Sales Navigator: Find Interested Leads Through Product Categories

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This function is especially helpful if you do not only want to narrow down your target group by position, industry, or company size, but also by a possible thematic interest.

Requirement for the Filter

The filter is available to you if you use a suitable Sales Navigator license, for example:

• Sales Navigator purchased through us
• Sales Navigator Teams
• Sales Navigator Advanced

You can recognize a corresponding license, among other things, by the fact that the “Smartlinks” item is visible in the top menu.

Using the “Interest in Category” Filter

In Sales Navigator, you will find the “Interest in Category” option under the lead filters.

LinkedIn describes this filter roughly as showing people who may be interested in a specific product category based on group memberships, profile data, or other signals.

This is how you can use the filter:

1. Open Sales Navigator.
2. Go to lead search.
3. Select the “Interest in Category” filter.
4. Click the plus symbol.
5. Enter a suitable category, for example:
   • Marketing
   • Software
   • Consulting
   • Recruiting
   • another relevant product or service category

Via “Show all product categories”, you can display additional available categories and make the appropriate selection.

Why This Filter Is Helpful

The filter can help you find people who may be a better fit for your offer. LinkedIn uses various signals for this, such as information in the profile, group memberships, or other activities.

Important: The filter does not show a guarantee of concrete buying interest. However, it helps you align your search more strongly with people for whom a thematic connection to your offer is more likely.

Additional Filter: “Have Posted Something on LinkedIn”

In addition, it can make sense to use the “Have posted something on LinkedIn” filter.

This shows people who are active on LinkedIn and publish posts themselves. Especially with larger search results, this can be helpful because active LinkedIn users often respond more readily to connection requests and messages.

This additional filter is particularly worthwhile if your search returns a very large number of results, for example several thousand leads. With very small search volumes, the filter may narrow down the target group too much.

Select Second- and Third-Degree Contacts

If you want to connect with new people, you should select second- or third-degree contacts in the search.

Direct contacts are already connected with you. Therefore, they are not relevant for new connection requests.

However, direct contacts can be useful if you want to approach existing contacts again or follow up with them.

Recommendation for Practice

A useful search logic could look like this, for example:

• narrow down the relevant target group using classic filters
• additionally select “Interest in Category”
• for larger search volumes, add the “Have posted something on LinkedIn” filter
• select second- or third-degree contacts for new connection requests
• use existing direct contacts for follow-up actions

This allows you to align your lead search in Sales Navigator more precisely and find people who are more likely to be thematically relevant to your offer.