ZoomInfo and LinkedIn Sales Navigator are powerful tools for business-to-business (B2B) sales, and both boast features that increase sales, productivity, and operational efficiencies. Both platforms are an investment that promise significant returns, but which is the best bang for the buck? What is the difference between the two when it comes to functionality and cost?

The most important thing to know is that ZoomInfo and Sales Navigator are both valuable tools that cater to different needs within a sales process, making them complementary rather than direct substitutes.

ZoomInfo stands out with its extensive B2B and professional data coverage, providing in-depth information about contacts, companies, and industries. It offers advanced sales insights and analytics, aiding in prospecting and lead generation. Additionally, its contact information and company data features facilitate targeted outreach and account-based marketing.

With CRM integrations and a Chrome extension, ZoomInfo enhances efficiency in sales prospecting.

On the other hand, LinkedIn Sales Navigator focuses on professional networking and social selling. It offers access to detailed profiles, mutual connections, and job titles, empowering users to identify decision-makers and stakeholders effectively. InMail messaging and profile visibility support relationship building, and company news and employee insights provide valuable context for sales engagements.

While ZoomInfo excels in B2B data and sales intelligence, LinkedIn Sales Navigator shines in social selling and networking. Sales professionals can leverage both tools to create a comprehensive sales strategy. ZoomInfo provides the foundational data for prospecting and marketing, while Sales Navigator helps establish connections and foster relationships through social engagement. Together, these tools address different aspects of the sales process, enriching it with data-driven insights and enabling a more holistic
and successful approach to sales and marketing efforts.

Table 1: ZoomInfo vs. LinkedIn Feature & Use Case Comparison Chart

LinkedIn Sales Navigator: A Powerful Social Selling Tool

LinkedIn Sales Navigator allows you to engage with contacts and accounts within the LinkedIn platform. With its insight into extended networks and personalized algorithms, Sales Navigator is designed to connect your company with the right decision-maker and build trusted relationships. Using Sales Navigator, you can filter to find your ideal customer profile, easily build your list of target customers, and then reach out with personalized content, customizations, discounts, and offers.

via linkedin.com

Users rave about Sales Navigator’s Prospecting and Advanced Search features. The Prospecting tool surfaces strong leads for your business, and the Advanced Search tool lets you apply over 20 filters, with the keywords, title, and company fields allowing you to perform a Boolean search. Sales Navigator also offers a suite of other advanced features that can enhance your lead generation, including recommended sales leads, job change alerts, specific keyword mentions, and automated messaging. (In fact, Startup Grind, a Bay Area company, credits LinkedIn’s messaging tool for saving more than 2300 leads and improving its response rate when compared to its emailing efforts.)

Additionally, Sales Navigator reviewers tout the social component of the platform, which keeps lead generation fun and refreshing without compromising accuracy and efficiency. Users praise the InMessaging feature, which gets them access to B2B buyers who would otherwise shut the door on cold calls and emails. This aspect of Sales Navigator leads to quality conversations and timely conversations with the right decision-makers. 

Reviewers also note a few drawbacks: the interface is not the most user-friendly and can feel a bit cluttered. And given its price, Sales Navigator is a better fit for large companies. Small to midsize businesses may have a tough time realizing value from their investment. 

ZoomInfo: Your All-In-One Sales and Marketing Solution

 In its simplest form, ZoomInfo is a business contact database, but its reach and accuracy give you the exact kind of information that can build your sales pipeline and lead to higher conversion rates.

via ZoomInfo

ZoomInfo earns its title as the “highest quality and quantity B2B data on the market” through rigorous maintenance of its database, which we’ve confirmed is more than 90% accurate. While similar applications use manual procedures to collect and update information, the ZoomInfo database is curated by a huge network of volunteer contributors who add new information, validate existing information in real-time, and review 44 million signature blocks each day. ZoomInfo’s proprietary machine learning scans 38 million online sources of data daily, while its 150-person verification team oversees algorithm performance and enhances data collection in order to source inside information about companies. 

This gives you continuous access to on-demand, direct-dial phone numbers, email addresses, and other background information for your prospects, which you can organize into targeted contact lists in just a few minutes. Additionally, ZoomInfo:

• Gives your sales leadership relevant opportunity alerts and predictive insights; 
• Minimizes wasted time on in-depth prospect research or CRM database cleanup;
• Allows your marketing and demand generation team to source, segment, engage, and identify the top prospects at the right time; and 
• Provides your sales and operations teams with a standardized, enriched, and self-cleaning marketing and sales contact database that is seamlessly integrated into your workflows. 

With new features, such as ZoomInfo Streaming Intent and integration with marketing and sales workflows like WebSights and Google Analytics, the ZoomInfo platform provides you the kind of critical insight that can fuel your business development and sales strategies. (Check out Workfront, which used ZoomInfo to increase its pipeline by 90% year over year and had twice the number of conversions using its systematic outreach process.) 

ZoomInfo users note some accuracy errors and a few limitations when conducting more niche searches, like specific IT specialties within a broader IT title search. But on the whole, reviewers cite ZoomInfo as the best intelligence tool available with a few limitations that are readily addressed by ZoomInfo support. 

Our Verdict on ZoomInfo vs. LinkedIn Sales Navigator

To sum up, we think the “vs.” part of the ZoomInfo vs. LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a red herring – they are complimentary tools that apply at different stages of the selling journey. Personally, we use ZoomInfo to source leads for cold outreach in target industries and then use its personalization tool to “warm up” our 1-to-1 email outreach; we then followup with warm leads via LinkedIn Sales Navigator to establish a more human relationship and build trust with the buying committee members. 

Contact us for a free consultation or to further explore your intelligence options for executing account-based marketing.

Editor’s Note: As of September 30, 2021 LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator no longer integrates with Zoho CRM. ZoomInfo, however, does still have an integration for Zoho CRM users.