There are 2 things that you need to know about your contacts for outbound:
Email
LinkedIn profile
With email it’s easy, you can use any Chrome extensions or tools for finding emails.
With LinkedIn it’s a bit harder…
You can find anyone’s LinkedIn profile on your own.
Just simply Google name/email/company/title + LinkedIn. The first result will be always (almost) accurate:
But what if you need to find dozens or even hundreds of LinkedIn profiles?
I have a solution for you!
I’ve created a script that will find anyone’s LinkedIn profile directly in your Google Sheets:
It takes you only 5 mins to set it up and after, this script will find all the info & add it to your Google Sheets!
I’ve made a video:
With the copy & paste script for you:
Subscribe for FREE to get the script & step-by-step instruction for this growth hack:
Note: This script will use Programmable Search Engine & API key from your Google account and it’s limited to 100 searched per DAY for FREE (if you want to scale, it’s still pretty cheap).
Here is the video guide:
Step #1 Set up your Search Engine & API key
Attention! This is the hardest part that can take up to 5 mins of your time (but you have to do it once 😅).
How this script works?
Basically it uses your Google Account’s API & Search Engine to make searches for row/contact you have in your Sheets on your behalf. To make it happen, you need to create your:
#1 Your Custom Search API Key
Go here & scroll down to “API key” section and click on “Get a Key” → https://developers.google.com/custom-search/v1/overview
Name it & agree with terms of services:
Click on “Show Key”:
and copy this key:
Save this API key, we’ll use it in 1 min!
But now we need to also set up your Search Engine ID:
#2 Your Search Engine ID
Go here & click “Get Started” → programmablesearchengine.google.com
Create a new a new Search Engine by clicking on “Add”:
Name it & tell it to search the entire web and verify that you’re not a robot
(unless you’re robot 🤖)
Copt the part after ?cx=….
As it’s show on screenshot.
Save this Search Engine ID.
Now we gonna implement it in the script and it’ll find us people’s LinkedIn profiles!
Step #2 Add a script to Apps Script in Google Sheets
The hardest part is done, now you just need to add a script & your Search Engine ID & API to it, and start enriching your list of contacts with data from LinkedIn!
So, open Google Sheets, click on Extensions and choose Apps Script:
Once you open it, pls delete everything that is there by default:
Add this script instead:
/**
* Find LinkedIn profile from company name and job title
*
* @param {string} companyName Company where your prospect is working
* @param {string} jobTitle Job you are targeting
* @param {string} email Email of the prospect (optional)
* @param {string} name Name of the prospect (optional)
* @return if found the LinkedIn URL, Name of the prospect, part of the about section, and location
* @customfunction
*/
function getPerson(companyName, jobTitle, email, name) {
// Get a Custom Search API Key
var key = "Your API key";
// Create a Programmable Search Engine
var searchEngineId = "Your Search Engine";
// Build the search query
let search = "site:linkedin.com/in ";
if (jobTitle) search += "intitle:" + jobTitle + " ";
if (companyName) search += companyName + " ";
if (name) search += name + " ";
// Call Google Custom Search API
var options = {
'method': 'get',
'contentType': 'application/json',
};
var response = UrlFetchApp.fetch("https://www.googleapis.com/customsearch/v1?key=" + key + "&q=" + encodeURIComponent(search) + "&cx=" + searchEngineId, options);
// Parse the response
var items = JSON.parse(response).items;
if (!items || items.length == 0) {
return ["No results found"];
}
var result = items[0];
var url = result.formattedUrl;
var title = result.title.split(" - ")[0];
// Extract additional details
var snippet = result.snippet;
var aboutSection = snippet.split("...")[0];
var location = snippet.split("•")[1] ? snippet.split("•")[1].trim() : "";
var nameParts = title.split(" ");
var firstName = nameParts[0];
var lastName = nameParts.length > 1 ? nameParts.slice(1).join(" ") : "";
// Display the results in multiple columns
return [[url, title, firstName, lastName, aboutSection, location]];
}
Remember, a few mins ago we generated API Key & Search Engine?
Now you just need to add your keys here:
So your code will look like this:
(I blur my own API keys, so you can’t use mine 😛 )
Now, just click “Save” button!
And we’re ready to go with data enrichment inside your Google Sheets!
Step #3 Use the formula in Google Sheets to find LinkedIn Urls
This formula will find people based on the company name, title, full name & email. Even if you’re missing some info, it’ll still find relevant people!
So use “=getPerson(“Data about person”)” formula, where “Data about person” is cells with company name, title, full name or email.
For example, in this case, to find the CEO’s of Expandi.io I use =getPerson(A2:D2:) formula:
Click “Enter” and boom! You have the relevant info in just a second!
Apply this formula to the rest of rows you have:
And voilà 🥐
You have all relevant info about other people!
Again, this formula find a person’s LinkedIn URL based on different inputs you give and returns you:
Full Name
First Name
Last Name
LinkedIn profile URL
About section (partially)
Summary
Now you can find anyone’s LinkedIn profile inside your Google Sheets! Use this growth hack to enrich the data in your CSV files and go multi-channel with your outbound campaigns!
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