we define dynamic variables that we'll reuse throughout the workflow. Inside this module, add two variables. The first one is called "keyword," and its value will be "sales manager." The second is "location," and its value will be "United States." These variables allow us to keep the workflow flexible. If you want to scrape a different job title or target a new location in the future, you can just update these variables instead of rebuilding the whole scenario from scratch.
Now, let's integrate Appify into this workflow. Add another module, search for "Appify," and select "Run an actor." Before you can use this module, you'll need to connect your Appify account to Make.com. Go back to your Appify dashboard, click on "Settings," and navigate to the "API and Integration" section. There you'll find your API token. Copy that. It's like your golden ticket to link Appify to Make.com. In Make.com, paste the token into the Appify module setup, and voila, the connection is established. In the Appify module, you'll see a dropdown to select an actor. Choose the "LinkedIn profile URL scraper from Google." Next, you'll notice a field for "Input JSON." This is where we enter our search parameters.
Now, pause for a second and open up a new tab in your browser. Go back to the Appify website and log in. Head to your Appify dashboard and find the "LinkedIn profile URL scraper" under your saved actors. Click on it, and you'll land on the actor's main page. At the top of the page, you'll see two buttons. One says "Manual," and right next to it, there's a button labeled "JSON." This is the one we need. Go ahead and click on the JSON button, and a field will appear with some code in it. Don't panic, it's not as scary as it looks. That code is your JSON template. It's like a set of instructions for the scraper, telling it what to look for. Highlight all the text in that field, right-click, and select "Copy." Now, switch back to Make.com. In the "Input JSON" field, right-click and select "Paste." You've just pasted the instructions into the field. Nice work.
Here's where it gets a little bit cooler. Right now, the JSON has hard-coded values. For example, it might say something like "keywords: sales manager" and "location: United States." But here's the thing: we don't want to hardcode these values. Instead, we want the scraper to pull them dynamically from the variables we set up earlier. To make that happen, look for the values in the JSON that you want to replace and replace it with the "keyword" from our first module. Do the same thing for "location." Find the location variable and replace "United States" with our "location" from our first module. This little tweak makes your workflow dynamic, so you can change the job title or location anytime without having to edit the JSON manually. Once you've made those changes, double-check that everything looks good. If everything looks solid, click "OK" to save the configuration.
Now that the scraping part is automated, we need to fetch the results and organize them. Add another Appify module and select "Get data set items." This module pulls the scraped data from the data set created by your actor. You'll need the data set ID for this step. Go back to your Appify dashboard, find the data set generated by the scraper, and copy its ID. Paste it into the "Data set ID" field in Make.com. For the "Result limit," set it to 200 to keep things manageable while testing. Click "Run once" to test the module. If everything is set up correctly, you'll see the LinkedIn URLs appear in the output. It's like unlocking a vault filled with potential leads.
Next, we're going to organize this data into a Google Sheet. Open Google Sheets and create a new spreadsheet. Name it "LinkedIn Profiles" so it's easy to identify later. Add a header in the first row, label "LinkedIn URL." Back in Make.com, add a Google Sheets module and choose "Add a row." Connect your Google Sheets account, select the spreadsheet you just created, and map the LinkedIn URLs from the Appify module to the "LinkedIn URL" column in that sheet. Run this module and watch as the rows populate in real time. It's incredibly satisfying to see everything fall into place.
But we're not done yet. Now comes the icing on the cake: enriching these leads with extra details using Derek. First, you'll need to install the Derek Chrome extension. Open up your Chrome browser and head over to the Chrome Web Store. In the search bar at the top, type "Derek Cookie Importer." Once it pops up, click on it and then hit the "Add to Chrome" button. Don't worry, it's free, and the installation is super quick. Chrome will ask you for permission to add the extension, just click "Add extension," and you're good to go. You'll see a little icon pop up next to your browser's address bar, which means the extension is ready.
Next, we're going to set up Derek in Google Sheets. Look at the menu at the top and find the "Extensions" tab. It's right next to "Tools." Click on "Extensions" and "Add-ons," and select "Get add-ons." This will open the Google Workspace Marketplace. In the search bar at the top, type "LinkedIn Email Finder Derek." When it appears in the search results, click on it and then hit "Install." It might ask you to grant permissions, just click through and confirm. Once it's installed, close the marketplace window and go back to your spreadsheet.
Now, here's where it starts to get exciting. Under "Extensions" in your Google Sheet menu, you'll see a new option for "Derek." Click on it, and a dropdown will appear with "Open sidebar" as an option. Select that, and the Derek sidebar will pop up on the right side of your screen. If you don't see it right away, refresh the page, and it should pop up. To connect Derek to your LinkedIn account, you'll need to import your LinkedIn cookies. Don't worry, it's easier than it sounds. Click on the Derek Cookie Importer icon next to Chrome's address bar. A small window will appear. The extension will generate a string of text that represents your cookies. Copy this text, it's like your LinkedIn passport, and head back to the Derek sidebar in your Google Sheet. Paste the cookies into the field provided and hit "Save." This step links Derek to your LinkedIn account so it can fetch data.
Now, with everything connected, it's time to enrich your LinkedIn profiles in your Google Sheet. Make sure you have a column filled with LinkedIn profile URLs. Click back into the Derek sidebar and look for the option to "Select a column." Choose the column containing your LinkedIn URLs, which is usually the first column if you've been following the earlier steps. Once the column is selected, you'll see a big button labeled "Enrich." Go ahead and click it and watch the magic happen. Derek will start pulling in additional details for each LinkedIn profile in the selected column. It might take a minute or two, depending on how many URLs you're working with. When it's done, you'll see new columns appear in your Google Sheet filled with details like first names, last names, job titles, location, and even company names. It's like taking a basic list and turning it into a fully loaded database of actionable leads.
And just like that, your setup is complete, and your leads are ready for the next step. Now, let's take it a step further and talk about enriching the company data associated with each LinkedIn profile. This is where Derek really shines, transforming your basic lead list into something much more powerful. By pulling in additional company details, you'll gain deeper insights into the organizations these leads work for, and that's gold when you're planning tailored outreach or refining your targeting strategy.
First, let's identify the company's URLs in your Google Sheet. After you've enriched the LinkedIn profiles using Derek, there should be a column populated with company LinkedIn URLs. This column typically gets labeled something like "Company LinkedIn URL" or just "Company URL" during the enrichment process. If it's not labeled that way, look for any column that includes direct links to the companies associated with your leads. Got it? Great.
Now, head back to the Derek sidebar in your Google Sheet. You'll see an option labeled "Companies." Click on that tab to switch from enriching individual profiles to gathering data about the companies themselves. Once you're in the company section, you'll find a button called "Enrich LinkedIn Companies." This is where the magic happens. Before clicking "Enrich," select the column containing your company's URLs. To do this, click the dropdown in the sidebar, find the column with those URLs, and select it. Make sure you've got the right column; this is what Derek will use to fetch company data. If the column is empty or incorrect, Derek won't know what to do, so double-check this step. Once you've set the target column, go ahead and click the "Enrich" button.
Derek will start gathering detailed company information, pulling data like the company name, industry, number of employees, location, and even their website if it's available. The process might take a few minutes, especially if you're working with a lot of URLs. Grab a coffee or scroll through your phone while Derek does its thing. When the enrichment process finishes, take a look at your Google Sheet. You'll see new columns filled with company-specific details. It's like turning a one-dimensional list into a fully detailed database. Check out the fields; does everything look accurate? If something seems off, you can rerun the enrichment for specific rows, but most of the time, the data will be spot on.
This added context is a game-changer. Knowing the size of a company or the industry they're in can help you decide how to prioritize leads or tailor your messaging. For example, you might approach a lead from a Fortune 500 company a little bit differently than someone from a small startup. The enriched company detail gives you a clearer picture of who you're dealing with and how to approach them.
And there you have it. You've just taken your LinkedIn leads to the next level by enriching both the profiles and the associated companies. This setup doesn't just save time; it also gives you an edge in targeting and personalization. Whether you're in sales, marketing, or recruitment, this workflow helps you work smarter, not harder.
Let's recap everything we covered. First, we used Appify to scrape LinkedIn profile URLs. Then, we automated the entire workflow using Make.com, pulling the data into a neatly organized Google Sheet. Next, we enriched the profiles with detailed information using Derek. Finally, we scaled the process by adding company data enrichment, giving us a 360° view of our leads and their organizations.
If you're wondering what to do next with all those juicy LinkedIn leads that you've just enriched, I've got you covered. One video I highly recommend is "Creating Conversation Starters in Your LinkedIn Leads." It's packed with actionable tips on how to craft messages that grab attention and start meaningful conversations, because let's face it, a lead is only as good as the connection you make with it. Trust me, it's a game-changer for anyone looking to level up their outreach. So, take a peek at the description, and I'll see you over there.
Now that you're armed with this system, the possibilities are endless. Whether you want to generate leads for your sales team, build a recruitment pipeline, or flex your automation skills, this workflow has you covered. If you found this helpful, don't forget to check out the templates linked in the description below. They'll save you even more time by giving you a ready-made blueprint to get started. And hey, if you're as excited about automation as I am, make sure to like this video, subscribe, and hit that bell button so you don't miss out on more tips and tricks. Thank you for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.