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The sales and marketing community is slowly starting to notice that they’re no longer getting ads for a certain lead generation company 5 times a day. One search and you’ll find that SeamlessAI and Apollo.io's LinkedIn company pages are no more. What’s going on?
With no official statements from either company the confusion is understandable, especially for paying users. This vanishing act, coupled with mounting evidence of a GDPR crackdown, points to a significant shift in LinkedIn's approach to data scraping and its implications for B2B sales could turn the industry on its head.
What We Know
• Both SeamlessAI and Apollo.io have vanished from LinkedIn, with their company pages completely inaccessible.
• Neither company has issued a public statement addressing the situation.
• LinkedIn appears to be actively targeting Sales Engagement Platforms (SEPs) that utilise browser extension scrapers.
• According to Clark Barron, Apollo.io's LinkedIn ads stopped running on March 4th.
**UPDATE**
The CEO and Founder of Apollo.io Tim Zheng has finally posted on LinkedIn briefly addressing concerns and claims: "We are actively working with LinkedIn to understand the nature of our brand page restriction and to resolve the matter as soon as possible." Which brings little assurance to paying customers. He also claims that Apollo's data is not affected by the ban, but without a means to update their data lake, will it stay that way?
So, What's The Issue?
From our understanding, the core of the problem lies in the grey area where many data scraping tools operate, often in direct violation of LinkedIn's Terms of Service (ToS). Key violations include:
• Unauthorised Data Usage: Exploiting LinkedIn data for purposes beyond its intended use, such as AI training without consent.
• Data Sharing: Distributing user data to third parties without explicit authorisation.
Why Only Apollo And Seamless?
The community suggests that the key difference lies in the scraping style. Apollo, in particular, is known for its vast database, built through years of automated, high-intensity LinkedIn profile scraping without consent, and subsequent data resale. This also raises GDPR concerns as that method of data collection is expressly forbidden as it invariable results in the collection of personal data.
The Bigger Picture
Some believe that LinkedIn's actions are driven by Microsoft, potentially in preparation for updates to Sales Navigator. While the value of these claims is debatable, it's undeniable that LinkedIn has a vested interest in promoting its native sales tool and a simple “export as csv” button could be enough to bring sales people back, that and a lack of alternatives.
A concerning trend is also emerging. LinkedIn itself faced a €310m GDPR fine for its targeted advertising. Kaspr was fined for data hygiene issues. Prospect.io was temporarily banned. And now, Apollo.io and SeamlessAI have vanished, with radio silence from all parties involved. An international drive towards compliance is positive, but the lack of communication from the subjects means there are still a lot of grey areas and businesses are left guessing.
What's Next?
If your business relies on tools that handle LinkedIn data, it's time to reassess your strategy. LinkedIn has sent a clear message: unauthorised data usage will not be tolerated. Sales teams are left to figure out a new way forward, but luckily ‘tenacity’ is in their job description. There are compliant tools like TAMI out there, it’s just a matter of doing your research to ensure your outreach does not breach any standing regulations.
How We're Different
Now to be clear: TAMI does not "scrape" LinkedIn. We do not take a digital fishing net and trawl, poaching huge quantities of data from their data lake. Big data has earned this reputation, but we aim to bring the ethics and accuracy back to lead-generation industry.
We are GDPR compliant and do not violate LinkedIn's Terms of Service, and here's how:
- We use LinkedIn URL handles (like this one: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rossmatthews92/). LinkedIn its self allows search engines like TAMI, Google and Bing use these. We walk through the front door, instead of climbing in through the back window.
- Then, we use these URL's and match them to our own data lake, ensuring they are matched with accurate emails, direct dials and mobiles.
TAMI is all about respecting personal privacy and the rules set to protect the consumer. We're committed to continuing our ethical data practices and provide value to businesses without being sneaky or getting our customers into a sticky situation.
If you have any questions, or want to see how TAMI works, click the button below:
